Please see Part 1 for disclaimers and archiving information.

"From The Top", Part 2/33
By Clotho (clothomoerae@hotmail.com) and Cathy (huntersglenn@yahoo.com)

*****************************************

John stepped up to the urinal and was nearly done when an older man walked
into the room.  The man stood at the urinal next to John's and John could
feel his intense gaze.  God, here he was in a regular bar and a guy was
checking him out.  Why wasn't it Dave standing there looking at his cock
and getting ready to ask if he could touch it or do something else to it?
John quickly zipped up his pants and went over to the sink before the man
could get even more of an eyeful.  But the guy pissed quickly and was at
the sink before John was even ready to dry his hands.

"Haven't seen you around here before," the older man said.

"First time."  John dried his hands and tossed the paper towels in the
trash, pointedly ignoring the guy.  Even as he exited the bathroom, John
could feel the guy's eyes on his back.  John had a wide grin as he neared
the table saw Dave touching Roxanne's ass.  John had to admit that it was a
nice one and if he thought he had half a chance with her, he would be
tempted to see if he could get Roxanne to take him home.

Once Roxanne moved away from the booth, John slid back into his seat.  "You
will *never* believe what just happened in the men's room," he told Dave.
"Never."

It was fine.  Roxanne had behaved as usual, she hadn't been able to tell.
Dave relaxed slightly, and smiled up at Carter.  "Uh, aliens abducted you
and left a robot in your place?"

John took a long drink of his beer, then felt as if he were being watched
again.  He looked toward the TV screen and saw the guy from the men's
room.  "See that guy at the table right in front of the screen?  He was
trying to pick me up in there," John was grinning over that.  "And here I
thought I'd have to always go to a gay bar for stuff like that to happen."

"What?  No way.  He comes in here all the time.  You were imagining it, my
friend."

John laughed and shook his head.  "No, I wasn't imagining anything, Dave.
He had his eyes on my cock the entire time I was in there.  Then he pulled
that lame line about how he hadn't seen me around here before."  John
looked over at the guy and the man smiled at him.  Unable to resist teasing
Dave a little bit, John said, "He's kinda cute though.  For an older guy
and all that.  Didn't get a look at his cock.  Maybe I should go back there
and see if he shows up again?"

Dave looked at Carter in horror.  This wasn't funny.  He'd brought Carter
to his favorite bar, and Carter was talking about picking someone up from
it.  It shouldn't be like this.  Dave hissed at Carter, "Don't say things
like that in here.  It's a normal bar."

"Yeah, so?  People get picked up in bars all the time, Dave.  But, if it
makes you feel better, I won't go back to the men's room unless I
positively *have* to."  John's smile faded as he remembered how adamant
Dave had been before about how he wasn't 'gay'.  If Dave was as upset as he
looked, then John wasn't right in teasing him.   "Don't worry, Dave.   I
won't do anything to embarrass you here.  Honest." Besides which, the only
guy in Sportz Shortz who John really wanted to see naked was the man
sitting across from him.

Dave took an unsteady drink of his second beer.  This whole thing seemed to
be an absolute minefield.  Go back to something safe.  There were some kind
of racecars tearing around the TV screen now.  Racing.  "So your horse,
Ma...Majoram? You ever race on her?"

"Marigold."  John shook his head.  "He wasn't a race horse, just a show
horse.  You ever been horseback riding?"

Dave shook his head.  "No."  He was suddenly assailed by an image of Carter
riding him the other night.  His first time, and Carter had been going
hard, and midnight had struck.  Dave licked his lips.  It had been good.
Very good.

Too good.

John couldn't tear his eyes away from Dave's mouth.  Watching that pink
tongue slip out and slide around those delicious lips was almost too much
to bear.  Almost.  They were here for a beer.  And nothing else.  Dave
didn't want to have sex with him again, he had made that plain enough last
weekend, hadn't he?  Or would he be willing to settle for a quick fuck?
John finished off his beer, then waved Roxanne over and, feeling like he
wanted to live dangerously, ordered another.  But that would be it.  No
more after that one, he vowed.  John then remembered that they had been
having a conversation, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it
was about.  It was definitely time to probe deeper into Dave's personal
life.

