Chapter Text
I’ve really fucked up this time. If Ari wants to divorce me over this, I won’t stop her. I did this to her, I didn’t ask if she wanted this. I can only hope with all my heart that she won’t leave me…I tried so hard to protect her but in the heat of the moment, I thought with the wrong head and now...now I’ve changed her life forever.
Mein Gott…What have I done?
:::
“Paul, stop pacing a hole in the floor. She’ll be here soon.”
Paul came to a skittering halt in front of Schneider, glaring down at his long-time friend with the ferocity only a man who hasn’t seen his wife for months could muster. “I haven’t seen Ari in two months, you asshole! Phone sex doesn’t come close to it either, so shut up before you get started!”
Schneider threw up his hands, leaning back into his chair to avoid the swat that Paul aimed at him. “Kidding, kidding, Paul! I know it’s been a couple months, just settle down. You work yourself up too much and you’ll pass out at her feet the second she walks in the door!”
“I will not!” Paul snapped, finally managing to swat Schneider, if only grazing the drummer’s dark curls. The two of them began exchanging playful blows with each other, with Schneider finally sliding to the floor, howling with laughter as the blows turned to tickling. The two men wrestled across the drummer’s hotel room floor, barely missing furniture, luggage and a table. They came to rest at last; Paul sprawled across the doorway to the bathroom and Schneider across the room, half under his bed.
“You’re an idiot,” Paul laughed, finally getting enough breath back to speak.
“Yeah, but you’re not pacing a hole in the floor anymore,” Schneider replied, wiggling out from under the bed and brushing himself off. As he stood up, he spotted a pretty redheaded woman about Paul’s height standing in the doorway of the room, an amused look on her face. “Arielle!” he yelled, scrambling across the room to grab the woman up and swing her around in a hug. She laughed and hugged him back, saying, “It’s good to see you too, Schneider!”
Paul wiggled to his feet and all but danced over to pull his wife out of the drummer’s hug and into his arms. He kissed her soundly, and then buried his nose in her neck. “I’ve missed you so much, baby! You’re here!”
“And all in one piece too,” Arielle replied, snuggling under Paul’s arm. “The flight in from New York City was pretty rough. We had to fly around two thunderstorms and through a third. It was pretty to watch but I’m glad to be on solid ground.”
Taking Arielle’s arm, Paul led her across the hallway to his room with Schneider tailing behind them. He dropped a kiss on Arielle’s cheek, saying, “I’m going to leave you two lovebirds alone. Ari, it’s good to see you. I’m gonna go bug Lilly and Richard then get a nap before dinner. Later!”
As soon as Schneider was gone, Paul slammed the door, locked it, and then playfully pounced on his wife, pushing her across the room to land on the bed. Arielle snort-giggled at his playful kisses and growling, returning his kisses with an urgency of her own. She pawed at his t-shirt, dragging it over his head, and then wound her fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, smiling up into her mate’s indigo-grey eyes. “A whole week with you, no kid, no responsibilities. Just us and you spoiling me rotten,” she sighed.
“Mmm...you have no idea how much I’ve missed you, sweetheart,” Paul purred, nibbling along her neck and across her chin. “Phone sex and e-mail sex doesn’t do a thing for me.”
Arielle leaned up and caught his lips in a long, heated kiss, one hand scrabbling to pull her hair out of its ponytail. She shoved Paul over and onto his back and pinned him to the bed, letting her shimmering hair fall around their faces. Nipping at his chin, she whispered, “Let me show you how much I’ve missed you, Paul.”
And she did.
:::
“Did Arielle make it here all right?” Till called from his spot on his hotel room floor where he was sprawled out, stretching his long legs after a quick jaunt around the hotel’s running track with Ollie.
Lilly leaned through the doorway that attached her and Richard’s room to his and said, “Yup, she got here about a half hour ago. And from the way he just slammed the door to his room, he’s really happy to see her too.”
