Dragons Slain At No Extra Charge

By Ysabet

Part Two: Rumplestiltskin

The one bad thing about sleeping with guys, thought Joey drowsily as he hid beneath his pillow from the morning, was stubble. Girls didn’t have stubble; girls didn’t scratch the living bejeezus out of you when they snuggled against your back (he shifted slightly, causing the ponytailed brunet behind him to wrap his arms around a little tighter) or tickle your neck in the middle of things. Stubble itched; stubble was raspy and uncomfortable and—

(“Mmmmfgl….” The arms around his waist twitched; they tightened, and slid down a little around his hips then and a bit further south. Beneath the pillow two brown eyes were suddenly wide open.)

--and came attached to Duke and Tristan, and therefore was just fine with him. Stubble was great.

He felt Duke smile against his shoulderblade; yeah, stubble. Ooohh... A hand moved slowly, purposefully, as the warm body behind him wrapped itself even closer, skin against skin; hazily Joey wondered just where in the room his boxers had ended up and then forgot the thought entirely as the languid stroke of a single fingertip made his breath catch.

“Awake now?” breathed his partner against his spine. Joey shivered, pressing himself forward just right, just exactly right—

--and the hand was abruptly gone, along with the sheets and the warm body behind him as Duke yawned and rolled over. “Your sister just got out of the shower,” murmured the utter bastard, pulling the covers over his head until he was nothing but a tuft of dark hair. “I heard her. Rise and shine, Wheeler.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh…”

Clawing at the covers didn’t work; the son of a bitch had them tucked around him, and as the younger man attempted to simultaneously burrow beneath his pillow and shove Duke from the bed with his bare feet, he informed the older one just exactly what he could do with his ‘rise and shine’ in obscene, half-incoherent detail. Duke just gripped the sheets tighter and chuckled from beneath them. “Not without lube I won’t. And you’d better hurry before Tris gets up and snags the rest of the hot water again,” he advised. His bedmate growled in return and slunk unwillingly off towards the shower.

…hot water? I need COLD water… cold shower… shower good…. shave…. goddamn stubble…

Stagger, stagger, crawl, crawl. He hated mornings.

Water sluiced some of the grogginess away (as well as a few other pressing things) and Joey leaned back against bathroom tiles, eyes closed. It had been three days so far—three days of not-enough-hot-water, keep-the-noise-down, no-sex-on-the-couch. And yeah, it was kind of weird, having Serenity around every morning before she went to school and after he got home from work at the garage—kind of nice too, they hadn’t seen so much of each other in ages—

--but it was—well, calling it ‘inconvenient’ sounded sort of—

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK. “Hey, Joey, you almost done in there? Getcher ass in gear, I gotta get to work—“ That was Tristan. “Joey? You hear me?”

He sighed. “Yeah, yeah, five minutes,” he called back. Right, Tris had a new security route, there was some sort of orientation early today though the poor guy still had to work an evening shift… The garage where Joey was employed didn’t open ‘til nine, though, so at least he didn’t have to rush this mor—

“Hey, blondie? Your boss’s on the phone, he wants you in a half hour early. G’niiite…” There was the sound of a door shutting. Duke had gone back to bed, damn him. Some people had employees who covered the morning shift for them. Joey sighed again, scrubbing at his eyes. Nnngh; five minutes, right. Okay, a half hour early wasn’t so b—

“Joey? Can you drop me off at school on your way to work, please? I missed the bus!”

Uh oh. Shit. “Five minutes, Sis,” he sighed, turning off the water.

---

Two hours later…

“Gnnngh!!!” Clank.

“TURN, you frickin’ piece of shit—“ Grind, grind.

“—gonna—rrgh—make you into—godDAMMit—junkyard scrap, you—“ Thud!

“OWWeeyarghmyHAND!! #$&!!!”

There was a resounding whunk! as Joey Wheeler’s forehead connected with the underside of the Porsche 356B that he was currently working on, followed by more swearing. A wrench clattered to the ground. “Better not let Howie catch that potty-mouth of yours, Blondie,” advised the other mechanic, walking past as a grimy hand groped for the piece of steel. “He likes to think he runs an upscale business here—”

The owner of the hand signified his reply with an upthrust finger and his coworker aimed a mock-kick at the legs sticking out from beneath the vintage car, snickering. “You about finished with this one, Wheeler?”