"So," John said, "you got any brothers or sisters?"

"Uh.  Brother."  Dave swallowed the last of his beer.  He didn't know where
it had all gone to - except for the fair amount that had been slopped on
the table.  His hands sat on the table, doing nothing, and after a second
Dave put them underneath.

He touched Carter's knee accidentally then couldn't quite move his hand
away.  Carter was warm, hot. He moved the hand away slowly.  "How 'bout
you?"

John's heart skipped a beat when he felt Dave's hand brush against his
knee.  That *had* to be an accident, just had to be.  As skittish as Dave
was about this being a *normal* bar, there was no way he'd try to grope him
under an open table.  John had to force himself to concentrate on Dave's
question.  "Older sister.  Had an older brother, but he died."

"Oh."  That was rough.  Dave didn't know what to do with his hands, he
brought them up, and put them on the table, then saw Roxanne coming back
with another beer.  He grabbed it and took a slurp.  "My brother, Mike.
He's in prison."

"Prison?  I'm sorry."  John then saw that Dave had grabbed his beer.   "Hey,
that's mine."  He reached across the table for it and his fingers wrapped
around Dave's.  Dave's fingers felt hot and John could remember how they
had tasted each and every time he had taken them in his mouth.  And the
wonderful things they had done to him.

John swallowed hard and willed his burgeoning erection to subside.  "Give
it back," he said, his voice low.

Dave almost dropped the beer when Carter touched him.  The hand surrounding
his was large and warm, and sending little shoots of fire up his arm.
"Yours?"  What was Carter's?  He could remember telling Carter that every
cell in his body belonged to Carter -- feeling it, being claimed and owned
by him.  Carter was picking *now* in a bar, a normal bar, to refer to
that?  Dave took all his strength to wrench his arm away from Carter's and
take another steadying slurp of beer.

John slowly smiled when Dave jerked out of his grip.  He raised up in the
seat a bit and wrapped both hands around the glass, trapping Dave's hand on
it.  "I said that was *my* beer, Dave.  Give it back.  Now."

The beer.  The beer was Carter's.  That was it.  That was all.  Dave looked
up at Carter's face then dropped his gaze, and looked down at the table,
and the glass encircled by three hands.  "It is?"

"It is.  Although I think you've managed to drink about half of it."   John
abruptly let go of the glass and sat back down, then waved at Roxanne.
"I'm starving.  Do they have food here?" Letting go of the glass and
talking about something simple like food was much preferable than lunging
across the table to kiss Dave.

"Um.  Yeah."  Dave was having a hard time keeping up with what was going
on.   Carter wasn't touching him anymore -- what did that mean?  Why did it
have to mean anything?  Dave struggled for normality.  "Yeah.  Sports
stuff: nachos, hotdogs, burgers."

"Nachos sound good."  Roxanne was back to their table and smiling down at
him.  "I'd like a pop, Coke, Pepsi, whatever, and an order of nachos.
Dave?  What do you want?"

"Um.  Beer and a hotdog."

John smiled at Roxanne.  "That's it for now.  Thanks."  He watched her ass
jiggle as she walked away from their booth.  Dave's ass didn't jiggle when
he walked, it was firm, and the skin was soft to touch and kiss and lick.
John redirected his attention to the conversation they had been having.
"So, if it's not too painful a subject, what's your brother in prison for?"

"Um, er.  Lose track.  Think it was cars this time." Dave shrugged - it had
been more than cars this time, but he didn't really want to talk about his
brother -- Carter from the impossibly huge mansion wouldn't be able to get
why Mike did that stuff.  Dave turned his attention back to the TV screen.

John nodded.  "I came close to going to prison once.  A few years back.
But the charges were dropped before it got to court."  John grinned as he
remembered the first time he met Shrike.  "But being arrested did turn out
well for me in the end."

"How?"  Dave didn't think Mike had ever got anything good out of being
arrested.