“Well, we won’t see them till tomorrow at the earliest,” Richard said. He was sprawled out on the bed he and Lilly shared, nose buried in a book. “Hope these rooms have soundproofing or everyone and their dog is going to hear them.”
Lilly sat up in her chair, almost knocking her laptop to the floor. “Oh shit. I hope Paul remembers that we’re still not sure if sex transmits the virus or not!” Closing her eyes, she delicately ‘reached’ down the link and ‘tapped’ at the silvery thread that was Paul’s.
::I hate to interrupt…::
::Damn it Lilly, I’m busy! What now?::
::You know you have to be careful what you and your wife do, right? Unless you want her to have the virus as well?::
Panic trilled its way between the links, leaving a sour taste in Lilly’s mouth. ::Oh shit. Uhm…shit::
::Paul! You’d better hope it takes more than once for the virus to get into someone’s system if you have sex with them!:: Lilly growled. ::Wrap it up next time, okay? Or don’t bite her. Or…damn it::
Paul dropped out of the link, leaving the faintest of “walls” behind. Lilly rubbed her eyes and swore mightily, causing Richard to drop his book and Till to smack his head on the door frame as he sat up in alarm. “What’s wrong?” he said, climbing to his feet. Richard met Lilly’s eyes and began muttering to himself, then said, “Paul seems to have forgotten about our virus. Let’s hope it takes more than once to infect someone if you have sex with them, or we’ve got a big, big problem.”
Till rolled his eyes and plopped down on the foot of the bed. “I can just see it now. ‘Oh hey, honey? I’ve just given you a virus that makes you psychic. And you’re also going to get fangs, claws, hyper-sensitive hearing, smell and eyesight. Oh, and it’s communicable through just about every type of contact.’ Arielle won’t just be mad at Paul, she’ll beat him into a pulp. And then she’ll kill him, slowly.”
“Damn it, I wish I still had all of my lab notes and my files on the work I did!” Lilly barked, shoving her laptop to the side of the table and dropping her head in her hands. “I don’t have diddly squat, thanks to whoever nuked my computers and my back up hard drive that I thought I hid so well. I should have kept a copy of everything at home but I was so sure that hidden drive was secure! If I had any of that, maybe I could make a good guess as to what transmits the virus and not just guess at it.”
Richard slid off the bed and went to Lilly, putting his arm around her and hugging her to him. “Okay, sweetheart, slow down. Let’s think this out. All of the viruses that made up the two you and I got, all of them have one thing in common---they’re all transmitted via a bite from the infected person. You and Ollie figured out that it’s either blood or saliva transmitted, right? So maybe it’s not transmitted through sex.”
“That’s all well and good, Reesh, but we know the virus is changing, even now. Look at all the abilities we’ve been developing recently,” Till interjected. “There’s no way to know if it’s decided that it needs more than one way to get to a new host.”
“Till is right,” Lilly murmured, leaning into Richard’s arm. “I have no idea what our viruses have mutated into and no way to find out. This…this is not good.”
“Then we’d better hope we’re lucky this time or that Arielle won’t freak out when someone tells her what she’s going to become,” Richard said quietly, gnawing on his lower lip until Lilly reached over and tapped on it to stop him.
“What who’s going to become?” Schneider asked as he entered the room. He saw the grave look on Till’s face, suddenly felt the alarm still singing down the seven way link, and sat down on the floor next to Till with a hard thump. “Well, fuck.”
“Crude but to the point,” Lilly said. “As I was saying earlier, if I had any of my notes from my work back at Vis-Tek, I might be able to figure out if our little viral friend is transmitted through for sure. I know Reesh and I are out as test subjects, so we’re pretty well stuck.”
Schneider sighed deeply, stretched out on the floor near Till and said, “I guess we’d better batten down the hatches because when Arielle gets angry, it ain’t pretty. I’d rather face a hurricane head on than be in her line of sight.”