Rating R. m/m slash fiction.
Author Sue.

Feedback and comments are very welcome. Email Sue at . Please note that due to work commitments, replies may be delayed or not possible. Apologies in advance.

INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST TABOO

1. ILLUMINATION

The face in the mirror smiled genially at Henry Jones, and he returned the compliment with a deep, happy chuckle. He supposed his birth certificate was right when it told him his sixty-fifth birthday was imminent, but it certainly didn't feel that way to him. If it wasn't for the bald pate, the white whiskers and the rather solid and undeniable existence of Junior he could almost have convinced himself he'd made an error or thirty years or so in calculating his age.

Well, maybe not thirty, he corrected himself, whimsically. His son was in his late thirties already, and Henry had to admit he didn't feel anything like as fit as Junior obviously was. Twenty, perhaps? Yes, he could pass for forty-five, with a little hair dye. With a little hair.

Irrepressibly he giggled at the dinner-jacketed image. Professor Henry Jones, mediaevalist, model of propriety, was about to address a prestigious meeting of the New York City branch of the Historical Society, a body of wealthy men and women whose interest was in funding archaeological expeditions and historical research. The previously-announced speaker, President of the Society Walter Donovan, had vanished whilst on an expedition to the Middle-Eastern country of Hatay and was thought to have died during an earthquake in a remote mountainous region. Henry knew better - he had heard from his son how Donovan had met his death - but when Donovan's widow had suggested the Society ask Henry to speak at the meeting he'd chosen to remember the man's previous good character and many charitable bequests before accepting the invitation.

Henry reached for his eyeglasses and put them on. Suddenly the man in the mirror didn't cut quite such a dashing figure any more, and he couldn't suppress a sigh. Sharing his son's adventures - having Junior share his adventures - had made him feel young again. It had taken him back to a time in his life when everything was an adventure - marriage to Olivia, the birth of their son, the quest for the Grail - before the monstrous obscenity of cancer had invaded his wife's body and wreaked its slow, terrible havoc. Henry hadn't realised what happiness he was losing until it was too late - and he'd almost compounded the error thirty years later by losing Junior before they'd had a chance to be happy together.

He hadn't lost Junior, though. In saving his son from the earthquake he had saved his own life, too - saved a relationship the pair of them had only just discovered and which he knew now they had both needed for years. Still needed.

One of these days he'd bring himself to say the words to Junior - tell the boy he loved him. He'd almost managed it three months ago in Hatay when the tank, with Junior and Vogel still aboard, went over the cliff. In that moment he'd caught a glimpse of the horror of life without Junior and had been utterly devastated by his loss. Then, while he was still struggling to express his grief, trying to find words for what he had lost, he'd turned and set eyes on the miraculous sight of Junior at his side - alive, uninjured, exhausted, a living, breathing, whole human being. Incoherent with relief he'd thrown his arms around the boy and held on tight, feeling strength return to the wearied limbs as Junior sagged against him and, for the first time in decades, they had hugged each other close and expressed by the embrace a love that wasn't yet ready to be put into words. It reminded him of all those nights after Olivia's death, when he and Junior had only had each other for comfort. Then, when Junior had woken up crying, Henry had hugged him and realised that they meant the whole world to one another. He'd been able to see that so clearly when Junior was small - so why, he wondered, had he found it so difficult to acknowledge as his son grew up?

He shrugged, straightened his bow tie, and made for the door. He'd have to get out of the habit of thinking of his son as 'Junior'. The 'boy' was a boy no longer - at thirty-eight, he preferred to be known as 'Indiana', and Henry had resolved to try and get used to the unfamiliar name. He'd used it sparingly - the first time had been when he had Indiana by the hand, trying to pull him out of the ravine that had opened up beneath the temple. Just that one word had saved Junior's life - it was a powerful spell where his son was concerned, and Henry felt he owed it to Indiana to try and use the name he had chosen for himself.

Henry's address to the meeting went well. His style wasn't dry and academic like that of many speakers at such events, but enlivened by wit and originality. The most important aspect of his delivery, however, was the enthusiasm he managed to convey for his subject - in this case, a dissection of the reality behind Arthurian legend. Towards the end of his peroration he touched briefly on the most powerful symbol of the sage, the Holy Grail, and it was barely noticeable to his audience that his voice shook slightly and his eyes brightened at mention of that fabulous artefact. He ended, mendaciously, by dismissing the possibility of the Grail's continued existence and by regretting the tragic loss of Walter Donovan whilst searching for it.

The applause began at the rear of the hall and rippled forward enthusiastically. Only then did Henry take the opportunity to glance around his audience, and immediately picked out two very well-known faces hidden away on the back row. Marcus Brody and Henry Jones Junior had obviously sneaked into the hall at the last moment to hear Henry's address - Marcus would have received an invitation, he reminded himself, and had doubtless brought along Junior as his guest. Henry hadn't expected to see either of them, and when Junior rose to his feet, still clapping, Henry wondered for a moment whether he was seeing a vision. Bespectacled, dinner-suited and wearing his meekest expression, this version of his son was as unlike the human powerhouse known as Indiana Jones as anyone Henry was ever likely to encounter, and he found the transformation both baffling and oddly exhilarating. Had it not been for something unholy that gleamed from Junior's eyes, Henry might not have recognised the wolf in sheep's clothing as his own beloved son.

