He would have stood there forever, but predictably, D pulled away. “Hmm,” he grumbled. “S’have a drink.” He stepped back and patted Jack’s shoulder. Like we’re goddamned drinking buddies having an after-work beer.
He followed D into the kitchen and sat down at the round table in the breakfast nook. He looked around; he’d been too distracted to notice much about the house when they’d first arrived. “Nice place.”
“Keeps the rain off,” D said. He poured two glasses of scotch and sat down at Jack’s side. Jack guessed that they’d have to have some kind of conversation now. Anything to keep from acknowledging that it was late, the traditional time for sleeping, because that would lead to talk about sleeping arrangements, which would mean that they’d have to at least let it enter their heads that there was some kind of question about who might sleep where and in whose company.
Jack picked up his glass. So much for beer. He took a swallow. “So, are we going to talk about what happened on the dam? Or just pretend it’s business as usual in our exciting lives?”
D snorted. “Mine, maybe. Not yours.” He peered at him. “You sure yer okay? That’s a helluva shiner.”
It was pretty damn sore, but Jack sure wasn’t going to let D see how much. “I’ll live.”
D got up and went to the freezer. He got a towel out of a drawer and put some ice cubes from their cooler on it, then wrapped it up into a cold pack. “Here,” he said, returning to the table. “Put this on it.”
“Who’s the doctor here?” Jack said, taking the pack.
“I had enough black eyes in my time, I don’t need ta have no MD ta know how ta treat ’em.” He reached out and pushed Jack’s hand and the towel tighter against his bruised eye socket. “You hold that close up, now. Help with the swellin’.”
Jack held the ice to his face, propping his elbow on the tabletop. “I didn’t even hear them coming,” he said, quietly. “They must have knocked me right out. I have a lump on the back of my head. I’m fine,” he said, off D’s furrowing brow. “I know the signs of a concussion, so quit clucking. All I know is one minute I was walking on the drive, the next minute I was waking up in the trunk of a car.”
“Did ya see or hear anythin’?”
“They had me blindfolded and my ears plugged. I didn’t see or hear a thing.” He looked at D, who was staring morosely into his untouched scotch. “Did you know those guys?”
He shook his head. “Not those guys in particular, no. Sure’s shit they were just hired muscle.”
Jack swallowed. “Hired by whom?”
D looked at him, the first time he’d done so since they sat down, and chuckled a little. “Listen a you. ‘Hired by whom.’ Talkin’ ’bout hired guns ‘n’ yer all usin’ correct grammar.”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Would if I had an answer.”
“You must have some idea.”
D knocked back the entire shot of scotch, grimacing. “Guess so.”
Jack waited. “Well?”
He was just sitting there, staring at the empty glass, turning it around and around in his fingers. Jack reached out a tentative hand and laid it on his forearm. D jerked and glanced up, then sighed. “I guess you got a right ta know. It’s yer ass as much as it is mine now. They came after you ta get ta me.”
“Who, D?”
He put the glass aside and turned to face him, visibly steeling himself. “Jack, I got some stuff ta tell ya. ’bout myself.”
Jack took a breath. “About… your family?”
D blinked in confusion. “What? No, no. This ain’t about that.”
“What, then?” D still hesitated. Jack ducked his head, trying to meet his eyes. “D… you know you can trust me, right?”
D fidgeted a little. “S’a hard thing. I only trusted one person fer a long time. Not so easy with somebody new.”
“But… do you?”
He raised his head and their eyes met. “Yeah. I do.”
“Then tell me. Tell me the truth.”
D nodded, and squared his shoulders. “You ‘member when I told you about them contracts I would never take? Never forget what ya said. Might as well have shot ’em myself if I knew they was in for it and did nothin’.”
Jack nodded. “I remember. I guess I said some pretty harsh things.”
“You ain’t said nothin’ that weren’t true. But I’m tellin’ ya now that….” He sighed. “Well, I was doin’ somethin’.”
Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”
D shut his eyes for a moment and opened them again, and Jack could all but see him flinging himself off the edge of the cliff and into the chasm. “Thing is… I been workin’ with the Bureau. Goin’ on three years now.”
