Status: This is my JulNoWriMo piece so updates will be sporadic at best.

The Zombie Reaper

Seventeen

"Even after all these years...they seek to control me," Marcio mused quietly.

He paced around the private quarters he had been given as a "guest" of the order while he headed their new little task force. He knew better though. He was no guest. Nor had he ever been considered one.

Thomas sat at the desk that had been provided for Marcio. It had been a long time since he had seen the other man. Actually, it had been exactly ten years since they had seen each other. He had been more surprised than anyone else to see Marcio's return. He had been even more surprised to find that he had been chosen to assist the man. Either the council didn't realize that they had once been lovers, or they knew and it was all a test.

He wouldn't be surprised either way.

"But we both know that they can't control you Marcio. You're better than them." Marcio looked back at him and for a moment, Thomas could see the sadness that had first drawn his attention to the older man. He forgot how much he had missed looking into those hazel eyes. "They can't take that from you no matter how hard they try."

Marcio moved back towards Thomas and reached up to run his hand through the man's dark hair. "But that's where you're wrong Thomas. I'm just like them. My hate for all of them is what they can't take away from me."

Thomas reached up and gently ran his fingertips along Marcio's arm as he turned his face into the other man's hand. "You feel so cold," he murmured as his lips traced the rough lines on Marcio's hand. It didn't matter that Marcio had seemed to grow old and tired in their time apart. There was still something about him that made him feel desire and need. No one else had made him feel like that. He almost regretted that the man had never claimed him when he might have been able to.

Getting to his knees, Marcio rested his head in Thomas's lap. He could almost feel normal in moments like this. But he knew better than that. He was not normal. And he was not the man that he had been before he had gone missing. He knew what Thomas expected of him though and he would give the man that for as long as he could.

"I told them," he admitted, his fingers trailing down to gently stroke the body suit that covered Thomas's legs.

Thomas sighed, closing his eyes as his fingers continued to stroke Marcio's graying hair. "Told who what?" he murmured, his voice a bare whisper. It had been so long since he had been touched. He almost didn't care what Marcio had told anyone. Not if it meant he had to lose this moment after so long. He was tired of being alone.

Marcio gently nipped at the inside of his lover's thigh drawing a sharp breath from the other man. "I told the world the truth about Lynuel. About what he did that night," he confessed. Reaching up, he pulled Thomas's hand down to him and began to tease his fingers with gentle nips and kisses. "I gave the press the name which the council so wished to deny them."

"I wish I could even be mad at you," Thomas murmured with a sigh. He caught Marcio's face in his hands and stared into his eyes smiling at the sight that met him.

His lover was smirking. "No you don't." Leaning forward, Marcio closed the distance between him and captured Thomas's lips with his own. A rush of heat and desire ran through his entire body. What had started as merely a distraction quickly turned into a frenzied need as one hand clasped the lycra encasing his leg and the other grasped his arm. He had forgotten how much he had always needed Thomas. He had been a fool not to claim the man when he had had the chance.

He wasn't sure how, but he would find a way to remedy that. After he soothed the ache in his body. The ache in his soul would likely never go away. Thomas probably knew that better than he ever would.