The applause died down but Junior remained standing, edging towards the exit with his full attention on Henry. Isla Donovan had got to her feet and was making her very first attempt at public speaking. In a few shy, graceful words she thanked Henry for his talk and also for the long friendship he had shared with her late husband, and for the attempts he had made to locate Walter's body in Hatay. Henry had accepted the necessity of deceiving Isla, but that didn't mean he liked it any better. When she faltered and her voice began to desert her, he stepped forward gallantly and kissed her hand, then turned as quickly as he could and left the platform. He had experienced great difficulty in absorbing what Isla was trying to say, since his son's presence was occupying so much of his consciousness. Excusing himself from the many members of the Society who crowded around him with questions, he shouldered his way through the crowd almost rudely until he reached the doorway where Junior was leaning against the wall, and embraced him warmly.

"Son, what on earth are you doing here?"

Indiana grinned as he returned the hug with interest. "Thought we'd drive down and surprise you," he informed his father. "It was all Marcus's idea."

Henry released him and shook hands with a grinning Marcus. "You sentimental old fool," he chided. "You drove two hundred miles just to hear me speak?"

"He drove," Marcus informed him, with a laugh. "Like a maniac," he added, confidentially.

"That's no surprise." Henry threw an arm around each of them. "Let's have dinner," he suggested. "I never eat before a speaking engagement - I'm hungry." As they exited the room, ignoring the whole Historical Society, Henry marvelled at his own relaxed behaviour. He was free now; free to be himself, free to embrace his son - even in public, if he chose. That was what the Holy Grail had done for him. It had brought into his life a man named Indiana Jones, a mysterious being inhabiting Junior's body - and had brought him also the freedom of spirit to enable him to share emotions he could now be proud of.

"You look well, Dad," Indiana informed him in a low voice as they made tracks for the hotel's dining-room.

"So do you. The outfit suits you." Leaning closer, eyes twinkling, Henry added; "Where are the hat and the bullwhip?"

"In the car," was the confidential reply, delivered with a smile.

Henry shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. Even in the middle of New York City, Junior was ready for whatever adventure might present itself.

"I don't think you'll need them over dinner," he advised his son.

Indy's eyebrows lifted. "That depends on the waiter," he replied.

The three men ate well that evening and drank an extensive quantity of champagne, Marcus making the most significant inroads into it. Conversation flowed naturally and happily and if, towards the end of the evening, Marcus's contributions became infrequent and incoherent, the two Joneses did not notice. They were so caught up in each other's presence, in the rediscovery of a relationship both had thought dead and buried years ago, in the fresh discovery of each other as adults and equals, that they barely noticed they were the last guests in the dining-room and that as midnight approached the waiters were busy turning off lights and covering tables all around them.

At length the head waiter turned and sidled up to Henry.

"Monsieur, I regret..." His stage French accent had amused Indy all evening and now produced another fit of uncontrollable giggling. "... the dining room is closing."

Henry's eyebrows climbed in search of his hairline. He drew out his pocket-watch and studied it as though he suspected some duplicity. "Good heavens," he muttered to his son, "just look at the time. You can't drive back now. We'd better take Marcus up to my suite - he can sleep on the couch."

Obligingly he signed the bill for the meal and fished out a tip for the waiter. Indy staggered to his feet, hauling Marcus upright by wrapping an arm around the man's waist and draping Marcus's free arm over his shoulder. Henry appropriated what was left of the champagne - there was two-thirds of a bottle left, and enough Scots in his ancestry to deplore waste.

"Lead on," said Indy. Henry headed for the elevator, holding all the intervening doors open for his son and Marcus. In the elevator they propped the corpse against the wall and exchanged knowing grins with the young operator whilst drinking champagne from the neck of the bottle. The boy watched their slow progress down the second floor corridor with some amusement.

Henry unlocked the door and swung it open, and Indy half-dragged, half-carried the semi-comatose Marcus to the couch where he dropped him unceremoniously. Henry closed the door, handed Indy the bottle, and stepped forward to remove Marcus's shoes and loosen his tie.

"The annoying part is," he observed, casually, "he never, ever gets hung over."

"I know," Indy groaned. "Five or six hours from now he'll be wide awake and bright as a button. Well, he drives home."

"I hate a man who can hold his liquor," Henry complained, fetching a blanket from the bedroom to cover his long-time colleague.

This accomplished, he removed his own tie and settled down in the deep armchair, accepting a glass of champagne from Indy as he did so.

"I'm still amazed you drove all this way to hear a talk I've given a hundred times," he observed softly, looking up at his son with wide, bewildered eyes.

"I didn't come to hear the talk." Indy sat down at his father's feet, leaning back against Henry's knees without seeming to notice what he was doing. "I came to see you." On the couch, Marcus snored happily.

"Ah." Henry's response was enigmatic, but it encouraged Indy to say more.

"Well, we have a lot of lost time to make up for," he continued. "And I missed you."

"All the time? Or just the last three months?" Henry sipped at the champagne.

"All the time, I guess." Indy shifted to look up into his father's face. "We're just too alike, Dad. We shouldn't be apart - especially not now."

Henry patted his shoulder comfortingly. "I feel the same way," he informed him. "In fact, I've just tendered my resignation. It's time I moved further north to be closer to you - my career is just about drawing to a close, anyway."

