A Rumor of Peace

CHAPTER 33

SUMMARY:  the rest of the talk in the streets of Aquaria City.  Roark and Rodolphus talk about what he found at the Port Authority Archives.  Harry a nd Roark finally close down the last of Riddles businesses, to his fury.  Explicit sexual content.

"So, Rory," the Durin brothers heard Zac say, drawing the two back to the discussion at hand, "is it really serious?"

"Is what serious?" he asked, pausing at the nest vegetable stand, and liking some of what he saw, began to pick out a few different vegetables, as did Harry, both planning on making dinner for their lovers again.

"What is between the two of you and your mystery lovers?"

Roark looked over at him, head tilted slightly as he considered how to answer.  "We've only been together for a few sectars, Uncle," he said slowly, "but...yes, I think what we have found together is very serious.  I'm in love with him."

"And is he in love with you?"

A smile.  "Yes, Uncle Apollo, he is."

"Harry?" he looked over at his other nephew to see him nod, eyes alight and a smile twisting his lips.  "Then the both of you should be aware we're going to want to have a nice long talk with the two of them once this case is over."

A couple of snorts of amusement from behind them, making the two turn to look back at the Durin brothers as Harry and Roark payed for their choices.  "What?"  Roark asked.  "Your brothers and cousins have already made it perfectly clear they want a few words with them too."

Smirks.  "Of course they did.  No, we were just remembering something else."

"Oh?  What would that be?"

Now they both grinned.  "We were remembering that nice long talk we all had with Nicholas when we found out about him and Damien."

"Sweet GODS, that man was positively sickening in his adoration.  Then there was Dylan and Charlie..."

Roark could only laugh, pointing a finger at the two of them.  "Don't you worry boys, your time will come, and sooner than you may think.  It will happen when you least expect it.  Just like it did me."

"And me."  Harry said, looking at them both.  "Come on, let's get back and see what the others have been up too."

                                                                                  cccVccc

"There's something I need to talk to you about," he said quietly much later that night as they lay together under the light blanket in front of the fireplace, his body still tingling from their recent bout on passionate, intense lovemaking, the fingers of his left hand tracing patterns through the forest of hair on his chest.

"Um..." he murmured, head turned, lips brushing over his forehead, his hand moving lazily up and down his back under their blanket.  "Ask me what, darling?"

"It's about something I found in the Port Authority Archives this morning."

"I thought the Archives had been destroyed," he said.

"Most of the main building was, but I took a chance that I might find something in the few papers that DID survive, and I did."  He pressed a kiss to Rodolphus' chest, then sat up, reaching for his robe lying abandoned on the floor not far away.

"Where are you going, babe?" he asked of him tiredly, sitting up himself and shifting several pillows behind his back as he leaned back against the hearth, watching his lover.

"To my desk," he answered, moving over to his desk to search through the papers he had been working on before Rodolphus' arrival earlier that evening.  Finally finding what he was searching for, he went back to him, settling down beside him and handing him the copy of the report he had found.  "It's about a young woman by the name of Leta Lestrange."