thirdway

My first foray Ever into the wendiken world of fanfiction. It was a step forward that slipped on a surprise banana peel of everyone's squickiest pairing. So I am quite repentant, but here we are anyway...

SUMMARY: Up until tonight, Vir has always been able to classify Londo's drunken escapades into two neat categories.

RATING: Um. Most of the time, PG. But it's Londo, and he's had more than a bit of brivari, and he's going to be telling a few stories.

SPOILERS: Just one---Londo gets involved with these guys called Shadows, and---wait. Damn! Sorry if I wrecked it for anyone.

DISCLAIMER: Not only do I renounce any claim on the characters, but a nagging suspicion leads me to prompt that I might be wise to renounce claim on this whole story. My apologies to Hobsonphile, who deserves better.

2)I was very free with my xenobiology and -sociology, I'm afraid, partly for plot/literary device reasons, and partly because I like my aliens alien, humanoid in shape but not necessarily built on the same principles at all. I hope it doesn't contradict anything; all my apologies in advance if it does!

"The Ambassador is extremely indisposed," he repeated in what he wildly hoped was a firm, no-nonsense voice. When Sheridan smiled one of his I-know-all-your-embarrassing-secrets smiles, shouldering past him, Vir threw himself back in the Captain's path with a frantic backpedal. "Mr Sheridan, I'm afraid this is, legally speaking, Centauri soil, and you have no authority-"

"Oh, I have plenty of authority." Sheridan scanned the antechamber, or at least as much of it as he could see past a flailing diplomatic aide. "Londo was due five hours ago. Tell him that if he doesn't get his butt down here now-"

"You don't understand!" His mouth worked, flapping as wide as his eyes before he targeted an excuse. "We have an internal crisis that requires the Ambassador's full attention. There are pressures at work here you know nothing about."

"Mr Cotto!" Sheridan checked himself back from the snap and sighed, letting out a breath of pure long day. "You're slipping, Vir, or you would have remembered feeding me that little number before." With great effort, he unclenched his fists. Okay, he thought. Plan B. "You tell whoever she is she has my deepest sympathies, okay? And give Londo a message for me: Five minutes from now, when I'm explaining the situation to the two hundred and thirty five officials down in the Council chambers, I'm going to tell them the whole story. Got it?"

Vir's eyes popped like toy cannons. "Captain!" He launched himself in pursuit, catching hold of a neatly uniformed shoulder.

Vir stuck his head into the hallway, blinking left and right before turning back to business with a defeated whimper. "The truth is," he whispered, wringing his hands, "that the Ambassador is, well, violently ill. He collapsed about an hour ago. He's unresponsive, he's not sticking in reality, and his temperature is, as you would say, off the charts."

In an instant, Sheridan had rippled from taciturn to tactician. With a snap of his wrist, his hand was at his mouth. "Franklin, we have a medical emergency in Green Sector-"

"But Captain!" Vir wailed, pumped full of leaden horror as excuse after excuse backfired. "Please, some discretion! It's... it's..."

"Do some reading on the Centauri influenza virus and I'm sure you'll understand." He raised his eyes, nodding vigorously along with his own words. "Captain, your reserve on this would be very much appreciated. Now, he was already given proper treatment by one of your medical staff, and I was told that at the very best he'll be up by next morning."

Staring hard at Vir, Sheridan finally lowered his hand. "I'll tell the delegates he's sick. But we're reconvening tomorrow morning at 0800 sharp, and if Londo isn't there, I will personally remove his kneecaps with a blunt instrument... made from his own teeth. Got it?"

"Captain," came Franklin's mellow tones, rippled with either annoyance or amusement, "Centauri don't get the flu, though alcohol poisoning looks pretty much the same. Trust me, their immune system doesn't even operate on the same principle as ours does. It's more like an immune condition, arrived at by a balance of all sorts of physical factors, like fluid levels-captain? Good God, man, you're hyperventilating. Captain?"

Vir backed away from the door, sluicing his hands together into worried knots of fingers. He gazed at it a moment, then turned back into the Ambassador's quarters, quick to arch his step over broken glass. Quietly: "Londo?" He pushed into the audience room.