“—sonuvaOWbitching… Why? And are we still out of band-aids? I’m bleeding like a freaking faucet—“

“Faucets don’t bleed. And you’ve got a call up at the front.” The other mechanic, a lanky thirty-something guy named Zippy who (Joey knew) wore a nose-ring when off work and had the foulest vocabulary in at least three states, helped him up. “Hey, you seen the new chick they got on the desk? Kinda mouthy, but pretty hot. College girl.” Zippy leered. “You might wanna try her— college chicks like blonds.”

Sucking on the injured digit (and inadvertently getting a good taste of grease), Joey rolled his eyes. “Believe me, I’ve got enough on my hands without trying for some desk bimbo. Not my type.” Zippy shrugged one shoulder in a hey,-your-loss response and headed for the breakroom as Joey wiped up and trudged towards the reception area. It said something for his boss Howard’s ideas about ‘upscale’, he reflected, that they guy had put a mat in front of the door that read WIPE YOUR FEET OR DIE. Howard liked upscale; this was a Porsche dealership after all, one that specialized in vintage machines. He liked leather and brass in the showroom, he liked herbal tea and the occasional glass of wine in the lounge for paying customers, he liked pressed suits and silk ties for himself; and that was okay. Problem was, though, that he also liked to forget about the dirty end of the business, i.e., mechanics and grease and fuel and goddamn nuts that wouldn’t turn if you hit ‘em with a nuclear blast.

Still… Howie paid his workers on time, and for that Joey could put up with a hell of a lot more than Terminator-style doormats. If it hadn’t been for Duke’s connections in the vintage cars area, the blond might still have been changing tires at the local Garage-&-Go.

The new desk-girl was—okay, not a bimbo, since bimbos usually didn’t have chemistry textbooks open next to their phones. Her Hi-My-Name-Is nametag proclaimed her to be ‘Reene’, and Joey blinked. “Reeneey?”

“Reh-NAY,” said the redhead, closing her book with a near-glare. “Are you Joey Wheeler? Line 7—not THIS phone, the other one,” she snapped as he reached out a still-grimy hand. “Mister Howard said No Employees Are To Use The Front Desk Phone,” ‘Reh-nay’ added primly as he grimaced. You could practically hear the capital letters slot into place, and Joey shrugged; he supposed he could see the reasoning. The front desk phone was pristine; the employee’s phone, on the other hand, was heavily smeared and looked like it had vacationed at the bottom of somebody’s crankcase.

Whatever…

“Joey, it’s Duke; have you had lunch yet?” said the tinny voice on the other end. “I’m—“

“—at Dot’s, yeah, I can tell. Five minutes, okay?” It wasn’t like he couldn’t hear the canned Elvis mix wailing away in the background. Dot’s Diner was a local favorite, a ‘50’s-themed bar and grill halfway between the Black Crown and Joey’s workplace; add in the fact that they made decent burgers and shakes and that the walk was pretty short, and the two ate there at least three times a week.

Unconsciously rubbing the grease from one palm across the leg of his coverall, Joey pushed open the door to the garage again. “Seeya—Reeneey,” he added over one shoulder, giving the girl a lopsided grin. Her annoyed snort followed him out into the clatter and roar of machinery.

---

“You didn’t see him, hm?” Duke frowned over the remains of his RetroBurger-&-Cheese, toying with a fry.

“Didn’t see anybody,” moped the blond across from him. Joey took a huge swallow of his shake, sliding the straw across the plastic lid’s hole with a skreeking noise that made the ponytailed brunet wince. “She just headed straight in with a bunch of girls, no boyfriend material in the crowd anywhere, dammit.” They had narrowed his sister’s problem down over the three previous days to a high probability of it being a love-life issue, much to Joey’s horror. But, as Tris had pointed out, she was seventeen, and luckily for her Serenity wasn’t having to deal with things like ancient Egyptian spirits, soul-stealing undead psychos, haunted bling or any of the other shit that they had had to deal with at that age. And therefore (claimed Tristan), what with her being a teenager and female and not running with a gang or anything like her older brother had done, she was probably arguing with her mom over a guy.

It did sound likely, Joey had to admit.

