tampered | Log: Complete

Styles answered his door, a spoon dripping with marinara sauce in hand. He had been in the middle of attempting to make dinner, but as he had never actually had to cook for himself, things weren't going that well. "Brocklehurst?" He looked at the other man.

The briefcase didn't match the man's belt, which meant that he wasn't carrying an attache of papers of him to look at, and his clothing was suspiciously casual. "What's going on?" he asked, moving to the side so Nicholas could come in the door.

Sharp observation, and entirely accurate were Brocklehurst to have access to his many belts and briefcases as he did back in D.C. The things the younger man noticed... He stepped into the apartment, pulling the door shut behind him just as the Englishman leaned forward to kiss Styles along the jaw.

"You're an amateur cook. Let's eat out," suggested Nicholas, "we'll do training to whet your appetite."

Styles caught Nicholas' lips with his own, careful to not let the dripping spoon anywhere near the other man's white shirt.

When he moved away a minute later he stepped back into his studio's kitchen where the sauce was bubbling. "Are you suggesting the thought of eating my food repulses you?" he joked, turning on the water and setting the spoon in the sink. He turned off the burner to the sauce and turned back. "So that's what the briefcase is about, then?"

"Every great chef needs his starting audience, I'd be honored Christopher, but not tonight," he shook his head while following the brunette into the kitchen.

"Yes. It can't hurt can it, when there's no law or order in this place?"

Brocklehurst's blue eyes searched for Styles' gaze, to look at him directly. Firearms practice was a necessity now, he didn't want to repeat the incident in Washington. That and he knew Christopher's sharp tongue well, it'd get him into trouble some day. Again.

"Where's your gun," he asked.

Styles poured the marinara down the drain. "No need to placate me, it was a culinary failure waiting to happen," he said, turning the water on and rinsing the mess away.

He turned and looked at Brocklehurst's blue eyes. "So you mean I can go on a shooting spree and no one will care? So much for all that 'love and peace' nonsense." He turned and moved towards the bedroom, kneeling next to the nightstand next to his bed. He opened it and removed the Beretta from where he kept it.

"It's here, where my father always taught me to keep a gun."

"You recall the last time someone threw a monstrosity down the drain," he reminded Christopher with a smirk as he followed the other to the bedside.

"Anarchy at its finest, and it doesn't even have a Berlin Wall," Brocklehurst remarked before holding his hand out to take the gun. He could dismantle it with his eyes closed, to place it the briefcase's foam bed opposite his coveted Walther P99.

"I choose not to recall that mess," Styles replied as he flipped the gun to hand it to the other man. "It's a nice piece," he added conversationally, "Thanks for giving it to me."

Styles had gotten his first gun at Christmas when he was ten years old. After that it was a veritable NRA spree at the Styles household; and until he had been licensed it was always careful training at the gun range with an instructor.

But knowing what Brocklehurst kept in the briefcase that he was carrying with him, he knew that no matter how much expertise he had, his lover always had more.

"You need it here," Nicholas replied, fingers removing the gun's slide and magazine to fit in the foam bed.

The Beretta had a silver finish, while harder to conceal it was easy to detect in the dead of night, for Styles to find it within seconds, should he need it. Brocklehurst hoped he never would have to use it, but better to be prepared because he who dares wins. He locked the case after disassembly.

"At least you don't need a permit or license," he lifted his brows in a cocky expression, "put your coat on, sweetheart."

Nicholas was smiling, and Styles couldn't help but match the expression. After two nights of bad mood, he was finally feeling better.

He watched Nicholas put the gun in the case and then he moved towards the closet, pulling out a never worn coat. It was the only coat he owned that wasn't a suit coat or a blazer, and it felt a little odd to be going out not wearing a tie.

"I take it you know what you're doing," he said, shrugging it on over his white button up.

"Do you need to ask," Nicholas remarked, a rhetorical question.

He approached the door and held it open for the brunette... gentlemen first or something such. He kept his coat over the case despite not being in the world of 2007 anymore. They had magic around them, magic and science fiction and other things completely unexplainable, but old habits died hard.

Of course he didn't have to ask. It was always rhetoric, anyway.

He stepped out and waited for Brocklehurst to exit before locking his apartment door. He turned to follow. "I haven't gone shooting in a while," he remarked, thinking back. "I think the last time was during my vacation."

Suffice to say his last vacation had been before he had become undersecretary in 2004.

"It isn't the same," said Brocklehurst as he exited the apartment. He assumed 'shooting' for Styles consisted of high caliber hunting rifles and bloody Bambi. It wasn't the same at all, but far be it for him to assume. Nicholas shouldn't have, unfortunately assuming the flip side had led them to this place, at least in Christopher's case.