John's grin grew broader.  "I met this guy in the holding cell at jail.
Shrike.  He had his name tattooed on his body.  Anyway, he was in on the
same charge, obstruction of justice.  He gets up, walks over to me and
drops his pants."  John laughed.  "It's funny now, but I thought I was in
*big* trouble at the time.  Turned out he had a carbuncle on his thigh he
wanted me to look at.  I did, briefly.  Told him what to do for it and then
I was bailed out.  But he liked my touch, at least that's what he told me
later when he tracked me down.  Shrike's the one who gave me those pants."

Dave nearly choked on the slug of beer he was taking.

"You okay?"  John asked, concerned.  When Dave seemed to be all right, John
figured he had just swallowed wrong or something.

Dave coughed, then glanced around the bar to make sure there was no one who
could overhear what he and Carter were saying.  There didn't seem to be.
"You got it on with a guy you met in prison?"

John shook his head.  "Not prison, jail.  We met in the holding cell.   He
showed up at the ER a week or so later asking for me.  We went into Exam
one and he told me that he wanted me to check the carbuncle to see if it
was healing okay.  He dropped his pants to show me that he didn't have on
underwear, he was hard, already had on a condom, and the carbuncle was
healed."  John smiled at the memory, and he looked around to make sure no
one was near the booth before he continued.  "I had him sit down while I
grabbed a stool and then I examined him for a minute before sucking him
off.  After that he invited me to meet him at a gay bar.  I showed up on
time, nervous as Hell because I'd never been in one before.  We started
seeing each other and on the occasion of our third week seeing each other
he gave me those pants.  He laced them up and then we went out on the
town.  Shrike really liked those pants."  John said with a laugh.  He
really had a lot of good memories from the time he was with Shrike -- or
rather, with Richard, since that was his real name.

Dave didn't know where to look.  If it had been a woman coming on to him
like that it would have been a great story for the bar -- Hell, Matt would
probably have given him a free beer out of it.  But talking -- so casually
-- about sucking a guy off?  It wasn't right, and it was less right that
he, himself, was getting harder and harder the more Carter talked about
sucking guys off and wearing those pants.  Dave looked around then down,
and gulped the last of his beer -- he *really* needed Roxanne to return
with the next one.

John's smile faded as he saw how uncomfortable Dave seemed.  He figured it
had to do with him talking about sex in a place he considered to be *his*
bar.  So, John went back to the legal part of the story.  "Anyway, I didn't
go to prison.  The cop who had charged me with obstruction of justice was
persuaded to drop the charges, so that was a relief."

The waitress returned, carrying a tray with their drinks and food.  John
smiled warmly at her as she put the nachos and pop in front of him.
"Thanks."

Dave looked with happiness on his hot dog.  The food here was just like it
was at games.  Just as greasy, just as tasteless, it was the real thing.
And it made the bar the real thing, too.  He picked up the hot dog.  "Yeah,
thanks Roxanne."

John found his eyes glued to Dave's mouth as he watched those lips open
wide to take a bite out of the hot dog.  Why couldn't Dave want to open up
like that for him? John wondered.  He sighed and looked down at his nachos
and tried to get his mind away from Dave Malucci.  He could think about
someone else.  Another Italian.  Anna.  John looked up again and grinned.
"Another thing that made being arrested worth it was that Anna Del Amico
came to bail me out and we kissed the minute I got outside.  Man, I was so
much in love with her."  His grin faded as he remembered how easily Anna
had left Chicago -- and him.  "Things could have been different if she'd
stayed in Chicago."

John picked up a tortilla chip that was loaded with melted cheese and he
popped it into his mouth.  There was cheese on his fingers and he licked it
off, then reached for a napkin.

Dave felt himself get harder as he watched Carter licking his fingers.
Lucky fingers, or maybe lucky mouth.  Lucky both.  He realised he was
staring and hastily returned his eyes to his hotdog.  It was good --
ketchup and mustard and onions and meat of course.  Just about perfect.  So
why was he imagining that the sausage was one of Carter's fingers, and
deserving to be licked and sucked?  Dave abruptly realised what he was
doing to the hotdog, and closed his teeth around it with a snap.