The Ambassador was lying in perfect imitation of bomb fallout. His coat was stretched over his head, his hands puffed and clenched, his body a brivari- and suspicious-smelling lump. He shifted slightly, then disintegrated into full collapse.

Actually, Vir welcomed the change. He watched him silently, without the gawking mask of energy he wore in public. To his own moral indignation he was half-willing to let Londo wake as he was, with a bad aftertaste of his own fury; being alone and wrecked without his usual frazzled attendant would be a pointed enough message even for him. But he could hardly do such a thing, even for someone's own good, could he? Vir blinked, his palms rubbing in indecision.

"Let me help you, Ambassador," he said, grimacing as his insides shifted to painful sympathy. He bent down and smoothed Londo's coat back over his shoulders. "Can you stand up?"

The mumble sounded very much like "Get out of my sight," but Vir tried hard not to be sure. He hooked his arms around Londo's shoulders. "Let's get you cleaned up. Can you help me get you there?"

Whether the snoring was strategic or not, the result was the same, and if Londo wanted to be dragged to his bath, that was all right with Vir. He dropped him, gasping, on the smooth floor and turned his attention to the tub. "Thirty-seven degrees, three-quarters full," he panted. "Bubbles, please." He'd take all the censorship he could get.

On second thoughts, he didn't want to deal with the clothing issue at all. If any precious material was ruined by water, well, that was hardly his fault. And when it came right down to it, he'd rather pay for a new wardrobe than see Londo naked, for reasons that had nothing to do with prudery and everything to do with metaphor.

With a heave and a splash worthy of the weather charts, the Ambassador was in. Awkward and quick, Vir reached in and set Londo's head back against the marble. The crinkly, cheery smell of the bubbles only made him more uncomfortable as he wiped his hand on his knee.

It was genuine scent of booblossom, very expensive. "Very expensive," Vir echoed, wringing his hands. He'd had to pay for it out of his own pocket during an apparent emergency scenario, when during a withering temper tantrum Londo had insisted at bottlepoint that the old one be replaced, although Vir didn't see what was so wrong with the smell of starlaces. After he had bought it, Londo had put an arm around him. The hook of his elbow across Vir's back had been a big, warm smile.

Vir pursed his fingers, his mind racing to decode what Londo meant. Surely this wasn't a gesture of generosity? "Oh, don't trouble yourself."

"No trouble! You'll find the creatures in the cupboard, just inside." As Vir trudged into the next room, Londo called out, "So! Tell me all the news from home."

Vir peered into a half-empty can and picked out one of the ja-worms, gingerly, at the point of an altogether oversized skewer. The tiny worm was pleasantly plump, a jolly shade of violet, and one of Vir's pet phobias. "There isn't much to tell. One of my cousins is getting married in a few cycles."

"No, Garro would be my father. This is... well, nobody important, I guess." He deposited the wriggling thing into the bottom of a cup and reached for the kettle. His sleeve banged the can over, and he shrieked as the worms came cascading over the counter. "Londo!" he wailed, springing back. In his fright it took him a full second to be embarrassed.

"Great Maker, you're not still afraid of the poor things, are you? Clean them up in a moment; I only need you for a minute or two."

Vir picked his way through the festively-coloured carnage and went towards the table where Londo was sitting, almost but never quite sprawled in amusement over a chair. "Yes, Ambassador?"

"What you were putting in the cup is just an insect, yes? Does he look scary, hmm? Do you realise that you were about to pour boiling 'ala over him, cooking him to death?"

"Vir," said Londo. His eyes had the sparkless look they had when he was either deadly serious or deadly joking. "He means you no harm."

Vir didn't notice the sharp hiss of water jetting into the tub until it cut out. In just a little while the fluids would sink in, mollifying a few of the toxins brivari was crammed with. The prognosis for Londo's clothes, however, was not so happy; the black of his coat was leaking into the bath, diffusing into strains of purple.