The shooting range was in the City's overground, an outdoor range with an adjacent indoor facility complete with target and mobility practice. He felt Christopher needed the latter more than the former, but they'd see how much the brunette remembered from prior training.

"Management should look into paper currency," he muttered while fishing for the coins in his pocket. One hundred PMCs should do it, fifty each.

"Not all of us can be world-class assassins," Christopher said baldly. "Some of us have to shuffle paperwork around." It was a truth he liked to toss in the MI6 agent's face as often as he could; it was really the only thing that Nicholas didn't like to talk about.

"This coin thing is ridiculous. I heard they're opening a bank; I'm thinking if they have a bank, then pretty soon we're going to get into more sophisticated ways of thinking of money..." Christopher trailed off as he watched Nicholas pay. "You know, I can pay for myself. I also invested in the shower of money."

"Did you think my desk at the embassy was a front for a sophisticated satellite launching system?" Nicholas asked in good humor despite the reference to his true occupation, and the fact that his desk at the embassy did harbor various firearms and surveillance technologies.

"You've been watching too many Bond films, Christopher," the Englishman concluded while retrieving their boxes of cartridges. "My idea, my pay," he added, waggling one of the boxes in the brunette's face before picking up their goggles and ear muffs.

"Don't mind the smell." Lord knew how many people had worn those things in a day.

"Missiles and communications linked straight to the Russians. You wanted the Cold War to restart. Now that we're not in Washington, really, you should admit it." Christopher smirked. "And I like James Bond. You're not really complaining about my desire for blonde British secret agents, are you?"

He took the ear muffs and goggles. "The smell is probably the least of my worries with the group that lives around here."

"Russia's outdated. China's more likely," he countered coolly without admitting to much. "Bond went blonde only last fall you recall," Nicholas rhymed fluidly and unintentionally.

He slid his muffs and goggles on, leading Christopher to the brightly lit target range first. They were the only two present at this hour. Every stall was undisturbed, the black targets unmarred by recent shooters. Brocklehurst chose two near the opposite wall.

"How good's your aim," asked Nicholas as he set the boxes down and opened the case to assemble both guns and load their mags with the PCMs.

Christopher laughed, "Yeah, except that I'm the one that speaks Cantonese and Mandarin, not you. I like Russia. It's so much more stereotypical. And you speak Russian," he added belatedly. Styles slipped on the earmuffs, "And frankly, he was the best Bond." Of course, he could be biased.

Styles reached his hand out for his gun, "I'm not bad."

It wasn't a lie. Styles could generally hit a target, including a moving one. He may have never been in the army, and he probably wasn't nearly sniper material, he had been handling guns for a long time. He could manage himself.

"Lay-lomo," Nicholas replied, a smirk on his lips.

He handed the Beretta to Styles and drew the target halfway to the end wall. "Have at it, sweetheart."

Styles snorted. "She's all yours," he muttered before shooting three times straight into the head. They clustered neatly there and Styles quickly shot again, this time at the heart.

After a moment he held back, and turned to Brocklehurst. "You want to go, or are you just going to watch me?"

The very thought of the battle ax could stare down any gun.

"I want to watch you show off first," said Nicholas with a faint smile. He noticed the cluster in the torn black, the head and the heart hit dead on. Not bad for the former undersecretary. "Empty the clip," he invited Christopher with a gesture of his open hand.

Christopher did as he was told by one of the few people who could issue him commands. He didn't even remark about the lack of proper British "please", just emptied what remained of the clip.

Once it was empty and sound had returned, he turned to face Brocklehusrt. "I don't have to show off to you. I already got you in bed." He switched clips with a good deal of dexterity and grinned. "I want to see you go at it."

"I don't think they allow that kind of load in a public facility, Christopher," Nicholas replied in a feigned reprimand.

Although he hadn't said please either, Brocklehurst was more than willing to oblige Styles' request. He offered another smirk as he took up the stall beside the brunette. The target whirred towards the back wall, the farthest range. The Englishman reached upward as if checking the cable, only to pull it harshly then press the retrieval button. As the swinging target came whirring forward he fired four shots into the chest and a single clean bullet to the head.

Styles raised an eyebrow. "Who's showing off now?" he asked dryly. "At least I still beat you in racquetball, otherwise I would say I need to find a new hobby."

He turned back to his target, pushed it back and fired. Once he had emptied his second clip he muttered, "If I hadn't been so drugged that night, I probably wouldn't have died."

"Moving target's more essential," he shrugged once as the target whirred to a stop.

Clean tear to the chest and a single hole between the eyes, not bad at all. Brocklehurst could never lose his touch. He sent the target backwards to empty his cartridges simultaneously with Styles. Each round had a focused destination; the heart, the head, the throat, the shoulder. He was an excellent marksman, though George Blake could give him a run for his money.