Indy's expression was troubled. "You'd do that?" he asked, startled. "Give up Princeton? You love it there!"

"Perhaps I have other priorities now," Henry told him, soothingly.

Indy settled himself more comfortably against Henry. Something about this evening had wiped away the inhibitions of thirty years, taking them back to the closeness they'd known then. If it was the champagne, Indy thought, he'd better order a few dozen crates - or a few hundred.

"You said you'd found 'illumination'," he remembered, sleepily. "Did that mean what I thought it did?"

"That I'd found you?" Henry set the champagne glass down on a side-table. "Of course it did." His tone became wistful. "You've grown up, boy - without any help from me. It seems only yesterday you were a child sitting on my knee, but now you're...well, the only suitable word for you, my boy, is 'hero'. I'd never imagined you could grow into anyone so strong, so resourceful. I admire that in you."

"Dad, you just never let me get close to you. I was here all the time, but you just couldn't see me. You were so busy missing Mom you never had time for me."

Henry accepted the accusation nobly. "You're quite right," he said. "She was a wonderful woman, but it's been thirty years. It's time I let go of my memories and started living again."

Indy reached for the champagne bottle and reached across Henry to top up his father's glass, then refilled his own. "You realise," he observed, "that you hugged me in a room full of people?"

"Of course. You're my son."

"You never hugged me in public before," Indy told him, sounding younger by the minute. "Maybe you didn't hug me enough when I was growing up."

"It was difficult for me then," was the sad reply. "I'm prepared to make up for it now, though."

"You are?" For a moment Indy stared at him, as if he couldn't quite believe what he had heard - and then in a sudden wild scramble he climbed up onto Henry's lap and wrapped both arms around his father's neck, burying his face against Henry's shoulder. It would have looked comical to an outside observer to see a man of almost forty cuddling his father like a child with nightmares, but to Indy at that moment nothing had ever seemed more appropriate. After the initial jolt of surprise, Henry hugged back fiercely.

"You know," Indy murmured, savouring the closeness and drawing strength from it, "we haven't done this in three decades."

"I know," Henry told him with a chuckle. "There's a reason for that, Indiana. You don't get any lighter."

Indy began to withdraw, afraid his father was uncomfortable with his weight, but Henry reached out and pulled him back down close. "Sober I might not be able to do this," he said softly, tightening the embrace. "Let me make the most of it now."

Indy relaxed into the curve of Henry's shoulder. "I'll always love you, Dad," he said, almost casually. It occurred to him even as he spoke that this was the first time he'd actually said 'I love you' and meant it.

"And I, you," was the gruff response. "I promised myself in Hatay that one day I'd tell you."

"Oh hell," his son murmured softly, "I knew you did - but it's good to hear you say it."

Henry, however, had promised himself more than just a casual admission of his feelings. He wasn't going to cheat on himself now. He pushed Indy back to arm's length and repeated the words, gravely, as though to leave Indy in no doubt.

"I love you, son."

"Yeah, and I love you." Indy was fading rapidly in an alcoholic haze. He felt as if he might pass out at any minute. He snuggled down again, head on Henry's shoulder, preparing to sleep there as he had so many times as a child.

A voice from the couch awakened him suddenly.

"This is all very charming, old darlings," Marcus said, with remarkable clarity and some wit, "but would you mind falling in love somewhere else? I'm trying to get to sleep."

Indy looked over at the recumbent man, thunderstruck, bemused as much by his ability to speak as by the words he had employed. He hauled himself up off Henry's lap in one swift, fluid movement.

Henry stared up at him, concerned. Surely this couldn't be embarrassment he was witnessing? Junior never got embarrassed. However, now he came to think of it, perhaps the adventurous Indiana Jones would be hurt if he thought someone - anyone - had seen him crawl into his father's arms for a reassuring cuddle.

"Time for us to get some sleep, too," Henry declared, trying to sound businesslike and distract Indiana's attention from Marcus.

"Sure," was the relieved response. "Give me a blanket and I'll crash out in the chair."

"You will not." Henry was the stern parent again. "The Society paid for the whole of the suite, Junior - there's a double bed in there, and I only intend to use half of it. You can have the other half," he added, forcefully, "if you promise not to kick."

Indy watched as Henry entered the bedroom and sat down on the bed to remove his shoes. He stood in the doorway between the two rooms, with Marcus's snores rattling around the room behind him and the strange prospect of sharing Henry's bed ahead.

There wasn't a soul in the world he loved as much as Henry. Not to share with him would be unthinkable, and yet -

A tiny voice at the back of his skull warned him that this decision was never going to be simple. It wasn't simply a question of where he should sleep; it was more a test of how much he loved his father.

Henry had removed his jacket and was detaching his cufflinks. He seemed unaware of Indiana's presence, or of his indecision. He neither spoke nor turned towards his son, but concentrated on what he was doing.

Indy turned away and heard a ragged exhalation from Henry. He went back into the living-room, switched out the lights, and reappeared in the bedroom removing his tie. For no reason that he could yet understand, closing the door behind him had the finality of burning a lifeboat.

Indy undressed with his back to Henry, and climbed into bed wearing only his undershorts. Henry, wearing only pyjama trousers, took, a few minutes to hang up his dress-clothes carefully, and then occupied the other half of the bed, switching out the bedside light immediately.

They lay back to back in complete, companionable silence.

