Caught in Possession

Two Questions

Warning: Discussion of violence and death. Mature content.

Shadowy players lurking about a murky chessboard - but slowly, light illuminating. Aat Lang on one side and a snake within his ranks, while newly carved piece Officer Up stepped into the spotlight at the opposite end of the game. All to play for: Paithoon, life insurance to one team's competitor, beloved niece to another.

"Gulf, did you know?" Had been Mew's first reaction upon seeing Poompat's police badge that day - a bewildered Tul already ushered out of the building via hastily sketched excuses from the lips of his cousin.

"Mai roo krub", the younger's wide-eyed head-shaken response.

"He didn't", Up confirmed. "I was placed with him once the AC team got wind of the Langs having a 'prize asset'. It wasn't until the deal with Chelsea was sealed that we realised two branches of the operation were suddenly twisting into one trunk. And then when you two started your trysts...we just had to let it play out naturally, not knowing if either one of you had been turned, in fact. Chief Inspector Songthang even used the team's budget to pay for the restoration of Gulf's building after the flood, since the landlord company was dragging its feet over accountability. We tried to get you out of here, just in case..."

"CI Hanuman Songthang? But I thought she was in the Langs' pocket?", Gulf probed, head spinning as once again the unsteady, untrustworthy landscape around him shifted and morphed in tumultuous landslide.

"Well...so do they. She's been in deep for years"

"Are there...more of you?"

"Not in your immediate circle, no, we deemed it too risky. Although...Mild is aware of the operation. We needed a source on the inside to keep us abreast of developments once you two closed ranks together. We knew you were plotting your own route out somehow..."

"So you know about the audio file. But wait -Kaow?", Gulf interjected.

"He's not involved. Though quite possibly wonders why your agent bothers him with so many odd questions every day", came the wry chuckle from Up.

"But were you...P'Min's officer contact?"

"Sadly, no" - the answer was short and final and told its own story.

Silence in the room, as each man acclimatised to their own revised position on the chequered chessboard, until - arm looping around Gulf's shoulders in a proclamation of unity, Mew voiced:

"So then...what now?"

"Well", Up flicked a lighter to the cigarette held between his lips, "...Now, Bonny and Clyde, it's time to chop down the tree and burn it at its rotten roots. In the next weeks and months we will start making moves...Are you ready for the endgame?"

//

Through those dense fogs of unclarity, uncertainty, Mew with a recurring dream that was filled only with openness and translucent light. The wide, bountiful green pastures of a farm built upon the power of renewable energy - mirror to the renewed souls of those who would live there.

"Tell me about our future", Gulf breathed into a passionate, claret-stained kiss one October night, both hands tugging at Mew's shirt collar as the two men alternately caged one another back against the walls of their home - an infinite zoetrope of twirling, tipsy limbs in the moonlight of the small hours.

Then the elder spinning the younger on pirouetting pivot to press his cheek and chest to the cool face of the front door, kissing his way along the curving arch of Gulf's spine beneath a white cotton T-shirt, making his way down, down...