The echo drifted in time for Nicholas to hear Christopher's question. "You don't feel dead now, do you," he asked while averting his gaze. The Englishman refilled his magazine.

Christopher set his gun down.

He knew Nicholas - he had been the only one in America who did. He was the only person who could read his body, his lips, and his words.

"That's what this is about, isn't it? You're going to lie, and say it's about defending myself here," well, not lie but not the whole truth, either, "this is about that night. And Macintyre."

"It isn't a lie," he countered while loading the bullets, "this history doesn't need repeating."

Nicholas locked the mag into his Walther but didn't raise it to shoot. He looked at Christopher, a man who knew him well and that was saying a lot considering his history in America. All of it had been for a covert operation, with secret motives and orders. Fuck. He joined the brunette in his stall, his own gun set aside next to the Beretta.

"Macintyre has nothing to do with this because I killed him," Brocklehurst lowered his voice.

Christopher snorted. "Stop lying," he said, his voice low. "You killed him, sure. But that's only part of it. This is about Macintyre because he killed me."

Styles grabbed him suddenly, his hand wrapping around Brocklehurst's wrist. "It was my fuck up that killed me, Brocklehurst. Mine. Not yours. Stop being so god-damned hard on yourself."

He shook his head. "If I hadn't died, we probably would have never spoken again anyway. Don't you think I factored that in, Nicholas?"

"He wouldn't have had a shot if I hadn't left you for ten bloody seconds," Nicholas hissed though he didn't pull his hand away from Christopher. The bastard was right in a way, had he not taken his damned pills he wouldn't have had to leave Styles' side in the first place.

"You're wrong. I came to protect you regardless of what you did, Christopher, regardless of your war machine. You played and you lost, but that doesn't warrant your death nor our silence."

Christopher moved closer and caught Nicholas' blue eyes. "You came for me," he said softly, and nodded, "but we hadn't spoken in weeks. We hadn't slept together in even longer."

He felt the pain rush back to him. He had missed the other man more than he cared to admit. "You're not the one to blame here. It was a shitty circumstance. But you were there."

He reached up and touched the taller man on the face.

"I did," not because he was a loose end, not because he was bait. Styles' life or death hardly compromised his own orders, both Brydon's and MI6's. He had come because he loved him.

"Don't get me wrong, Christopher," said Nicholas. He raised his own hands to keep the American's in place, against his cheek. "I know this City isn't D.C. but if you try it, if you try to engineer it, I'll stop you." The Englishman wouldn't think to kill him, not ever, but he would stop him.

It wasn't something that Christopher liked - being told something that basically dictated his actions, but Styles was no fool. He recognized a lost cause when he saw one. When Brocklehurst said he would stop him, that's certainly what he would do.

Probably with handcuffs, rope, and absolutely no sexual innuendo. The thought was dry and unappealing.

Christopher nodded, once, and stroked Nicholas' cheek with the inner part of his thumb.

Brocklehurst was a man of his word, and although Styles enjoyed provoking his 'bleeding heart', he was a man who could get his hands dirty. The end justified the means in most cases. Christopher had seen this first hand, when he voluntarily destroyed Gardner's evidence for the sake of the government's establishment (a slave to the Empire). The livelihoods of those who had made the City home were no different.

"There's a full box left," Nicholas reminded the other, cartridges he meant. His blue gaze glanced aside to Christopher's thumb.

"Yeah," Christopher agreed, not moving. He was enjoying the touch. They hadn't been together in a while, and touching Nicholas was always enjoyable, in any way.

"You wouldn't want to waste the money," he muttered, almost a threat to break off contact first.

Waste the money, waste the time, waste the pheromones? Nicholas looked at Christopher, cool and challenging. He took that hand and brought it closer to his lips where he kissed the other's thumb, even taking the tip of it into his mouth. The subtle trace of lead and oil wasn't new to Brocklehurst. A part of him, the army boy turned MI6 operative and SAS mole liked the taste.

"Keep shooting, then we'll eat out," he suggested.

Christopher shivered and pulled his hand back, nodding. "All right," he replied, casually sucking on the tip of his thumb for a moment, as if he could kiss Nicholas through it. He picked up his Beretta again.

He slid his goggles and earmuffs back on and shot another clip into the target; then set the target to movement. He wasn't as accomplished, but he was decent, getting a fair number of shots in vital locations.

He smirked at the gesture, the taste of lead, oil, and now his mouth. Christopher liked looking over that edge of cleanliness, he felt. No matter how spotless his shirts and pressed his pants, Brocklehurst knew the mud and rough terrain attracted him. To an extent anyway... he would never think to visit as if he'd gone through the jungles of Sierre Leone every night. Then Styles would simply throw him out.

"My treat," Nicholas offered as only a gentleman could. He grinned while sliding his ear muffs back on, and taking up his gun to shoot.

Log: Complete

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