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There were gaps in Jordan's knowledge. He'd half-sensed that something was missing, that he was missing; he existed as a subset of a mind much like his own, but (he privately felt) weaker, less sharp, dulled by a thousand irrelevancies. It was better than being wiped from existence entirely, but it was not what he wanted, not what he had spent his life building and working his a** off for, and it was frustrating, and now it was also lonely, due to the weakness and stupidity of his counterpart.

He sat in his office, his room, where he kept the most delicate of the information regarding his various projects and tasks, and though everything else was correct, his desk was entirely clear, nothing there to work on. That wasn't right. He didn't remember getting up, or what he'd spent his day on, but the sky outside the wide plate-glass window was darkening from dusk into night, the lights coming up in the city below.

The door came open with a sudden bang, and Jordan was on his feet in an instant, his hand going into his jacket automatically, but the voice and shape in the doorway were familiar, and he relaxed; it wasn't that the Queen was classified as unthreatening entirely, but Rep wasn't that kind of danger. "I'm here," Jordan answered, straightening up. "Judging by the state of my desk, I'm guessing I haven't been here for a while."

He came around the desk, crossed the distance to the door, stopped barely a foot away from Rep, gave him a lazy smile. "Hello again. Good to see you under better circumstances."

There were no scraps under the desk, though a few patches of the carpet smelled faintly of coffee, under the smell of cleaners that had been used to remove any stains. The office was not tiger-friendly, and Mass was not usually permitted inside, but at the moment he was being ignored.

Jordan took Rep's hand, was pulled into an embrace with only the barest, token resistance; he wrapped his arms around the other man and rested his head against vivid red hair, echoed the slow long breath and closed his eyes to better focus on the feel and smell of the lover and friend he'd missed deeply, though he'd had little time independently conscious to feel it. "Oh, well then," he said against Rep's neck, "didn't miss you either, a*****e. Been busy?"

"Mmm. Going to have to get on that, get some people pulled back into line. Can't have them forgetting who and what they owe," Jordan said thoughtfully. He was indeed going to have his work cut out for him, when he could get back to it properly. Rep's approach was direct, straightforward, and effective in its own way, but there were plenty of cases which required the velvet glove over the iron fist, and that was Jordan's specialty. "Need to get the rundown."

However, there were priorities. "Wouldn't mind having a discussion with them myself," and his voice was mild, annoyed; a familiar and dangerous tone to have provoked. "Not fond of not being here." The statement carried all the shades of meaning that being here implied - literally and physically here in their city and in the casino, here to support his partners in their endeavors, here to do his jobs and organize the thousand other jobs that needed organizing, here in his lovers' arms. He leaned in for a kiss, slow and warm and welcoming.

The sounds of minor mischief and scattering wastepaper remained untended to. Cleaning up a small mess was a small price to pay.

"Of course they did." Jordan had very little faith in human nature; or, perhaps, a great deal of faith that people would do whatever they could to get what they wanted, and that very, very few people could be trusted to obey or cooperate without some kind of certainty of consequences. He had resources at his disposal to provide that certainty, and he would likely have to make a few examples. But that was the cost of doing business.

"A little persuasion," he agreed, his smile just as sharp. "Can't have this getting too unbalanced." His other reminded him of a far younger self, a time in his life when he hadn't yet learned the way things were, uncertain and too soft, unwilling to push or fight to carve out his own space. Here, that softness had been burned away by necessity far earlier. In the other world, the waking world, he was only beginning to learn to truly fight. That process might lead to a rebalancing between their others, or it might not, but his knowledge might guide it.

Rep's suggestion was met with a heavy-lidded smirk, one hand curling into the back of his shirt. "Nothing to mess up," he agreed, and backed up toward the desk, not letting go.

Jordan adjusted his tie and fastened the sapphire tie pin in place, tied his hair back again, and slipped into the suit jacket that both completed the look and covered the handgun he carried holstered under his left arm. He didn't need it frequently these days. Security took care of most potential threats long before they could reach him, and Ferros took care of most of the rest, but he hadn't gotten this far by being careless, and the solid weight of it was a totem of sorts. He even had a permit for it; they all did. The careful application of money and connections was a magic all its own.

