Just then, and completely unexpectedly, a familiar face appeared before him, partway down the stairs of what the map said was indeed the Annalian consulate.
“NICK!” popped out of his mouth before he could think.
‘Nik Lindberg’ was just leaving the Annalian consulate to head home to his little rented apartment – with His Excellency Abelson Niebecker right behind; they had been chatting casually as they walked down the entrance hall – when he spotted a surprisingly-familiar face in the street.
“NICK!” that same face called, even as the footsteps close behind halted. “Nick! I thought I’d never find you!”
Ashton thought fast.
“Rik! Oh, my dear Rik!” Ashton cried, running down the last few steps to the sidewalk – it didn’t move in front of the consulate, to prevent falls off a slidewalk as people went in and out of the consulate – and grabbing the shoulders of none other than Rick Honda. “What in God’s name are you doing here, sweetheart?”
“Huh?” Honda barely got out... before Ashton planted a big wet one on him, even slightly dipping the shorter man for good measure. Honda dropped his duffel on the sidewalk with a plop! and all but forgot about it in his surprise.
“Go with it,” Ashton told him in a secure VR link. “The man on the stairs behind me is the Annalian consul. We’re old lovers, you and me.”
“Um, right, uh, okay,” Honda replied in the link – his normal preference was for women, and he’d never had to go undercover as a gay man before. But I can do this, he thought. Just imagine Nick as a gorgeous girl. Then he had to stifle the guffaw that wanted to come out; Nick was a handsome man, but nothing about him bespoke ‘feminine.’ Nor, Honda decided despite his imagination’s best efforts, would he make a particularly attractive female.
A by-now badly flustered Honda tried to respond in kind as best he could. It helped that what looked like an intensely passionate kiss was in fact fairly chaste; Ashton kept his tongue in his own mouth, and poked it here and there to make it look like Honda was tonguing him. Quickly Honda picked up on the technique. After several long moments, Ashton finally let Honda come up for air.
“Oh, damn, that was good, honey,” Honda said then, flushing and grinning sheepishly. “I’ve missed you. So much.”
“I’ve missed you, too, dear,” Ashton replied. Then he feigned a start, and turned, to see consul Niebecker watching with a smile. “Oh!”
“Well, well,” Niebecker said. “You surprise me every day, Lindberg. I should not have thought you went that way.”
“He’s been known to go both ways, sir,” Honda said, flushing even deeper. “It’s why he’s been here and I haven’t. I, um, I got... jealous... of some girl he thought was pretty, and...”
“We broke up about a year and a half, maybe two years, ago,” Ashton said with a sigh. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean anything by the comments, the flirtation – I was just being silly – but it hurt him...” He shrugged. “That was when I emigrated here. Without Rik, there was nothing for me back home.”
“I... I thought I’d come looking for you,” Honda said then, improvising fast. “I expected you’d come home after we got our mad out... but then I found out you left Brado, and...” He sighed. “I missed you, Nikky. So I saved up the money for the star liner fare, and came looking...”
“And you found me,” Ashton said with a smile. “And I’m really glad.”
“May I know who your beloved is, Nik?” Niebecker said, smile morphing into a grin.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” Ashton began, even as Honda stuck out a hand.
“Rikhart Fielding, sir,” Honda filled in, as he shook hands with the consul. “And you are...?”
“His Excellency, Abelson Niebecker of Annalia, the consul to Carolina,” Ashton introduced his ‘boss’ in a formal fashion by way of seeming to make amends for being rather off-kilter. “I work in the consulate these days, Rik.”
“Oh!” Honda exclaimed, pleased. “Are you someone important, Nikky?”
“No, no,” Ashton demurred modestly. “I’m just a cleaning person. A janitor.”
“My personal cleaning person, and most likely to become my personal assistant soon,” Niebecker said. “He handles my office very nicely. He’s extremely intelligent and picks up on new things very quickly. And does any other little task I ask him to do, quickly and efficiently and without complaint, even if it is not within his usual employment purview.”
“Oh, sir, Your Excellency, sir,” a shocked – but secretly delighted – Ashton all but stammered, “personal assistant? I’m surely not good enough for that.” Meanwhile, he was thinking, SCORE!
“We’ll see,” Niebecker said, self-satisfied. “And now you have a family to care for; you’ll need more salary. He is coming to live with you, yes?”
“Yes,” Honda said firmly, then paused, suddenly seeming uncertain. “I mean, I guess, if... Nik?”
“Is this your bag?” Ashton said, pointing at the forgotten duffel on the sidewalk.
“Um, yes...”
Ashton picked it up, slung it over his shoulder, then took Honda’s hand. “Then come home with me, dear.”
Niebecker broke into a wide smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Nik,” he called after the departing backs. “And then we will discuss your future.”
Ashton glanced over his shoulder and waved with his free hand, smiling happily.
“Holy shit, that was close,” Ashton murmured, as soon as they were well away from the consulate and he was certain that no one was following, or in earshot.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Honda said, shamefaced. “I should have thought. I’m not used to this kinda shit. And I’m tired, ‘cause I’ve been all over this damn city, trying to find the embassies…”
“Consulates.”
“Huh?”
“The embassies