“M mmfa mmfk mttr mmfl, Muh mffr,” he muttered darkly around a mouthful of Nifty-Fifties-Burger-With-The-Works. At his tablemate’s blank stare, he repeated this after swallowing. “’M gonna stake out her school, I swear. I mean,” the blond added, “if he’s not there to meet her, he might at least walk out with her when she leaves. And when he does,” he added, warming to the subject, “I’m gonna put the Fear O’ Joey into the little b—“

Duke clicked his tongue, green eyes gleaming wickedly. “So crude, Wheeler. If you’re going to terrorize this unknown unfortunate, you need a game plan. You could, for instance, bring him over for dinner… and Tris could spend the time while you cooked cleaning his gun collection—“

Serenity’s brother scowled, wiping ketchup from his fingers. “Tristan doesn’t have a gun collection.”

“His sister’s out of town right now, and you know his brother-in-law likes to hunt,” pointed out the dicemaster confidently. “Give him a half hour to unlock the cabinets and cart things over and then he’ll have one. And,” Duke brushed one fingertip across the back of Joey’s hand in a touch so quick and light it had barely had time to be there, “it’ll give him a chance to play hero. He likes that. Makes him feel needed.” There was the glint of a smile.

“Yeeeeah…” ‘Playing hero’ was in fact one of Tristan Taylor’s weaknesses. Joey smirked a little in return, but then the smile faltered; he glanced up at his friend’s face. “You and Tris’ve been good about her staying over; three days—“

A black ponytail flicked back as Duke tossed his head, earring swinging. “No big deal. She’s your sister and all that… though,” and he leered ever so slightly, “I have to admit that it’ll be nice to be able to sleep three in a bed again.” That finger again, this time sliding up the edge of Joey’s face, tracing jawline and cheek to feather through tawny gold hair before being caught by Joey’s own hand.

“I don’t think you’re thinking of ‘sleep’ so much as ‘bed’…”

“And this is a bad thing how?”

A lazy South Carolina drawl interrupted them. “Get a room, y’all—honestly, somebody oughta put you both on a leash. Don’t y’all ever stop?” The speaker placed Joey’s second burger onto the table with a clack! of crockery (Dot’s prided itself on 50’s ambiance, and Styrofoam was not an option) and shook her many-braided head. “You’re gonna embarrass the bus-boys. And here’s your burger, all the fixins’ and extra mustard.” The black woman wrinkled her nose; she hated mustard.

Duke leaned his chin onto his free hand, smiling up charmingly into their waitress’ face. “A leash, Tally? Hmm, might be fun… or wait, didn’t we already try that, Joey?” Tallahassee Washington mock-swatted her customer, who laughed. Tally had known them both for several years now and their three-way relationship was old news; as she had told them all once, who cared who three good-looking boys were boinking so long as they tipped well? And besides, she had said with her slow smile, they were fun to watch; their flirting made great footage for her fantasies…

(and Joey had deep suspicions that Tally wrote online fan-fiction for one or more of the guy-on-guy archives, though he had never quite dared to ask. There were some things that it was just better not to know.)

In the meantime… As the waitress swayed off to another table, Joey brought Duke’s still-captured hand around to his lips and nibbled. The brunet blinked. “Mustard,” murmured the other with a snicker. “I like mustard. A leash, huh? Kinky. And just when did we do that?”

“Oh… I don’t know, maybe fifteen minutes after your sister leaves?”

That fingertip again, this time tracing Joey’s upper lip… Green eyes met brown, and the younger man smiled wickedly. “Mmm. Good dog; I’ll make sure to pick you up a chew-toy on the way home tonight.” Ignoring Duke’s sputtering grab at his burger (how often did Joey get to make the dog-cracks, after all?), he got to his feet. “Hey, Tally? Can I have this to go? And maybe you could bring me some mustard packets too?”

The waitress eyed her peculiar customer over a handful of menus as the blond fished out his wallet. “You want more mustard? You’re weird, boy, I dunno how you can stand to eat that stuff—“

Joey just snickered. “Yeah, well… we’re all out at home and you never know when you might need some. Lots of things go good with mustard, y’know.” Her unbelieving headshake and Duke’s choke of laughter followed him out the door.

---

Domino High looked no different than it had when Joey had been an inmate. No, he thought from his perch, scratch that; if anything, it looked worse. Smaller. More confining, really…

He twitched.

