Fish on a Bicycle

by Amy Lane

  “Rides like shit,” Jackson consoled him. “It’s loud and it rattles your teeth from your head. But the glass is bulletproof, and it sounds like a herd of gas-drinking elephants, so there’s that.”

  “Awesome,” Bobby crooned. “Wow. That’s some car.”

  He got into his battered truck, and Jackson and Ellery got into the urban assault vehicle, Jackson chuckling all the way.

  “What’s so funny?” Ellery asked, once they were belted in.

  “That kid, Bobby.”

  Ellery knew who he was—he’d spent a half an hour skimming through the Johnnies website. “Technically Vern Roberts,” because that was the name the kid had given the police.

  “Yeah, but I’ve seen him naked. He’s got a ten-inch—”

  “I know what he’s got,” Ellery muttered. He’d actually forgotten what those two kids—tender as bunnies—did for a living. Or had done. Reg, he knew, was working promotions now, and Bobby seemed to be getting most of his income from working construction. He remembered his outrage that Jackson had been watching porn, but he’d done it too, particularly when he was younger and single and driven. You didn’t always think about the people behind the bodies. But having watched Vern Roberts defending his boyfriend and facing down the police with that laconic, steady-eyed patience, Ellery had completely forgotten about the kids on film and had only seen the adults trying to live their lives. “Who cares how big his… equipment is?”

  Jackson shook his head and steered the vehicle formerly known as an SUV through the quiet streets. “I actually don’t,” he said. “It’s just… just all the bullshit guys talk about. All a guy’s accomplishments are boiled down to his dick size. But that kid didn’t give a shit. He was just a kid who liked the big shiny toy car. They both were. And after the way the cops went after him tonight—and, hell, having some guy break into his house and assault his boyfriend? To see him light up and be sweet like that. It just proves people are much bigger than that thing between their legs.”

  Ellery swallowed. His thoughts were so damned similar, it almost hurt.

  Jackson pulled up to a light, and Ellery cursed the specialized webbing and the triple-release seat belts that held them in—not to mention the thing’s size. He wanted to lean over and kiss Jackson’s cheek in the worst way.

  “You’ve always been able to see beyond the obvious,” he said mildly, and he didn’t have to even look to see Jackson roll his eyes.

  He looked anyway. Just like those years before they’d dated, when Jackson had seemed aloof and disdainful and unobtainable, Ellery found it impossible to look away.

  BILLY BOB was thrilled to have company, and he seemed to have a real fondness for Reg, who just melted when the cat rubbed against his ankles.

  “We should get a cat, don’t you think, Bobby?” he asked, holding Billy Bob up to his chest and letting the cat rub noses.

  “Sure, Reg,” Bobby said patiently, hauling a single duffel with both their clothes into the bedroom Ellery indicated. He looked around unhappily. “This place is… really nice,” he said, his discomfort obvious. “I… I’ll have us out of your hair tomorrow, I promise. If your friend can give me some pointers on security and shit, I’ll take the day off.”

  Reg looked around and smiled uncertainly. “It’s a real nice place,” he said to Jackson. He didn’t really talk much to Ellery, but then, Ellery did that to people. “I can’t believe you said we could hang out.”

  “We’ve got video games,” Jackson said, and Reg lost some of his discomfort.

  “Well, maybe someday,” he said, and then yawned. “But now, God, I could sleep anywhere. Even on that nice bed that smells like dead grandmas.”

  Jackson choked, and Ellery’s eyes got really big, and they both watched the younger men disappear into the guest bedroom.

  “Who told them your mother stayed there in April?” Jackson asked, smirking.

  “Nobody.” Ellery grunted. “It’s that rose-and-vanilla perfume you gave her for Christmas, you know that, right?”

  “It’s dead grandmas,” Jackson said, “and nobody can tell me any different! Lucy Satan smells like dead grandmas!” He giggled his way into their bedroom, and Ellery followed him grimly.

  “My mother’s name is Taylor,” he said, but it wouldn’t matter. Ellery wasn’t sure what had prompted Jackson to start calling Taylor Cramer “Lucy Satan,” but he had the feeling it had something to do with a big dose of morphine Jackson had been given when he’d been laid up in the hospital—and Taylor Cramer’s inimitable Machiavellian style. All he knew was that Jackson and his mother seemed to have an agreement that he call her nothing but Lucy Satan. And since Ellery had the feeling Jackson sort of liked his mother, he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  His mother might have been positively diabolical, but she was not the devil.