Indy's breathing slowed. He must be drunk indeed if he had seen the simple invitation to be comfortable as something other than what it was. It wasn't as if he hadn't shared beds before, both for the sake of convenience and for pleasure, but this time it seemed somehow different. This time it had felt like crossing the Rubicon.

"Goodnight, Indiana." Henry's deep voice in the darkness, relishing the second word. Indy had never heard his chosen name delivered with such obvious pleasure at the sound.

"Goodnight, Henry," he responded automatically, relaxing into the pillows beneath him. Then he realised what he had said. "You don't mind if I call you that, sometimes?"

"It's my name," was the smooth, sleepy reply.

"Mine, too."

"Mmmm?" The diminishing cadence of Henry's response indicated that he was almost asleep. "Don't kick now, Junior, there's a good boy."

"No sir," Indy whispered. "Goodnight, Dad."

There was no response save the contented sound of Henry's breathing, so Indy pulled the sheet up around his shoulders and settled down to sleep.

About two hours later, Indy became aware of a muttering close by his ear.

"Junior? Junior...where are you? I can't see you."

Indy half-woke and turned over. Henry didn't seem to be awake; his unconscious mind was obviously deeply troubled over something.

Indy shuffled closer. "Okay, Dad, I'm right here," he mumbled, throwing a protective arm around Henry's cool shoulders.

"Give me your other hand, Junior...I can't hold on..."

It was the earthquake, Indy realised. Henry was reliving the moment when the floor of the temple had opened up and he and Elsa had plunged towards the chasm beneath. He'd been unable to save Elsa - her greed had overwhelmed even her will to live - but his father had saved him. Henry, who only minutes before had been closer to death than Indy ever wanted him to be again, had found the miraculous strength to pull him back from the edge of Eternity. Saving each other's lives like that could soon get to be a habit, Indy thought, settling down on the unoccupied half of his father's pillow.

"Junior? It is you..." The words were exhaled softly, with a satisfied sigh.

Indy tightened the embrace. "It's okay, Henry," he said, mostly to himself. "I'm not planning on going anywhere without you. Not again." The thought surprised him vaguely, as if he had never expected to put into words the way he felt about the idea of being separated from his father. Now he analysed it for himself, all he really wanted was to have Henry close enough to reach out and touch him whenever he needed to.

He needed to a lot, these days, he realised. It was getting confusing. Their very closeness was sending messages to his groin, prompting a reaction he would hate to have to explain to Henry.

"Are you out of your mind?" he told it, out loud. "Get back to sleep."

Sullenly it obeyed - eventually. After a few more minutes, the rest of him followed suit.

The bedroom door flew open and the light snapped on just after five thirty that morning, startling them both awake. The light was switched out and the door closed again just as swiftly, and the two men lay still in the positions in which they had fallen asleep, listening as Marcus at length located the bathroom. The sound of the lavatory flushing was comfortingly familiar - a normal sound in a world becoming less sane by the minute.

"Got lost in his own museum," Henry rumbled, softly, aware that his son was fully awake but completely comfortable with the situation in which he found himself.

They lay and listened as Marcus stumbled back to the couch; heard his sigh of exasperation as he settled down again.

"You British amaze me," Indy told him, lightly. "Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after all that champagne."

"You're half-British," Henry reminded him, rolling over onto his back. It was pitch dark in the room; only tiny points of reflected light from between the heavy drapes picked out Indiana's eyes in the shrouding blackness.

"True. You want to talk, or go back to sleep?"

"'Marcus hath murdered sleep'," misquoted Henry, ruefully. "I love him dearly, but sometimes he's a liability."

Indy grunted agreement. "Gets easier, doesn't it? Telling people you love them?"

"In your case I no longer find it difficult," his father acknowledged.

Indy was acutely aware that they were now almost face-to-face in the darkness and holding each other very close. He wasn't used to being this intimate with another person without making love. His groin chose this inopportune moment to reassert itself, and he pulled back out of Henry's arms instantly, feeling pretty foolish.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Stupid thing to do."

Henry's tone was only mildly critical in reply. "I presume," he said, "that's why you reacted so strongly to what Marcus said earlier? It hit close to home, didn't it? You looked as if someone had stuck a knife into you. Are you so embarrassed at being seen to be vulnerable?"

"I'm not embarrassed," Indy told him, convincing neither himself nor his hearer. He'd never been able to lie to his father, and now he tried he didn't make a very good job of it. "Just...took me by surprise, that's all."

"Marcus drinks too much," Henry informed him, explosively. "He always has, and he probably always will. When he's drunk, his tongue gets out of control."

"In vino veritas," Indy said sadly. "He wasn't that drunk; he was more or less right."

"What do you mean 'more or less right'?" Henry sounded as if he was squaring up for a good argument. "I brought you up to avoid that kind of woolly thinking."

Indy sat up and threw the sheets off himself, on the verge of losing his cool completely. "If being 'in love' is being afraid to be apart," he said, rationally, as if he were delivering one of his famous lectures, "always wanting to be together, feeling lost when you can't reach out and touch someone... You know, I hate not being close enough to touch you."

"Dammit, boy," Henry sounded at the limit of his endurance, !in that case, what are you doing over there?"

The tone of his response shocked Indiana even more than his own physical reaction had. "You don't understand, Dad," he said, feeling as if the world was about to fall apart in his hands. "I'm getting ..." he hesitated, searching for a polite way of expressing himself, and feeling his face fill with blood in the merciful darkness, "...aroused, I guess."