It was after work; the blond had clocked out, grabbed his gear, and parked his car a block or so away before taking up residence on the very rusty fire-escape of the old insurance building across from the main gates. The building had been condemned earlier that year and the staircase padlocked… not that this mattered to anybody with as much of a street upbringing as Joey had, or to his lockpicks for that matter. Serenity had told her brother that she would meet him there, so… Face it, Wheeler: You’re stalking your sister, and for what? To check out who she’s dating; real moral of you, a real knight in shining armor. Oh well, what the hell… I just want her to be happy--

Right, his inner critic added with a sneer, and you want to scope whatever creep messed things up for you with Mom. And that was true, yeah… but he had good intentions. Really he did. Really.

Ignoring thoughts of just what the road to Hell was supposed to be paved with, the blond hunkered down on the corroded metal grid and peered through his binoculars at the flood of students pouring out onto the sidewalks. The old fire-escape creaked heavily beneath him as he squirmed forward, flat on his belly. Any time now—there. Ahh, crap! She’s alone…

And she was; Serenity Wheeler waved to several chattering friends and walked to the curb, glancing back and forth as if she were looking for someone, or a car maybe or—

Bingo. There’s the scumbag! Old beat-up blue Chevy, nothing special, could belong to any high school dork. He scowled, trying to see the driver over the distance, the crowd of teenagers and the traffic, but even with the binoculars all he could make out was a shape. Dammit! Whoever it was had dark hair, longish; that’s all he could tell through several layers of glass and movement. Lean back a little, c’mon, turn around or something… He scootched forward, flaking metal groaning beneath his hands. Oh come ON, jerk, throw me a freakin’ bone--

There was a sudden, jarring sound; the ancient (and, most importantly, condemned) fire-escape went TILT… and Joey’s hands froze where they gripped the very edge. Uh-oh. Oh…

Creeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak…. creeeeeeeeaaaaaaak……CLINK-clink…… twwoiiiiiing—

….no….

CRACK. Riiiiiiiiiiip---

“AAAAGH!!!”

CRASH!!! CLATTER-CLANG-CLANG-THUD-Clang-clang clang clatter clatter…..

“……..owww……. man………”

Clang…

---

“—owshitowowFUCKowwleavemesomeSKINwhydontchaowowowow—

“—Joey, hold still! Let him get your shirt off.”

“Why on earth were you on a fire-escape anyway?” The three were crowded into the apartment’s tiny bathroom. Tristan tugged the bloodstained t-shirt over the swearing blond’s head, doing his best to avoid the visible forehead lump and accompanying scrapes. “Shit, man, you’re a mess—that ankle’s pretty banged up. WHAT were you doing up there, chasing pigeons?” He squeezed out a washcloth and began to carefully remove the assortment of gravel, dirt and other debris smeared across Joey’s shoulder and

“--owowsonofa……uh……I, uh, thought I saw some… guy….. watchin’ the kids leave school. With, um, binoculars. Like a stalker, y’know--? OW! Goddammit Tris, what’re you doing? I’d like to keep what hide I’ve got—owtch!—left, okay?” Glaring, the blond jerked his arm out of his friend’s hands; without rancor, the other simply grabbed it back and kept working. “Just drop it. It was a dumb idea and I’m paying for it…” Joey winced, eyes closing as Serenity dabbed at his forehead with antiseptic salve and then plastered a large band-aid in place; his ankle had already been strapped to hold down the swelling, but it was painful enough that putting weight on it was out of the question. “Great; just—frickin—great. I’m gonna look like a—“

“A stalker?”

Guilt made the blond’s eyes jerk back wide; he opened his mouth in panic, only to close it as his sister went on. “You saw a stalker and you went after them? Joey, that was really brave, even if—“ and she hesitated, closing the salve.

“—even if it was really, really stupid as well,” finished Tristan for her, pulling out a package of gauze from the first-aid kit that lived under the sink. “You’re just lucky you didn’t break something, though I guess the dumpster in the alley had something to do with that. Speaking of which,” and the dark-haired young man sniffed, hazel eyes narrowing, “you could do with a shower.”

Joey responded with a grouchy single-finger salute. “Bite me, Tris.”