John bit back a moan as he watched Dave's tongue lap at the wiener and then
those lips started to suck at it.  His cock was at full mast under his
pants and he wanted so much for it to be his cock that Dave's mouth was
doing those things to.  And then his erection faltered when Dave's teeth
chomped down hard on that meat, cutting off a piece.  John returned his
attention to his nachos.  Maybe it was a good thing he hadn't been able to
convince Dave to try giving him head again.

Just eat your hotdog, David Malucci, don't think about things like that.
Dave admonished himself, then disobeyed his mental order and reached for
the beer that had come with the food.  Nothing to worry about.  This was a
normal bar, everything was normal.  Dave cast around for something to say,
"So this Anna chick was hot then?"

John nodded. "Yeah, she was.  We were interns together in the ER.  She was
a pediatrician double boarding in trauma and when I switched from surgery
to trauma I had to redo my intern year.  So we were in the same boat as far
as that went.  She was my best friend, but I wanted so much more.  Anna was
interested, too, but she wasn't quite over her old boyfriend.  And then he
turned up in Chicago, they got back together and she decided to move back
to Philadelphia with him.  Of course, I hated him the minute I saw him, and
he didn't care too much for me, either."  John ate a few more chips, trying
to be careful to not make too much of a mess with the cheese.  He could
still remember how much it had hurt when Anna had told him goodbye -- with
a tender kiss no less.  "So, what about you?  Any great loves that have
broken your heart?"

Dave finished his hotdog while Carter was talking.  He shrugged in answer
to Carter's question, and stole a few nachos from the plate in front of
Carter.  "Nah.  If ya leave before they start talking 'bout broken hearts
it's easier."

John nodded.  "I suppose you're right.  I've just never learned to do
that."  John picked the napkin up off his lap and wiped his mouth and
hands, then slid out of the booth.  "I'll be right back."  He headed for
the men's room again.

Dave stole a few more nachos from Carter's plate and glanced at the big
screen TV -- it was showing spectacular falls in downhill ski racing,
interesting enough to keep an eye on.

Something was happening though, Dave turned around and saw a man looking at
him.  The man, in fact, who Carter commented on earlier.  And the man
abruptly turned away from Dave and began making his way towards the men's
room.

Dave stared at him in disbelief for a second, then jumped up.  Maybe Carter
had been imagining it earlier, maybe.  But it wasn't right for some guy to
try and pick up *his* friend in *his* bar.  It just wasn't right.  And
besides, he'd drunk three and a half beers, he was getting to need a slash
himself.

If Dave went in he'd get his slash.  And if the guy just had as weak a
bladder as Carter that would be fine, and if he was trying to perv on
Dave's buddy, well then Dave could stop that.  Dave followed the man into
the toilets.

John stood at the urinal, silently cursing his left kidney.  Before the
stabbing he had great control.  Never needed to go a lot.  That had changed
that night.  A lot of things had changed that night.  He had changed.  But
he was better -- or, rather, getting better.  That's what he kept telling
Abby.  So why was she so gung-ho about him telling Kerry that he had
swallowed Vicodin at Christmas?  It was nothing.  It really wasn't a big
deal.  But Abby thought it was.

John wondered what Dave would think about it.  Then he realized that even
thinking Dave's name was not a good thing now that he was done pissing.
His cock hardened at the name and John was trying to shove it back inside
his pants when the door opened and the older guy from earlier walked into
the room.  John was half-tempted to leave himself exposed to see what the
man would say or do.  While he normally wasn't into sex for the sake of
sex, he certainly wouldn't turn down a blowjob right then.  Maybe that
would keep his cock at bay for the rest of the evening.

And then the door opened and Dave walked in.  So much for getting his cock
under control, John thought.  He shoved it into his boxers and hurriedly
zipped his pants, then headed for the sink, having to walk between Dave and
the other man on the way.  He hoped that neither one of them had noticed
his erection.

Dave half ground his teeth as his piss splashed against the urinal.  He'd
walked in to find both the old guy and Carter had their cocks out.  Okay
that might sound normal enough, but it didn't seem that way.  This was a
normal bar, and in normal bars guys didn't try to pick up other guys in the
restroom.  And who knew?  Maybe Carter had glanced at the other guy on the
way in, and tried to get him to follow?  Who knew?  All that Dave knew was
that things like this should not be happening.  He should be able to go for
a drink with his bud without anyone trying to pick him up.