"Oh." For what seemed an eternity there was silence, and then Henry sat up beside him and his hands, reaching out in the dark, encountered Indy's shoulders. "Is that all?"

"All?" Indy was appalled by the casual way in which Henry had accepted the revelation. "Isn't it enough? It's wrong!"

"Very moral of you," Henry told him, an edge of mockery colouring the words. "But I would have thought you had it in you to be more tolerant - and, incidentally, more forgiving of yourself. When you were a child, you were content to let me make the decisions about right and wrong."

"This is different, Dad!" Indy's exasperation was beginning to show itself as a raised voice; this had all the makings of a full-scale, destructive row like the ones they'd had when he was a teenager and later. "You don't know what you're saying," he added, miserably. "It's being with you that's doing this to me!" Having an argument with Henry was like trying to wade through knee-deep molasses; it got him nowhere and he didn't see the point of it.

"I'm not such a fool as you seem to think, Indiana." Henry's deep voice in the darkness was like the touch of velvet against his bare skin. "Haven't you ever stopped to wonder what being close to you might be doing to me? Very much the same sort of thing, I should imagine."

Indy almost choked. He hadn't expected that. "And that's not wrong?" he asked, bemused.

"Not if I still get to make the decisions, Junior," was the mild reply.

"Oh, Jeez, Henry," Indy complained, wearily, distracted from the argument in hand, "I wish you wouldn't call me that!"

"I'm sorry - Indy." Henry drew back and lay down again on the bed. "What is it that shocks you?" he asked, calmly. "That at my advanced age I'm still capable of sexual desire? Or that I should be interested in you as a partner?"

Indy got out of bed and walked over to the window, parting the drapes slightly to allow the first glimmer of a grey dawn, to penetrate the room. "Maybe I was shocked when I heard about you and Elsa, but by then it was obvious she was just using both of us."

"She slept with Donovan, too," Henry told him, gently.

Indy wasn't surprised. "That figures," he said. "But we weren't talking about Elsa, were we?" his father insisted, using the girl's name more gently than he had in some time. He knew Indy had been hurt by her betrayal.

"We were talking about you," his son acknowledged. "No, I'm not shocked you can feel that way; maybe I'm not even shocked that it happens when I'm around. You know I'm not a prude - i can cope with most things. Maybe what really shocks me is the way I feel - what I want." He shrugged. "I ought to leave," he said, dispiritedly. "Marcus could always take the train." However he made no move away from the window.

"But you won't. If you were going to leave, you could have done so without coming to bed at all. I doubt now you'd be capable of leaving." The voice was wisdom itself, and Indy's mind went straight back to their adventures; everything he and Henry had said to each other then was imprinted very firmly on his memory. He'd found reassurance in that tone before - and a dozen other things too complicated to name.

Indy let the drape fall back into place and returned to the bed slowly. He sat down on the foot facing the door, shoulders hunched. "So what exactly is happening here?" he asked, dazedly. "You're telling me you want me - me - as a lover?"

Henry considered the question carefully. "I do," he admitted at length. "But only if it's also what you want. And you do."

"Yeah..." Indy didn't sound at all certain.

"Then what's holding you back?"

"Dammit to hell, Henry, you know what's holding me back! In case you'd forgotten, you're my father! I'm your son!"

"Oh, really?" There was more pain than anger in Henry's sarcastic tone, and it cut Indy to the heart. "It was kind of you to remind me, Junior. I'd quite forgotten that insignificant fact."

"Dad..." The icy chill in the words had filled Indy with dread. He was beginning to think he'd hurt Henry beyond repair.

"Of course, to the Ancient Greeks all this would have been perfectly acceptable!" Henry growled. "They would have had no objections at all to a father and son becoming lovers. Since that time their healthy attitude to sex has been reviled and distorted by pen-pushing lawyers who have imposed their own taboos on other people's morality. My conscience is clear, son; I'm not ashamed of what I feel. You're over the age of consent - an adult with free will. I thought that at long last you might possibly be able to understand something about me and the way I feel about you, but apparently I was mistaken. I did think," he added, disappointedly, "I'd raised you to be a little more broad-minded."

Indy was bowed under the weight of his father's disapproval. "It's not a question of not being broad-minded," he said, unhappily. He was acutely aware, amongst other things, of just how much of this discussion Marcus was likely to have heard. "I just need to get used to the idea. Besides which - you know, we've only just found each other again. Are you sure it isn't a little too soon for this?"

Henry collapsed back onto the bed in defeat. "Of course," he said, regretfully. "'Had we but world enough, and time...'"

"Oh, Henry, you know I love you!" Indy told him desperately. "But the biological facts don't go away, you know."

"I know. Well, Indiana, you must do as you see fit. I expect if you decided to drive back now you'd be able to persuade Marcus to go with you. I don't suppose he's been able to get back to sleep."

The hurt in his voice made the decision easy for Indy. He crawled back into bed beside Henry and pulled the sheet up over himself again. He didn't touch his father, merely lay close and by his very presence offered comfort.

"Actually," said Henry at length, "you're quite wrong." There was an edge of pain to his voice Indy would have done anything to remove.

"I usually am. What about, this time?"