“Not ‘til you wash it, Wheeler…”

Serenity fought back a giggle even as her hands busied themselves with applying bandages in numerous places; having momentarily forgotten the whole ‘Don’t Tell Serenity We’re In A Gay Threesome’ thing, her brother and his partner looked at each other in mutual dread. But the giggle lacked a followup; and they both relaxed a little as she murmured “If half the guys at school were as funny as you two are sometimes I’d be a lot more interested in them,” while she peeled and placed another band-aid across her sibling’s nose.

“Oh yeah?” asked Joey, trying for casualness. “So—not dating anybody at school, huh? Sometimes it’s kind of hard, seeing somebody older than you, or… from another high school, or maybe in college—”

Serenity gave him a Look as she closed up the first-aid kit. “If you’re fishing, you’re not going to get any bites, big brother. I don’t kiss and tell.” She flipped the latch, shut the kit into the cabinet below the sink, and paused. “—you weren’t spying on me, were you, Joey? Were you? Because if you were—“

“No way!” Wide brown eyes innocent, her brother spread his hands palm up. “Would I do that to you? C’mon, Sis, I was just waiting for you to get out of school and I saw this guy, he, uh, had binoculars and he—“

Her eyes dropped to the tangle of his jacket and other things that had been brought in from the car; she had driven home after Joey had refused to go to the hospital, and they had all been dropped in a pile in the middle of the hall. “Is that them?” she asked, pointing at the strap and very-much-the-worse-for-wear equipment. “Oh—“

Joey Wheeler rubbed at his eyes. “Um. Yeah. He dropped ‘em, and I… Look, Serenity, I—“

She stopped him with one hand on his arm, and he met her shamefaced eyes with his own. “I’m sorry, Joey; thank you. You scared him away and got hurt, and here I am suspecting you of spying on me.” Very carefully the young woman hugged her brother (“ow!”) and then drew back, nodding at Tristan where he perched on the rim of their bath-tub. “You’ll take care of him, won’t you? Keep him off that ankle; make him lie down for a while, and if he starts hurting worse we’ll go to an Urgent Care later. He tries to be so macho, you know… he hates letting people know when he’s hurting.”

“I think I can manage,” said Tristan, straight-faced. “I’m pretty persuasive when I want to be.” Joey gave him a Look of his own, but his sister nodded, wiped her hands on a towel, and left him to his friend’s tender mercies. A moment later they heard the door to their spare room close behind her.

There was a moment of silence. “Those binocs… they’re the ones Duke gave you last summer, aren’t they? So you could watch the chicks sunbathe at the apartment complex next door?”

“………………………….”

“A stalker, huh?”

“…………...”

“Lame, Wheeler; very lame. Spying from a fire-escape…… See anything good?”

“…no. But somebody came by in a car, a blue Chevy. Couldn’t see their face, but—“ He stopped as the other shook his head. “Look, Tris, I gotta find out who she’s seein’, and you heard her, she won’t tell me! What if he’s some sort of sleazy pervert? What if he’s taking advantage of her, trying to get into her pants, what if he’s planning to—“

“—spy on her with binoculars?”

There was another moment of silence. Tristan sighed and stood up. “C’mon, hero, let’s drag your stalker ass in to bed, okay? Maybe it was a bad idea, but you meant well.” He offered a hand; Joey sighed like a wounded puppy and staggered to one foot, holding the strapped ankle up and leaning heavily on the other’s shoulder.

“I feel like an idiot. I am an idiot. I lied to my little sister.”

“Yep. And now you’re paying for it with your hide. You still got some time off left at work?” At Joey’s rueful nod, Tristan helped him hop towards the door. “I’d say you need a few days at home,” he murmured, draping the other’s arm over his shoulders. “And you know what you need to do next, don’t you?”

“Huh? What?”

A warm arm curled around his waist, and he felt his friend’s lips brush against his ear. “You need to tell me where it hurts… so I can kiss it better,” whispered Tris.

Joey leaned into him with another sigh. “Don’t you have to go in to work this evening?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry.” Tristan smiled against his skin. “Duke’ll pick up where I leave off when he gets home.”

“Oh; okay—” They staggered on towards the bedroom.

---

To be continued…..

Ysabet's Notes: I think y’all see where this is going, what with the fairy-tale titles. The next chapter will be named ‘Goldilocks And The Three Bears (or ‘Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed?’)’ You know, this is only my third real slashy fic. Is it working, or am I trying too hard? Should I be more explicit, or does this style work? Inquiring Minds Want To Know, Please. Thanks.