John washed his hands thoroughly, confident that the guy wouldn't say or do
anything as long as Dave was in the room.  Thinking about letting himself
get picked up had been stupid.  Really stupid.  That had been his cock
thinking for him.  Feeling angry with himself, he roughly dried his hands,
then headed back to the booth.  Some more of his nachos were missing.
Dave.

Still hungry, John got Roxanne's attention so he could order a
cheeseburger.  She leaned her hip against the table while she wrote down
his order.

"You have a big appetite, don't you?" she asked.

"I'm a growing boy," John replied with a smile.  "It takes a lot to satisfy
me.  What about you?"

Now that Carter was gone, Dave glanced at the other man suspiciously but
neither of them said a word.  Dave kept on glancing at him quickly --
trying to see if the guy was looking at his cock too.   He didn't manage to
catch him at it though.

Maybe Carter had imagined it.  Maybe Carter was so used to guys trying to
pick him up in gay bars, that he didn't know what happened in normal bars.
Maybe.

Dave voided his bladder as fast as he could, rinsed his hands, and hurried
out back to his table.  Carter was flirting with Roxanne, he could hear her
giggle from half way across the room.  Okay, flirting with Roxanne was
*normal*, but still, couldn't he leave Carter alone for a second?  Dave
hurried forward and slid onto the end of the seat nearest Roxanne.  "What's
up?"

"We were talking about satisfaction."  John grinned.  "Make that medium
done, okay?"

"Sure thing, honey."  Roxanne started to walk away, then stopped and
half-turned away to look back at Dave.  "Did you want anything else?"

"Yeah, a beer."

Roxanne nodded, smiled at John again, then walked away.

"Did I mention that I had a girlfriend named Roxanne?"  John said as he
took a sip of his pop.  "Roxanne Please.  And man, could she ever please,"
he said, grinning.  "There were some mornings when Kerry would look at me
as I walked into the kitchen and she'd giggle.  I knew then that one of us
had been too wild or loud the night before.  But Roxanne was so jealous of
Lucy."  John shook his head.  "I have no idea why, but she had this idea
that I was in love with Lucy or something, or that Lucy was in love with
me.  Drove her crazy."

Dave took a slug of his beer.  Carter didn't seem to be able to stop
talking about other people he'd slept with tonight -- a continual line of
conquests.  He shrugged, Lucy had been a pretty little thing.  "So dja do
Lucy too?"

John could feel his cheeks redden as he remembered the frantic groping he
and Lucy had shared one night.  The hot kisses.  The passion.  The
wrongness of it all.  He shook his head.  "No.  She was too irritating.
There were some days when I was sure that Lucy Knight existed just to
torment me."  John took a drink of his soda.  "I wish she were still here
to torment me."

Dave shrugged.  "It happened.  She's dead.  You're addicted."

"It shouldn't have happened," John softly said.  Then he took a deep
breath.  "But, like you said, it did happen and she isn't alive.  And I
am.  And there are even days when I don't feel guilty about that."

"Not you who should feel guilty.  That's Sobriki's job."  Dave nearly
drained his glass  "Weird...no-one really talks about her."

John looked at a spot on the table.  "I've noticed that, too.  I don't know
why.  Maybe they...Hell.  I don't know why.  There are times when I'd like
to talk about her, but it never seems like there's anyone who wants to
listen."

Dave shrugged.  "Dunno.  That first night...everyone talked about you and
Lucy."  Dave grinned suddenly.  "Said you got her to do a pelvic on a
cross-dresser."

John grinned.  "Vanessa.  Yeah, you should have heard Lucy scream.   That
was on one of the days when I was talking to her.  Try teaching a student
sometime and *not* talk to them the entire day.  But, she deserved it most
of the time.  Still, underneath her attitude, she was a really great
person.  Very caring.  I think she would have done wonderfully as a psych
resident."

"Hey, what's wrong with attitude?"  Dave grinned.  "She, dunno, bounced.
Was fun to be on shift with her."