Jack’s mouth dropped open. “The FBI?”
“The same. Real hard fer them ta get a handle on folks in my line a work. Like ghosts, we are. No connections, no identities. Hard ta track. Damn near impossible to anticipate. When I saw one a them contracts, the ones I wouldn’t never take… well, sometimes I’d give the Bureau a little heads-up.”
“Only sometimes?”
D sighed again. “If I did it every time, it wouldn’t take long fer somebody ta get wise.” He snorted. “I guess somebody did.”
“You think somebody knows about what you’re doing and is trying to… what, exactly?”
“Take care of it. But not just that. They want ta take some revenge too. I got my suspicions that somebody out there wants ta make me suffer for it, so they made me take yer contract. Reckon if I’d a done the job, they’d a made sure I went ta the chair for the murder of a witness. Kinda like poetic justice, ya see? Make me do myself in by way a killin’ you?” Jack nodded. “But ’cause I didn’t, now they jus’ want me dead. Probly with malice aforethought, as they say.”
Jack was still taking this all in. I knew he wasn’t bad. Not really. I just knew it. “D, I’ll be honest. I’m glad to hear you’ve been trying to do something about all this.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t dream a bein’ a cold-blooded killer when I was a boy, Jack. There’s reasons I am how I am, and why I’m doin’ what I’m doin’. Time came them reasons weren’t enough no more.”
“Helping save people… that must have made it easier to take, huh?”
“Made it harder.”
“How’s that?”
“Jack…. Christ, I ain’t never talked about this. You jus’ keep draggin’ shit outta me, Francisco.”
“It’s a gift.” Jack smirked a little, but it was wasted on D, who was keeping his face studiously averted.
“Somethin’ happens ta you when… well, when ya do what I do, and… ya lose things. Cain’t let nothin’ out. Lock it all away. Had it down pretty good. Still do, as ya may a noticed.”
“What, you? Closed off? Nope, hadn’t noticed.”
D went on as if Jack had not spoken. “It’s easy when ya jus’ put yer head down and ignore it all. But then I hadta start really lookin’. How d’ya decide which a four innocent people yer gonna try’n save? Couldn’t save ’em all, or else I’d be no good to none of ’em. Made it worse. Hadta lock up even tighter. Hard enough when yer not lookin’ at the ones ya cain’t save. Gets even harder when ya start takin’ peeks.”
“You still killed people, though.”
D nodded. “Ones I thought had it comin’.”
“And that’s your call to make?” Shut up, Jack. This is not the time for this discussion. Too late.
His head swiveled back toward Jack. “Who else? The fuckin’ justice system? You gotta be kiddin’ me. The same justice system where a small-time dope dealer gets ten years while a child killer gets three? Them’re some fucked-up priorities. I ain’t got that problem.”
“No, vigilantes sure don’t have to deal with due process and all that crap.”
“The more guilty a man is, the more due process don’t help. Folks I kill? Not the kind what gets convicted by a jury a their peers. They ain’t got no peers on juries. Ya
know who’s their peer? I am. I’ll do the convictin’.”
“And the executing.”
“Pays the bills.”
Jack felt a chill go up his spine. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what.”
“No, I fuckin’ don’t.”
“Stop playing Bad-Ass Assassin. You’re just trying to scare me or creep me out or something so we won’t have to talk about it.”
D regarded him with a flat, lizard-like gaze. “About what?”
“You know.”
“I am gettin' real fuckin’ tired a these guessin’ games.”
“About what’s going on between us, D.” There. Chew on that.
D just sat there grinding his teeth for a few beats, then rose and went to the sink where he carefully set his empty glass. “Nothin’ ta talk about.”
Jack nodded. “I guess not.” There was more Jack wanted to ask—who had saved their asses on the dam, for starters—but the conversation seemed to be over. For now. He stood up, tossing the ice pack into the sink. “I’m going to bed.”
“Go on, then. Pick a room.”
Jack retrieved his bag from the living room and went down the hall, not sparing D so much as a glance as he went by, determined to take the biggest room for himself.