Vir suddenly smiled. There, as the dye broke down in water, and there, in the drooping crest-there was the Londo he once never thought he'd wish back. Hoping the moment wouldn't break, he leaned forward and seized the Ambassador's shoulder, gently shaking him awake. "Londo? Ambassador?" He kept his voice soft, he kept it in the smile.

Two eyes forced themselves open with a groan, then winced and turned away. "Vir," he murmured, then paused before finishing, "there is an old Earth rhyme which asks the question: how much wood would a chipmunk vomit if a chipmunk would vomit wood?"

"Computer," said Vir, terse and annoyed that his moment was spoiled, "increase temperature for maximum absorption, please."

"I hate that saying. It makes no sense." A sigh as he jostled himself about in the water, frowning. "And I am not as drunk as you think I am."

"You were." Although he should have been prepared for this; a vault-minded person like Londo took subversively little to leap back on his feet.

He must have been staring, because Londo cocked his head at him. "You are a very judgmental person, do you know that, Vir?"

"Trust me. And understand that this is not a bad thing, being as judgmental as you are. I know this, because my problem was always that I do not judge." While Vir sat in uncomfortable surprise, he closed his eyes again. "Now I feel tired."

"Good. You should, you should," blurted Vir, thankful for the switch. "It means it's worked, or at least as much as it will. I'll get you your dressing gown and towels."

In a few moments, he was standing outside, leaning back on the door. He was worrying at his crest, absently fretting it into ragged little strips. It had been a useful habit a few years ago, when it had been tacitly required that he sacrifice his own dignity to Londo's; now, when the gesture had outlived its usefulness, his fingers still jumped to it in times of apprehension. His current dread was the silence from inside the bathroom-when would the Ambassador notice the state of his coat? No doubt he already had. Did his lack of comment mean anger or understanding?

He skittered away from the door when he heard its preliminary whoosh start up. "Ambassador. Did you manage all right? How are you feeling? Can you walk on your own?" His eyes hopped across Londo's mismatched buttons, and, despite himself, cracked a grin.

The cue was a familiar one, and Vir immediately skirted forwards, reaching out to match each to their proper holes.

"You should try it more often." Alarmed at himself, he cut in again: "There we go, that's the second last; and there's the last one. All done."

Londo looked down, long and distractedly. "Good." He took Vir's arm as easily as if Vir had actually offered it, directing his aide with a heavy lean towards the bedroom.

Once he had seem Londo safely dumped in bed, he reached over and carefully tucked him in. It reminded him of an alphabetical trick he had once, mournfully, shown Mr Garibaldi, at once pleased at his skill with Roman script and aggrieved at the cause. This, he had said, scribing the letters out carefully, is basically what I am:

"Two things," Londo said, pulling himself to sit up, wrecking the painstaking arrangement of blankets. He beckoned, and Vir came a cautious ways closer. "First, you do you know that you will pay, don't you?"

Vir tried to decode that, his eyebrows knitting his brow with painful needles. No kind of thanks came without a hidden meaning. He took it all in, from that sagging crest to the sag of his eyes, the Ambassador half-heartedly with a persistent post-drink clumsiness struggling to unpin himself from the sheets. And Vir kept the shrug quick and uncaring. "It's not a problem." The door looked like a welcome escape from what was beginning to look uncomfortably familiar.

Brivari nights were always something Vir disliked, taking a turn for the traumatic every time Londo was surfacing between stages of drunkenness, not sober enough to tell what was too far and not drunk enough to be incomprehensible. They always went one of two ways.

Way One was downright embarrassing. While Londo sleepily waited for his brain to rehydrate, he would hold Vir prim prisoner on the edge of the bed, recounting his-as Vir labelled them to keep himself sane-Personal Adventures with an air both merry and languid, occasionally accompanied by horrifying gestures.

"She was probably fatter than you! So she was squirming, crying out for my sixth one, but I didn't give her it, and she looked at me and said in this annoying simper, 'What's wrong? You look like a man in pain,' and I said, 'That's because you're lying on it, you fat cow!'"

"AAAGH! Londo!" Vir sprang to his feet, his long patience and martyred silence at an end. "Get it through your head! I! don't! want! to know! Great Mak-AAAGH!" He clamped his hands over his ears, shuddering with livewire loathing.