He reached for Rep as the red-haired man came closer, returning the kiss with a gentle, playful ease. This was, for the moment, outside their game, outside all the rules, spoken and unspoken, and they could leave it tabled to express the genuine feeling and connection that lay underneath. "Maybe a few," he teased back when the kiss ended. "Just a couple." He trailed his fingers down Rep's cheek, smiling. "So who do I need to kill for marking you up?" he asked, sounding almost calm about it.

"Probably," he answered. "It would follow, logically. If I turned up here, he'd be -- " he considered the question for a moment, "in their apartment, or down the hall. Given that some time has passed, I'd check the apartment." He smiled faintly. "I'd like to say hello to Tracey," he agreed. He liked the small woman who was Rep's bodyguard; he'd been initially a little dubious of Ferros's endorsement of her abilities, but his trust in his employee's judgment had proven valid a hundred times over. She handled a lot of difficult jobs as well as catering to Rep's often-unpredictable interests and whims, and Jordan did what he could to see that her life wasn't more difficult than it needed to be.

"I'll take care of it," Jordan promised, his fingers lingering briefly on the scars, gentle, memorizing. In public, he was often aloof and standoffish, touching even his lovers only infrequently; when they were alone, though, he indulged, allowing himself lazy caresses, casual touches, delineating the spaces and the connections between them with hands and body, possessing and possessed. "Mmm. I'll need to get out my tool kit, clear the northern storage facility. When I've got them I'll give you both a call. I won't start without you." He didn't bother to hide the look of focused, faintly mad intensity in his eyes. They were alone. Rep knew him.

He let his hand fall back to his side, and his stance changed subtly, shifting back from just himself to draw the mask of the Advisor back into place so that they could walk the halls. "Yes," he agreed. A faint smile. "Get your damn cat, would you? He knocked over my ******** trash, I'm not leaving him in here." Affection underwrote the annoyance in his tone. Massacre was a pain, an expense, a liability in general, but Jordan liked the tiger anyway, and while he complained loudly, he'd also personally seen to getting the necessary permits and arrangements in place for Rep's exotic pet.

-----

Ferros had not let go of Tracey for more than a few moments since the moment he'd woken to find himself human again, separate, embodied and his own person. He'd missed her sorely, had demonstrated that with the gentlest of touches, with the closeness he had been so long denied. For as long as he was here, for now, they would not be separated. He might have his other obligations to consider, but he guessed that their employers might be sympathetic, even if the leniency were temporary.

He held her in his arms, marveling all over again at how well they fit together in spite of the difference in sizes. In another place, another world, they were something different, but here, here they were the same, here they could touch. He had always treated her as a treasure, as something precious, even long before they had been in any objective way important. That had never changed and never would.

Ferros nodded and let his embrace loosen, gently, so that Tracey could pull free if she wanted to, though he did not drop his arms yet. He would take what time he had, what time he could get, and he was not yet on the clock or under orders. He bent to kiss her forehead once more, as he had the first time, and waited for the inevitable, not quite tense nor fully relaxed.

As he stepped into the apartment, Jordan's eyes flicked briefly around the room in a reflexive check. There should be no threats here, but he hadn't stayed alive this long by assuming. Satisfied that the area was safe, he let his gaze return to the two people curled together on the couch. Ferros met his eyes, asking silently. Jordan shook his head just a little. Tracey wasn't looking at him, and he allowed himself to study her tense, proud profile. She was, perhaps, afraid of his reaction; she must know that he had noticed the scars, had gotten an explanation.

He had had time to think it over during the walk downstairs, turning the situation over in his mind. Though she was small and light, Tracey was a force to be reckoned with in her own right, fast, skilled, and vicious. She was more than competent at her job, and had demonstrated the fact many times over. Whoever had arranged the kidnapping, therefore, must have known this and factored it into their plans, using surprise or sufficient force; Jordan thought the former was more likely. It seemed highly unlikely that Tracey had been negligent or incompetent enough to allow the capture without as much resistance as she had been capable of. He would need to get as much information from her as he could about the event itself, but he placed most of the blame elsewhere. "Good evening," he said cordially, allowing himself a small smile and a relaxed stance. "I see you've found one another."