John laughed.  "Yeah, she definitely was bouncy.  And sometimes she was
fun.  Stubborn, too.  We got along fine when I wasn't supervising her."
His smile faded, " I wish you had been supervising her that day.  Maybe you
would have paid more attention to what was going on...gotten someone down
from Psych faster.  Anything."

Dave laughed.  "Psych? Fast?  Com'on.  Only one who comes down inside three
hours is Legaspi."  Dave drained his beer, and looked around for his next.

"Lucy would have been fast," John said, his voice low.  He hadn't talked
about Lucy since Atlanta.  He didn't see the need to mention her at the NA
or AA meetings.  Or Caldecaus.  They only cared about his addictions and
not about Lucy Knight.

John looked across at Dave as he remembered how panicked he had felt when
he realized he had taken the Vicodin.  How helpless.  Maybe, just maybe,
Dave would understand.  "Remember back at Christmas, when I left before
really starting my shift?"

"Ya mean when the Chief made me do your shift?  Sure I remember."   Dave
looked at Carter for a second.  "You owe me a beer for that."

"You already drank my beer," John replied.  He looked down at his near
empty nacho plate, not wanting to see the look of disappointment in Dave's
eyes when he heard the truth.  "I left because I had taken two Vicodin."

"WHAT?"  Dave abruptly lowered his voice and repeated, "What?   Thought you
said you weren't using again?"

John shrugged.  "I wasn't.  I'm not.  As soon as I realized what I'd done,
I went to the bathroom and threw them back up.  Then I ran to Abby and we
left to go to a meeting.  Everything's okay now."  John risked looking up
at Dave, not sure what he'd see in Dave's eyes.

"Shit, Carter.  You say ya took drugs 2 weeks ago, and now ya say
everything's okay?  You told the Chief?"

John shook his head.  "No.  You sound like Abby now.  Every time I turn
around she's asking me if I've told Kerry yet.  Hell, Dave, nothing
happened.  I threw them up, it's not a big deal."

John saw Roxanne headed their way and he leaned back in his seat as she put
his cheeseburger down on the table, then gave Dave his beer.  "Need
anything else?" she asked, looking at John.

"I'm fine."  John said, directing his answer as much to Dave as to Roxanne.

"Just call me if you need anything else," she said as she took away the
nacho plate and Dave's empty hot dog plate.

After she had walked away, John repeated.  "I'm fine."

Dave shrugged.  "The Chief gets sore if she's not told about fuck ups."   He
reached for his beer.  "Usin' isn't fine, Carter."

John reached for the ketchup and added more to his burger.  "I wasn't
using.  I took them, but I threw them up, so that doesn't count, right?"

"Yeah," Dave's voice got angrier, he knew that line of logic, he even used
it himself sometimes, but he knew it didn't really work, "and Mike didn't
mean to take the baby -- but it still counts as kidnapping."

"What?"  John was completely confused.  "You said your brother stole a car
or something."

Dave shook his head furiously.  "He did.  There was a baby on the back
seat."

"And he stole the car anyway?"

"Well, yes.  What d'ya think?  'course he stole it.  He's in jail for it,
isn't he?"  Dave took a savage swallow of his beer.

"I was hoping you'd say that he didn't see the baby in there or something
like that," John said, sorry he had ever confided in Dave about the
Vicodin.  It had led to getting Dave upset and John didn't like that.  "I'm
sorry.  Let's just forget what I said, okay?"

"Said he didn't know it was there.  Doesn't mean he didn't take it.  What
he meant doesn't matter.  Still locked up for as long."

John shrugged, unable to follow Dave's logic.  "I'll tell Kerry soon, so
don't worry about it.  I haven't touched anything since then."  But he'd
thought about it.  A lot.  Especially since the previous weekend with Dave.

Dave took another gulp of beer to calm him.  "Yeah, tell her."