Way Two was, in its own way, even worse. These happened when it was Mr Morden, not the latest stripper, who was Londo's muse to oblivion. They were long, as Vir was not as able to justify running away screaming when Londo was so helplessly unsnarling his tangled mess of angst. He did his best to sit quietly, pressing his lips together in an iron attempt not to point out exactly whose fault this all was, resisting the urge to shout so do something about it! And tonight was going to be Way Two, he was sure of it.

But to Vir's surprise, when Londo opened his mouth, what came out was not an excruciating melodrama of confession but a small question: "What should I do?"

It was tiny, really, without flash or blatant attempts to snag Vir's pity. And it was that which made Vir pity him. He drew himself up, stepping silently over to Londo's rumpled side, and in his head he ran through the answer he'd written a long time ago in full knowledge-or so he'd been convinced-that Londo would never ask.

"What should you do?" He took a breath and folded his hands to his stomach, in part to try and still the fluttering. "You should break off every tie you have with those people. You should use your influence to convince the Centaurum that peace is a worthwhile goal. You should help me to smuggle as many Narn to safety as we can..." The last sentence snagged his throat. The file on the ironically named Androno Johnsoni would never be used, he was sure of that.

"... but I'm not going to ask you to do all that. Mostly because you won't, and what do I know? Maybe you can't. But Londo, at the very least you should try."

Was that scorn in his voice? In an instant, something in Vir's flickering resolve steadied, and he gave a firm nod.

The sparkless look told him he was almost certainly deadly joking. He made a private noise of disparagement, walking to the other side of the bed to draw down its curtains. "You're not in any state to say that."

Londo gave an aggrieved huff, rolling his eyes. "Yes! Yes! What is so hard to understand? This is what you want, is it not?"

Hesitant, he leaned in, then shied away. Catching Londo's near-affronted gaze, he stammered out, "You-you know that it won't just be me holding you to your word, don't you? I mean, yes, your honesty is bound to me, but the gods-"

Vir knew way, way up in his head that the promise-kiss had nothing to do with love or lovers. It was clean, with mouths closed, nothing touching the two but their lips. But Vir's hearts were jolting in his ribcage, and not, he thought, with affection. And not, he hoped, with affection. In his head he was marking off the required counts with a flurry of agitations, but the heady smell of fading brivari and the unexpected closeness-how could any kiss not be close? what had he expected?-knocked him off-sequence.

Four, eight... seven, eight... eight, nine... Good enough. He couldn't force himself through all twelve. "I bel---" he tentatively pushed Londo back, placing one hand on the Ambassador's forehead to show there was no harm done, or at least not much---"I believe you."

He straightened, tugging busily at the curtains before giving up and leaving them half-open. "Goodnight, Ambassador."

"Yes, please, go." The words started off uncertain, then picked up with a vengeance. "I think you have done quite enough pestering for one evening." Catching Vir's look, which was both affronted and relieved, he snapped a second dose of vitriol with a heavy sigh and eye-roll. "Thank you, Nanny," he growled. "Now get out. I'd rather not have you moping about the room like a particularly uninteresting version of my hangover." As if Vir wasn't already moving out of the room, he continued: "Didn't you hear me?"

Something in the tone. And now that he was listening, it had the distinct, exaggerated strain the Ambassador used to mean do what I want, not what I say. But for all that... "Good night, Ambassador," he murmured. "I'm sorry."

When the door closed behind him he clapped his hands to his mouth, squeezing shut his eyes. That was something he never wanted to do again.

The bright, warm nightlight cast long shadows into the dark antechamber, spidering through the crack under the door.

Vir watched his silhouette spill against the dim bottles and sculptures on the far wall. He reached out, trying to force his hand to lead him away, but something caved, and he waved at the door's sensors.

"Lights." In the new dark, Vir sat at the careful end of the bed. "Go on, Londo," he said softly. "It's all right; I'm here." He paused for the silence, then added, "Thank you for the promise. It---it means a lot to me."

Vir awkwardly let himself down, curled, despite all his own promises to himself, each heart laid at one of Londo's feet.