  Although, when she’d flown out to stay with them for the week of Passover, Ellery had been sorely tempted to agree with Jackson that she was.

  After Ellery did the rounds, double-checked the doors, set the alarm system, and made sure the cat had water and food—because if he didn’t, Billy Bob had been known to wake them up by standing on the nearest face and meowing pitifully—he followed Jackson to bed and found him stretched out under the summer-weight comforter, staring sleepily at his phone.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “I texted Galen to let him know what was up. And I texted Henry to remind him that he’d probably be taken in first thing in the morning and his only words had better fuckin’ be ‘Talk to my lawyer.’ Then I texted Jade to tell her we might not be in immediately, so she’s on for bossing the workmen around, and finally, I texted AJ to tell him to meet Bobby at his house tomorrow at ten.”

  “Is that all?” Ellery asked, stripping off his clothes and throwing them in the hamper. The night had been sticky, and he was grateful for the air-conditioning, but that didn’t mean the clothes were good for one more wear.

  “And I texted AJ and Bobby so they’d have each other’s numbers and could communicate without me,” Jackson finished up, yawning. He waited for Ellery to crawl under the comforter before turning off the lamp.

  For a moment, the room was quiet, but Ellery could see Jackson’s eyes, still gleaming in the light from the window.

  “What’s wrong?” Ellery asked. But he knew.

  “Nothing,” Jackson said softly. He turned over to his side, away from Ellery so Ellery wouldn’t worry.

  Ellery always worried.

  He rubbed Jackson’s back softly, the spot between his shoulder blades, which was so tense the muscles felt like a knot.

  “Nice,” Jackson mumbled.

  “Tell me when they come,” Ellery instructed.

  “Sure.”

  Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes Ellery would wake up at four in the morning and Jackson would be huddled in the far corner of the bed, shaking from whatever dream had ripped apart his sleep. Sometimes he got up and said he was going to the bathroom, and Ellery would find him dozing on the couch, a video remote in his hand, because he’d played games to calm his nerves.

  And sometimes he’d scream in his sleep and neither of them could pretend it didn’t happen.

  For a while, after they’d come home from the hospital in February and he’d started talking to Ellery’s rabbi, who—like every other human being on earth—seemed to have taken a shine to Jackson, the dreams had eased up. Jackson would tell Ellery when they hit. They could breathe through them together.

  But the last couple of weeks, well, Jackson’s impatience with himself had been palpable.

  Ellery couldn’t seem to find the words to tell him that healing all of the myriad wounds Jackson had survived, both physically and emotionally, wasn’t going to happen overnight. As much as Ellery liked to think he’d made a positive difference in Jackson’s life, he couldn’t fool himself into believing that by the power of his mighty wang and some really rocking sex, poof! Jackson was cured.

  People with Jackson’s dama
ge didn’t get cured. They got better. And people with Jackson’s strength soldiered on through the bad times and celebrated the good.

  And people with Jackson’s conscience didn’t want to inflict any of the bad times on the one person they loved most of all.

  Ellery scooted closer, not minding the heat Jackson’s body threw out naturally. He placed a very precise, very tender kiss on the back of Jackson’s neck.

  “Tell me, please,” he begged.

  Jackson let out a sigh. “Counselor, the way this one’s brewing, I’m not going to need to tell you a damned thing.”

  Ellery wrapped his arm around Jackson’s middle and held him tight, any thought of the heat, of discomfort, evaporating into the humid night. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised, hating that he couldn’t.

  Jackson laced his fingers with Ellery’s as they lay over his chest.

  “You always do,” he lied.

  Murky Waters

  DEAD PEOPLE. Jackson was surrounded by dead people—overdosed junkies, noses bleeding, vomit-stained, lips blue, eyes open and staring. His mother was there, although it hadn’t been the drugs that killed her because serial killers work for free. Jade, her brother, Kaden, his wife and his kids, although none of them had ever touched that shit. Jade’s boyfriend, Mike, was particularly gruesome, face purple, tongue black, rangy body distended with bloat.