~~~~~
Jack lay in bed on his side, arms tucked under his head, watching the line of light visible beneath his bedroom door. He had put his things in his chosen room, going so far as to unload his few articles of clothing into the dresser, and then showered, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed, all without seeing or hearing D at all. Judging by the smell, though, he could deduce that D was sitting somewhere in the house and smoking.
Smoking in the house. Where’d he get more cigarettes? That’s going to stop pretty damn quick.
Jesus, Jack. What are you, the guy’s wife?
Soon after he’d retired and shut his door, he’d heard D moving around. Footsteps in the bedroom next door, into the bathroom. Drawers opening. Shower running. More footsteps. The line of light from the hallway broken by moving shadows of legs and feet as D crossed back and forth in front of his bedroom door.
The steps went into the bedroom next door and stopped. Suddenly, there was a loud thud and a curse; Jack felt the house shake slightly. D had just hit the wall, or else he’d thrown something at it. His pulse jacked up a bit; what was going on?
The steps went further into the other bedroom. He heard the bed creak. Then again. The steps came back.
Jack turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, the covers pulled up to his chest. He wasn’t wearing anything to bed tonight; whether this was laundry-related necessity or just optimism wasn’t something he wanted to think too hard about. He saw D pass before his door into the bathroom again. The light dimmed as the hall light was turned off, leaving just the bathroom light on.
The leg-shadows came to his door and paused. Jack held his breath. He heard a soft thump; he was pretty sure it was D’s forehead hitting the door.
He waited.
After what felt like an eternity during which those shadow-legs didn’t move, the knob turned and his door swung open. D huddled there against the jamb, looking at the floor, dressed in pajama pants. Jack rose up on his elbows. D was gnawing on his thumbnail, looking everywhere but at Jack. Finally he risked a quick glance.
Jack stretched his arm across the neat, unrumpled bedclothes, extending his hand toward the door. “Come on,” he whispered.
D shuffled forward, his shoulders rounded, eyes still on the floor, arms crossed over his stomach. When he reached the bed he turned his back and sat down on the edge with a weary sigh, as if the journey across the carpet had just been too exhausting. He braced his hands on the edge of the mattress and hung his head like a man contemplating his last words.
Jack waited. He could feel the heat from D’s body slipping over the sheets to caress him. The muscles in D’s back were twitching and he just kept shaking his head slowly back and forth, back and forth. Jack stretched out a hand and gently touched D’s shoulder. He felt the flesh flinch away at the touch, but D didn’t move. He flattened his palm against D’s skin and slowly ran it down the outside of his arm. “What?” he murmured.
“You…,” D rasped.
Jack sighed. “What?”
There was a long pause. “You deserve better,” he finally said, almost too quiet for Jack to hear.
Jack’s heart broke a little. “So do you,” he murmured. D turned his head slightly to look at him, his face shadowed in the faint light from the bathroom. Jack took hold of the blankets and folded them back, exposing his nakedness and the flat expanse of empty sheet, a silent invitation. D just sat there immobile for a few beats, then stood up. For one awful moment Jack was sure he was going to leave, but then his hands went to his waist and he quickly shucked his pajama bottoms. He slid under the covers and drew them back up. He lay there on his back, staring at the ceiling, the sheets tucked primly under his arms.
After a few moments of tense silence, D snorted. “What’m I fuckin’ doin’ here?” he muttered.
Jack was tired of dancing around it, and knew that if he didn’t do something they might lie here all night. “D, do you want to have sex with me?” he asked, trying to sound forthright and confident, which he was not.
D shut his eyes with a sigh, then nodded. “Jus’… don’t got the excuse this time,” he said.
“What excuse?”
“Bein’ drunk.”
Jack chuckled. “Oh, yeah.”
“That is… I’d mean it this time.”
That gave Jack a moment’s pause. “Didn’t you mean it last time?”
D turned his head and their eyes met. “Yeah,” he croaked. “But Jack, I… I don’t… dunno if I can—”
“Shh,” Jack said, putting a hand on his chest. “Let me, okay?” D nodded, sighing in relief. You wondered if he felt anything for you? Well, look at this, Jack. He’s letting you see him like this. What more do you need to know?