"The biological facts do go away," was the unexpected reply. "Or, at least, they can be made to retreat into the background. Haven't you ever made love to another man's wife? Surely the fact that technically what you were doing was illegal didn't stand in your way then?"

Indy couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Well, now you come to mention it..."

"Lord Nelson used to say that regulations were for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men," Henry supplied.

"I just don't want to spoil what we already have by getting too..." he paused, guiltily, "...carried away."

"Becoming lovers, boy," scolded Henry, "generally implies making love in some form. I haven't the least idea how to go about it with you, but doubtless we could think of something, if we cared to."

"If!" exclaimed Indy, raising himself from the mattress and looking down through the shadows into Henry's face and seeing - truly seeing - him for the first time; "I care to, I want to! I just didn't think you realised what you were getting into. I even know how," he added, softly. "I mean, I've read a couple of books on the subject. It's just that I love you far too much to want you hurt - even by me."

"Are you suggesting you might be too rough for me?" Henry asked provocatively, moving closer still. "I'm unlikely to fall apart at your touch."

"Oh, really? Maybe we'd better put that to the test?"

In the semi-darkness Indy's hand explored the other man's face, tracing the strong lines of lips and eyebrows and toying gently with the curve of Henry's bearded jaw and his neck. Henry was a whole new country spread out before him, a blank map with paths and highways still to be drawn. He was not the first to step into this territory - forty years before, his own mother had made the same journey. There was something almost comforting in that knowledge - the knowledge that when Henry Jones gave his heart, he gave it without reservations and forever.

Henry had the hard physique of a much younger man. Indy knew without having it demonstrated to him that this lovemaking was going to be the experience of a lifetime. After all his many adventures - sexual and otherwise - and his unsatisfactory relationships with women, coming to rest here in Henry's bed, in Henry's arms, was not only safe but right. He'd known that since he climbed onto Henry's lap the previous evening. In a sense, he'd known it for more than twenty years.

The older man understood him exactly. Indy had needed to give himself some kind of permission to be in love with Henry. He'd managed to grasp the fact that being alone with the man in the darkness removed the need to obey society's conventions, and that had liberated his conscience. All sexual, relationships, all love affairs, involved an abandonment of self, he realised now, approaching his lips to Henry's for the very first time. Consenting adults in private were free to do whatever they damn' well liked. And Henry was quite right - they were both well and truly over the age of consent. Henry had been round three times already, Indy himself almost twice.

Considered as an experiment the kiss was more than merely satisfactory. Henry responded eagerly, rolling over on top of his son and pinning him to the mattress. His tongue probed Indy's mouth.

Indy's thoughts were less than coherent and his brain overloaded as he lifted into the kiss. There was a strength in Henry's body he'd only noticed back in Hatay, in the desert; a power usually concealed by the modest, old-fashioned garb of the ultra-respectable college lecturer. Indy had very little experience of the submissive role in sex - except that time with Elsa, of course - but if this first kiss was anything to go by he was going to submit and enjoy it. His own feelings were a revelation to him - possibly there was no-one on earth with whom he could feel as safe as this astonishing man with whom he lay.

As the kiss ended, Henry drew back and settled down beside him again, breathing unsteadily. "My god," he whispered, almost to himself, as if the magnitude of what he had undertaken had begun to overwhelm him.

Indy managed a stunned chuckle. "Yeah," he said, answering the unspoken thought. He ran his hand almost casually over the firm planes of Henry's chest, revelling in the crisp texture of its light covering of hair. The contrasts between their bodies bewildered him; it was the kind of thought that would never have occurred to him when he was bedding a woman - not even Marion, whom he'd loved most of all.

"It was when we were on the airship," Henry told him, shakily, loving the touch of Indy's hand and almost totally distracted by it.

"What was?"

"That I fell in love with you. You hit Vogel, threw him out of the window - and that was when I knew I wanted you. It was like a bolt of lightning hitting me; suddenly I realised that I'd been quite wrong about you for most of your life. It was a shock," he added, softly.

"Took me a little longer," Indy said, nuzzling gently at the older man's chest, punctuating his comments with tiny, fleeting kisses. "On the beach, after you brought the plane down - I watched you walk away and something inside me just seemed to snap. When Donovan put that bullet into you and you collapsed into my arms - it was like looking into the mouth of hell."

"For me, too. I've never been as frightened of losing anyone as I was of losing you then. But you brought me back, Indiana."

"And then you did the same for me," Indy reminded him. "As a team, Henry, I'd say we were invincible."

"And...as lovers?"

Indy shook his head. "In a class of our own," he speculated happily. "You know," he added, lifting his head to look Henry in the eye, "we can stop this any time you like. We don't have to take it any further unless you're sure you want to."

"My boy," Henry said, reaching for him again, "you may be capable of stopping, although I doubt it. I couldn't stop if my life depended on it."

It was Indy who initiated the next kiss. "Out of control, huh?" he mused, delightedly. "I like the sound of that." With these words, he pulled his father back down into his arms and allowed him no further opportunities for conversation.

Indy drifted languidly between sleep and waking, listening to the gentle tattoo of rain on the bedroom window and luxuriating in the comfort of the soft mattress below and the cool sheet above him. It felt as if he had slept a week, but a glance at his watch showed him it had been less than three hours; it was almost 11 a.m.