  Henry, John, Galen, Bobby, Reg—all the new people he’d met that day, including Herbert the housebreaker—they were all facedown in the gutter, needles in their arms.

  Martin Sampson, aka Scott the porn model, but younger, his face softer as a teenager, lying face-up, dick hard, iced in coke and meth like a dead-flesh cake.

  And he knew it wasn’t Ellery, facedown at his feet, knew it wasn’t Ellery, knew it wasn’t Ellery. But he had to crouch anyway, had to touch the pallid flesh, had to roll him over, see the brown eyes wide and staring, the pale skin practically green, see him as he almost had been, dead, the drugs gone now, his stomach opened up by a gunshot, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding—

  “Ellery!”

  He was trying to sit up in bed, his throat raw, and Ellery was practically lying on top of him, hands on his shoulders, pinning him to the mattress so he couldn’t flail.

  Footsteps from the hallway startled him enough to roll out from under Ellery’s pinning body to land crouching on the floor, staring wildly at the bedroom door as two vaguely familiar guys in their boxer shorts burst through.

  “Mr. Rivers, you okay?”

  Jackson glared blearily at them, relieved when Ellery turned on the lamp behind him. “Peachy,” he said through a rough throat. “Sorry to bother you.”

  Bobby—the big one was Bobby, right?—tilted his head to the side. “Bad dreams?” he asked, not with sympathy, really, just assessing the situation.

  “I get them sometimes,” Jackson muttered. “Sorry. Should be done now. Go back to sleep.”

  Bobby nodded slowly. “Okay. We’re sorry, Mr. Rivers. For whatever did that to you. Don’t worry—me and Reg’ll keep you safe. We’re just in the other room.”

  Behind him, he heard a weak laugh from Ellery, and he fell onto the bed in a puddle of dream-aftermath and mortification.

  “Thanks, Bobby. Reg. Sorry about that. Go back to sleep. It’s all good.”

  They disappeared, closing the door behind them, and Jackson collapsed on the bed unhappily. “That was embarrassing.”

  “You managed not to do that when my mother was staying here,” Ellery muttered in agreement.

  “Sorry.” Jackson went back to his side, burying his face in his pillow, freezing from the dream’s aftereffects, wanting nothing more than to be by himself so he could cry. “So sorry. Seriously. God, Ellery, I didn’t mean to do that to—”

  Ellery was suddenly plastered along his back, holding him tight. “You’re shaking.”

  “Cold,” Jackson mumbled. Oh, he hated it when it got this bad. “So cold.”

  “Shh, baby. You’re all right.”

  Jackson squeezed his eyes shut tightly. “You know it’s not me I’m worried about,” he said, stupid tears of reaction trickling down the corners of his eyes.

  “We’re all right,” Ellery said. “We’re all right. We’re all fine.”

  “Thanks,” Jackson murmured. What he really wanted to say was I hate this. I hate being this weak. I hate being this broken. I hate that I shatter your sleep as well as mine. I hate that you have to love me with all my bullshit baggage!

  “Can you talk about it?”

  “Please. God. No.” Jackson shuddered really hard, clutching Ellery’s hand tighter to his chest, and Ellery’s sigh practically rocked the bed.

  “You need to talk it—”

  “No.”

  “God, you’re stubborn.”

  “Ellery, do you really want to have this fight right now after what I just did in front of two practical strangers?”

  “Sure,” Ellery said, letting go of his chest and sitting up. “Yes. Let’s have this fight now. Let’s have it in front of strangers. Let’s have it in front of friends. Let’s have it in front of anybody, because you’re certainly not talking about it to me!”

  Jackson shushed him, placing two fingers on his mouth and pushing at his shoulder. “Look, it’s jus…. It’s dumb. It’s obvious. It’s stupid to even say—”

  “Well, apparently not, if not talking about it is doing this to you!” Ellery hissed. But at least he’d lowered his voice. Gently—so damned gently—he cupped Jackson’s cheek, the heat from his hand welcome. “You’re right. I do know what this is about. I do know why they got worse again. But I need you to say it, and so do you, so you can build up your defenses again.”

  Jackson grunted and dropped his chin to his chest, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “You were shot,” he said grimly.