"I said I was going to.  I just have to find the right time." John took a
bite of the burger and chewed quickly, even though it tasted like sawdust.
Having Dave upset with him had taken away his appetite, but he wasn't going
to let Dave know that.  John struggled to find another topic of
conversation - something not related to Lucy, the stabbings, his addiction
or Dave's brother.  "So, how long have you known about this place?"   John
knew he had asked a similar question earlier, but it didn't matter as long
as it got Dave's mind off the Vicodin and his brother.

Dave took another slurp of beer.  "Come here with my team after games
sometimes."  He gestured to the screen, "If ya bring a video of ya game
along Matt'll play it."

"Really?  That's nice of him.  Guess that means you have to sit through a
lot of awful games sometimes, huh?" John said, smiling at the thought of
the patrons having to sit through a tape of someone's company softball
game.  Or in Dave's case, hockey game.

Dave shrugged.  "Sometimes.  People bring the good ones along though.   Can
be shouted off otherwise."  Dave grinned.  "Fun.  It's a good bar."

"Sounds like it."

Dave sat back on his seat.  A warm and comfortable glow was beginning to
radiate out from his stomach, and if he turned his head too fast the world
got a little blurry.  This was heading to be an interesting Friday night --
as long as Carter didn't start talking about Mike again.  Dave wasn't too
sure why he'd even mentioned his brother.  He began to relax as Carter
worked his way through the burger.  "So who ya cheering for in the
playoffs?"

John laughed.  "I always cheer for the Bears, but they never get anywhere.
What about you?  Are you a New York fan?"

Dave grinned.  "Where else?"

John laughed.  "I wouldn't bet any money on the Giants, Dave.  They'll
choke up and lose.  They'll never get past Tennessee."

"Tennessee? You are crazy, my friend, around the bend and out the other
side.  The Giants are IT.  They'll be it all the way this year.  You just
wait."

John shook his head.  "You are going to be *so* disappointed.  They will
lose.  Hell, they won't even make it to the Super Bowl.  You wait and see."

"They will too make it.  They'll be there on the day, and they'll be big.
Floor the bad guys.  You just wait." Dave sat back, and glanced gloatingly
at Carter.  "But then, if you support the Bears you wouldn't know a good
team if it bit you on the ass."

"Oh, really?  Well, I'm not a fair-weather fan, Dave.  I support the Bears
in good times and in bad times.  The Cubs, too.  I'm not like those fickle
New York fans who only show up at the stadium when their team is winning."

"Just whatcha saying there?"

John shrugged.  "Just that most Giant fans wouldn't be there if the team
wasn't winning.  In bad seasons, they don't bother to show up at all, or
else they go and cheer for the Jets."

"And when haven't I cheered for the Giants?"  Dave frowned.   "I'll
betcha."  Dave wasn't too sure just how much he had in his wallet, but
payday wasn't too far away.  "Fifty says the Giants win."

"You've got a bet." John replied with a grin.

Dave reached out to solemnly shake Carter's hand.  This was serious, the
Giants winning was serious.  He spoiled the effect slightly by nearly
knocking over his beer glass with his elbow.

Dave's hand was hot and John had so many memories of that hand -- of
sucking on the fingers, of feeling those fingers on his skin, caressing him
and teasing him.  It was with more than a little reluctance that John let
go of that hand.  He noticed how unsteady Dave's arm was though.  "I think
that had better be your last beer, Dave.  You still have to get home, you
know.  And you *can* get a ticket for being drunk and on a bike out in
public," he said with a grin.

"Only.  Four, five, six.  Whatever beers.  Plenty of time.  It's Friday
night."  Dave frowned, but maybe that meant Carter wanted to go back to his
place.  Dave thought he could handle that -- the beers were a warm knot in
his stomach, and the stuff that Carter had done to him the other day had
felt good.  Very good. "'kay.  Can go home." At the thought of that Dave
took another drink of his beer.

"Sure, but I'm driving.  So, no shortcuts through any alleys, okay?"   John
got to his feet and headed over to the bar to pay their tab.  He didn't
think Dave would make it out to the Jeep without assistance, so any hopes
he might have had of making love to Dave were pretty much dashed.  He
mentally kicked himself then for thinking that.  No love-making allowed
with Dave, no pure sex, either.  You didn't do those things with a friend.


To be continued....