He had a feeling that this time he'd fallen asleep first. He remembered the sound of Henry's voice, a deep, gentle lullaby in the half-dawn, soothing him after lovemaking he felt sure had registered on the Richter Scale - or at the very least damaged the hotel's foundations. He had been right - the submissive role did suit him, at least occasionally. The first time with Henry, Indy had been the passive partner - he had the deep scratch marks on his chest to prove it. The second time, though - that had been a different matter. The tenderness of his own entry into his father's body had quite overwhelmed him - he'd almost wanted to cry at the unexpected sweetness of the sensations that surrounded him then.

Henry wasn't with him now. He'd known that long before he was fully awake, but it didn't concern him unduly. He'd heard someone take a bath about an hour earlier, and there had been movement in the living-room of the suite since then. It could be Marcus, of course, but he didn't think so.

Indy got off the bed, wrapping himself in the loose sheet as a toga, and ran a hand through his rumpled hair and across his jaw. He was going to have to call in at the hotel barber's shop for a shave before he could set off for home.

He stepped over his own and his father's discarded night-clothes delicately as he reached out and opened the door.

Henry was sitting at the round polished table beside the window, a huge breakfast spread out before him and a daily paper beside his plate. He looked up as Indy entered as their eyes locked across the room, Henry's expression one of bewildered joy.

Indy gave him a huge, lopsided grin. "Good morning," he said softly, crossing the room to kiss Henry on the cheek.

His father's voice shook only slightly. "Good morning, my boy," he almost whispered, holding Indy's arms a second or two longer than was necessary. "Are you hungry?"

Indy's gaze took in toast, bacon, eggs, fruit juice and waffles. His stomach, normally strong enough for all eventualities, reacted in horror. "No, but I see you are. Is that lemon tea?" He lifted the cup from its saucer and sipped experimentally. "It's good," he commented. "What happened to Marcus?"

"He left a note," Henry told him, concernedly. "He's having breakfast in the restaurant. If he doesn't hear from us by noon, he'll set off for home."

"Oh." Indy was silent for a moment, slumping down in the armchair to look up, agitatedly, into the other man's eyes. He saw a new version of Henry this morning - not really surprising, as the previous night had redefined them both, and their relationship with one another. This Henry was even gentler and more compassionate than the previous edition had been, his new love for his son making him a stronger and more complete human being with added depths of character. "We didn't make much of an effort to keep quiet," Indy reminded him, his voice dropping lower. "And he did walk in on us. We don't have any secrets from Marcus."

"Perhaps he would prefer not to have known," replied Henry, communicating with his eyes the measure of distress he felt for his friend. "I was waiting for you to wake up before paging him," he added, getting to his feet and reaching out for the house telephone.

Indy watched him as he contacted Reception as asked for Dr. Brody to be paged and requested to join Dr. Jones in his suite. He would never get tired, he decided, of watching Henry. They'd talked, briefly, of going into partnership in the treasure-seeking business; Indy had no doubts it could work. The only problem was likely to be the distraction provided by their close proximity - they'd be too busy discovering one another to concentrate on any treasure!

Within five minutes there was a discreet knock at the door, and Henry opened it to admit Marcus. His old friend looked at Henry quizzically, almost apprehensively, as he entered, but once he caught sight of Indy - sprawled in an armchair wearing only a sheet and sipping lemon tea as though at a White House garden party - his face creased genially and he dissolved into delighted laughter.

"Good God, Indiana!" he exclaimed happily. "You'd look completely at ease if you wore a fur coat in a nudist colony! Is there nothing that upsets your equilibrium?"

"There is," Henry told him, conspiratorially, grateful to take his tone from Marcus's obviously relaxed attitude. "Only it took me forty years to find out what it was."

"I wish I'd known it was a toga party, Henry," laughed Marcus. "I feel distinctly overdressed."

"Right!" chuckled Indy. "Anyone else want to make jokes about Junior?" His gaze challenged Henry, who smiled back. "Sit down, Marcus," he went on. "We owe you an apology."

"Oh, no, my dears, not at all!" Marcus's words held all the affection he had ever felt for this pair, jointly or separately. "In fact, I should apologise to you. Stupid of me - getting the wrong door. I feel like a complete fool. I drink too much, you know - but I suppose I'm too old to change now. I'll try hard not to make thing too complicated or embarrassing for you both. I'm sure, if you wanted, I'd be able to forget - "

"Calm down, Marcus." Indy leaned forward and put a comforting hand on the other man's shoulder. "There's no need to get anxious. Maybe if it hadn't been for you, we'd never have found the courage...to..."

"Oh, you've never been short of courage, either of you," was the cheerful response. "I ought to disapprove, you know, but I can't. I just want to see you both happy, whatever it takes. And you are happy, of course?"

Indy's eyes were full of light. "Yeah," he admitted, smilingly. Marcus turned to Henry. "What about you, old boy?" he asked, gently. "Do I need to ask if you're happy?"

Henry's expression was more serious than his son's. His deep brown eyes were filled with emotion. "No need," he said, in that gruff tone they had both come to recognise as being on the borderline of tears. "I don't think I've been happier in my life, Marcus." He blinked, got up hurriedly; "Junior, I think it's time you put some clothes on. Didn't you say you were lecturing this afternoon?"

"Yessir." Obediently, Indy got to his feet and made for the bedroom. As he passed Henry, he wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. "Will you be okay after we're gone?"