  “I was.” Ellery took his hand and held it to the scar. The bullet had hit soft tissue and gone straight through, blessedly missing his heart and his spine. But it had hit plenty of other things—a lung, kidneys, an intestine, a rib. The worst thing about bullets wasn’t the blood loss, but the way they bounced around and turned a person’s perfectly ordered insides to mushy goo. Ellery had needed a lot of blood units and stitching up before his mushy goo was intact—and it still wasn’t as much as Jackson had needed nine years ago, when he’d been almost blown apart by a sniper’s bullet.

  But the hole it made in Jackson’s well-being seemed to be twice as big.

  He held Jackson’s hand against his scarring—the bullet wound, the incision scars from the surgery. Jackson had spent long hours mapping his flesh in the past five months, relearning the new Ellery after their last adventure. No matter how much Ellery told Jackson he wasn’t at fault for that moment, for Ellery stepping in the line of fire in a fit of uncharacteristic rage, that wasn’t what Jackson believed.

  Jackson closed his eyes, fingers stroking the skin unconsciously. “I was so lucky,” he whispered. “A little higher, a little lower, a little to the left….”

  Ellery’s mouth twisted, and for once Jackson couldn’t make the joke.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t make fun. Your job isn’t supposed to be dangerous. Don’t you think that’s what helps me sleep? Knowing it’s not supposed to be dangerous for you?”

  “Baby—”

  Jackson held his fingers to his lips. “It is never going to be okay that you were hurt,” he said. “I am never going to be fine with you lying in the hospital while some guy tried to poison you.” And the deaths of the two men he killed, the ones who’d hurt Ellery in the first place, were weighing heavy on his soul. He shuddered. “And I hate myself for dragging you down with me.”

  “I hate you for not letting me help!” Ellery snapped, then looked appalled. “I mean, I don’t hate you—I hate the fact that you won’t let me help. And you’re not talking about the other thing—not at all. You did right afterwards—going to the rabbi, at least. But it’s like, the more you thought about it, the
deeper it burrowed.”

  Jackson pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, because hearing Ellery talk about it brought back the dream, the fear, all of it. “Later,” he said hoarsely. “It’s bumfuck in the morning—”

  “Baby,” Ellery begged. “Baby, you can’t torture yourself. Not for what happened to me and not for what you did because of it and not for the people you couldn’t save. Those two guys who just ran in here to protect us are sleeping and feeling safe because you offered them a place to stay. I could have done it, but they would have picked a hotel instead. They agreed because you’re their friend, and I’m okay with that. You… you have chosen this role, this vocation, of protecting people, sometimes the most unlikely people. You look at them and see human beings and not sex workers or drug addicts or ex-cons. And it’s this gift—this amazing gift. I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you how wonderful it is that you do that. But the downside is, you hurt for them. You saw the Dirty/Pretty victims when nobody else did, but you hurt for them. The serial killers trained up in Karl Lacey’s compound—you saw how they’d been violated and you hurt for them. And when you had to kill them, you still hurt. You saw who they could have been. You saw our friends in them, not the people who tried to kill us both.”

  Jackson swallowed, so acutely uncomfortable in his own skin he wanted to scream. “They hurt you,” he snarled.

  “And you killed them, and that hurt you,” Ellery told him, not wavering. “And you need to face that—that you don’t kill like an automaton. You’re not a soldier or a killer or a bad cop. You need to be okay with how you feel, or… or it’s going to tear you apart.” Ellery let out a twisted laugh. “I was getting used to getting a full night’s sleep once in a while,” he said. “I’d really like to go back to that. I mean, it’s not a deal breaker, but….” He shook his head. “One case. This is only our first case back. And you are already so knotted up, you can barely breathe. You need to learn to breathe.”

  Jackson took a deep breath. “Breathing,” he croaked. His throat was swollen tight, and his ears hurt, and he knew the signs of needing a good long cry, but God, he didn’t want to do it in front of Ellery. He wanted to go play video games or go running or go swimming—he’d done them all in the middle of the night to keep Ellery from knowing how bad it had gotten in the past couple weeks. But he couldn’t leave. Their houseguests didn’t deserve to have him wandering around the house, and they certainly didn’t deserve Ellery’s promised fit if he did.