Jack slid close and pulled D into his arms. He was tense like a man being defibrillated, but came into them as best he could. Jack pressed his face into D’s neck, the heat of his skin bringing sweat to his brow, and ran his hands up and down his back, the nervous thrumming in D’s muscles quieting a little bit at a time. Jack molded himself against the body he’d longed to touch like this, twining their legs together, feeling D’s hands tentative on his own back, touching him with cautious fingertips as if he was afraid Jack’s flesh might burn him.
He nuzzled at D’s face, seeking his lips, but D kept pulling away. Finally, he lifted a hand and seized his jaw, holding his head still, and looked right into his eyes. D cut his own away, tensing up again. Okay. One thing at a time.
Jack backed off and slid his mouth instead down the cords of D’s neck, feeling him shudder, and also feeling with his leg that D was still flaccid. He himself was painfully aroused and trying not to take it personally. He just persisted, touching D where he’d like to be touched, caressing the tension from his muscles, urging him on with his hands, trying to tell him with his body it’s okay, it’s okay to want me, it’s okay to feel it, it’s safe to show it. D’s hands on him were growing bolder, greedier, and then a strangled groan escaped him and his body abruptly went from tense and trembling to loose and demanding, and Jack was enveloped by a crush of stroking hands and writhing legs, D’s mouth on his neck, his chest, everywhere. D rolled him onto his back and Jack knew that neither of them could wait. He reached out for the jar of Vaseline he’d found in the bathroom earlier and put on his bedside table, just in case, and somehow opened it one-handed. D propped himself up on one hand and Jack reached between them, slicking him with a couple of fast, desperate strokes, D hissing at Jack’s hand on him. “Come on, come on,” Jack mumbled; he sucked in a breath and pushed out just as D slid himself in. He was big—bigger than Jack remembered—but he didn’t have much time to ponder the matter because D was going c
razy.
Mumbling unintelligible syllables like he was speaking in tongues, D dropped his head into the hollow of Jack’s shoulder. The man was frantic; all Jack could do was hang on, and even that was barely possible. He nearly bucked himself off a few times; Jack grabbed his ass in both hands, trying to keep him close. The angle wasn’t so great for him; he already knew this wasn’t going to get him off, but at the moment that didn’t seem so important, because something else was happening here. D was pouring himself into Jack’s arms, his body, and the deluge was fierce; Jack clung to him like a barnacle, holding him fast in his arms. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. The thought ran over and over in his mind as D heaved great swoops of breath past Jack’s ear, swoops that had sobs caught at their dregs, as if he’d found something old and unexpressed at the very tidal bottom of his lungs now dragged into the open air by the exertion.
I’m not letting go of you.
D’s body stuttered and stiffened; he cried out his release and collapsed, damp with sweat and limp as a dishrag, Jack’s arms and legs wound around him. “Jack… Jack,” D breathed, the name sighing out on each exhalation as if it had gotten inside and was escaping like steam from a pressure cooker. He buried his face in Jack’s neck. Jack cupped the back of his head and sighed. D drew back and looked at him. “Uh…,” he said, sounding like he was rebooting his voice. “Ya didn’t… y’ain’t….”
“Don’t worry about it.”
D watched Jack’s face for a long moment, then suddenly slid down the bed, shoving the covers aside, and took Jack in his mouth. Jack gasped in surprise. Jesus, I’d have been happy with a hand job. I never thought he’d… oh goddamn….
Jack rose up on his elbows so he could watch, because this was something he did not want to miss. The sight of D, this tough-guy hit man who knew a dozen ways to kill you with a straw, doing this to him was almost more arousing than the feeling of it. D, who was too butch to let being shot slow him down, who was too macho to talk about… well, anything… who Jack guessed he could now call his lover even if he didn’t yet know his real name, was surely too much of a he-man to perform this most homo of sexual acts even if he wasn’t above screwing another man. And yet, all evidence to the contrary.