Henry's expression betrayed the probable answer, but his words were more courageous. "It's only a few days," he said. "Telephone me tomorrow."

"Sure." With this reassurance, Indy stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him, beginning to rummage for his clothes.

Outside Marcus, too, rose, and patted Henry on the back. "I'll wait for him in the car," he said, comfortingly. "You know, Henry, I think I heard a lot more than you would have wanted me to. I'm sorry."

Henry turned to face him. "I'm not," he said. "It would have been difficult to tell you - and you're our closest friend. I just hope you...understand?"

"Entirely!" Marcus laughed. "I surprise myself, sometimes, Henry. I should have seen it a lot sooner, but of course it's the perfect solution for both of you. I've known for a long time how much you loved each other - don't forget, you've both been confiding in me for decades!"

"I was just lucky..." Henry said, vaguely, "he felt the same way."

"Ah, well - there's no accounting for love," was the cheerful response. "Look, I'll get out of the way and leave you come privacy. Tell Indiana I'll be waiting for him whenever he's ready to leave." Impulsively he hugged Henry, a bone-crunching embrace that refreshed all the aches and pains Henry had sustained during the night. "If you need it, old boy, you've got my blessing. You know that."

Marcus turned and left the room suddenly, and was halfway to the elevator before Henry could gather enough wit to thank him.

Indy emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, fully dressed, to discover Henry poring absent-mindedly over the Wall Street Journal.

"Where'd he go this time?" he asked, conversationally.

"A tactical retreat," his father supplied. "He'll be waiting in the garage."

"Good old Marcus." Indy's tone softened and his expression became compassionate. "Are you okay?" he asked. "No regrets?"

"None whatever," Henry assured him. "Only - when you go, you'll be taking away the only witness. After that I'm going to have difficulty convincing myself any of this happened."

"I'll keep in touch." Indy's tone was full of concern. "I'll drive down any time you need - or want - just call me. Please."

"It is only for a few days." Henry was doing his best to reinforce his son's assurances, but a pit of uncertainty had opened up within him. Desperately he tried to conceal his worries from Indy.

Indy glanced at his watch. "Damn!" he exclaimed, savagely. "I'm gonna have to go. Take care of yourself, Henry - don't change..."

"Don't make it difficult for me to let you go," his father responded, pulling him into his arms and taking his mouth in a hungry, demanding kiss. As they parted, Indy shook his head, stunned.

"Are you sure you're sixty-four?" he asked, dazedly.

"I love you, Junior," Henry told him, and the tremor in his voice said far more than the words.

Indy didn't answer. He tried to, but his mouth would form only empty platitudes and his eyes were suddenly full of unshed tears. In the end he managed only one word. "Henry..."

"Get out," he was told, gruffly. "Quickly, while it's still possible."

Indy kissed him affectionately on the cheek. "I love you," he said - and fled.

Outside the door Indy paused, straightened his jacket, and tried to get his thoughts into logical order. In a few hours he was supposed to lecture a group of senior students about Inca irrigation systems, a lecture he'd given several times already to different classes. There was nothing that could have been further from his thoughts at the moment; he was going to have to spend the whole journey home trying to reorient his mind into a less dangerous direction than the thoughts of Henry that had filled the last few hours.

And he was going to have to make intelligent conversation with Marcus, he remembered suddenly.

With a massive effort he pulled himself together and set off in search of the barber's shop and the promised shave. There was little point, he thought, in trying to be normal in an abnormal world.

Henry returned slowly to the bedroom and surveyed the devastation they had created between them. Automatically he tugged out the suitcase from under the bed and began to stow his belongings in it; Isla Donovan was sending a car for him at twelve-thirty. They were going to lunch together, and then the car would take him to Grand Central for his mid-afternoon train home to Ferndale.

The mirror claimed his attention again. A folded piece of the hotel's courtesy notepaper was propped against it, addressed in Indiana's spidery writing to 'Henry'. He picked it up and slid it into his pocket, unread. He'd save it to read later - on the train, perhaps, or when he got home. Trust the boy to understand his need for something tangible, some evidence of their time together. Trust him to realise that during this most difficult of all separations Henry would need a lifeline.

The man in the mirror was a different person this morning. He was still Henry Jones, mediaevalist and scholar, but the model of propriety had gone. To his own critical eye he seemed to have aged ten years in the last twenty-four hours. He saw a sadder man, wiser, far more vulnerable. He saw a man who had spent most of the night - most of the morning, at any rate - making love with his own son. That made him not only homosexual but incestuous into the bargain - both illegal. He was vaguely surprised to find himself also completely unrepentant; in fact, what he was feeling was closer to pride than shame.

Had this really only started with Junior's inspired defenestration of the Nazi? He doubted it, although that had been the moment when he'd been able to acknowledge to himself that he was in love with his son. From then on, he'd been able to relax and revel in the joy of sharing danger and adventure with his son. When he'd fired the tank gun into the lorry-load of Nazis, shocking poor old Marcus's sensibilities yet again, he'd undergone a rite of passage into Indiana's world. Now, at last, they were equals, partners, lovers who by biological accident were also father and son.

Fate had played a number of strange tricks on Indiana and Henry Jones already; he doubted she was through with them yet.

Henry patted the pocket that contained his lover's note, and turned away from the mirror to continue his packing.

To Reaffirmation

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