Jack&Teague [& Katy] stories 1-5

by Amy Lane

  Teague swallowed and nodded. Yes. It was his worst goddamned fear.

  “Well you had a choice, fight it or fuck it. You picked option B. Buddy, you may think you’re a screw-up, but I got to tell you, to the rest of the hill, you’re a goddamned hero!”

  Teague did stop short and slide this time, only his shapeshifter muscles keeping him from a classic ass-flop in the mud. “The whole hill?” he said weakly. “You told the whole hill?”

  She flushed. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she muttered.

  “Then how…”

  Cory didn’t bother to slip. She gave up all pretense of running and just sat square in the mud, practically in the middle of a wash as the rain continued to batter at their bare heads and over the soft earth. “They just know,” she muttered, scrubbing her face with her hands and leaving thick brown smudges all over the pale, freckled skin. “They know because I had sex, and they just fucking know. Everybody knows. And they’ll be cool about it. They’ll mention it so it’s not like the big stinky yellow-and-purple elephant in the room and they’ll give you enough shit to let you know that they don’t really give a shit about it. They could find you fucking the damned elephant, and they’re the Goddess’ people so they’d still love you. But no.”

  She looked up at him, cold and miserable and irritated and suddenly seeming far younger than he assumed she was—he’d thought she was older than Jacky, but now? Was she even Katy’s age? “No what?” he asked, putting out his hand. She sighed and took it and stood clumsily, stiff and sore as though she hadn’t stretched into a run at all.

  “No, sweetheart,” she said with faint self-mockery. She ran her hands over her hair and turned it into an instant mud-nest. “No, you don’t have any privacy anymore. You’ve traded it in for a family that gives a damn, and sometimes it will make you bananashit, but most times—like tonight around the table, when you see how many people give a crap that you’re there? It’s going to feel like your heart is the size of the sky, and you’re going to see that reaching for love is like reaching for salt or your fork or another drink of beer. Any little kid can do it, and you’re a grown man. It ain’t no big thing.”

  “No big thing?” he repeated blankly, staring into the silver wash that had become their entire world. Beyond it he thought he could see Sean Sullivan, scarred face, heavy hand and all. Beyond the rain he could hear a harsh voice calling him shit, calling him nothing, calling him crap and worthless and a complete waste of time, money, and oxygen.

  But in this bubble of rain he heard this little girl’s words, and saw her warrior’s face squinting up at him, and all he could think of was that Jacky and Katy had been warm and hard and soft and real, and all he’d had to do was reach for them, and he had been too afraid.

  It seemed silly to be afraid to reach for them, as silly as being afraid of the rain.

  Cory was looking at him with complete compassion, and he blinked, hard, and again. Not all of it was rain. His eyes stung and his chest suddenly ached for his body to exert itself, for his muscles to heave, for the world to blur so the only person in this bubble of rain was himself and his frantic thoughts and putting them into the order of even footsteps over the muddy ground.

  “It’s okay, brother,” she said softly. “Go run. Your thoughts will be there, with your beloveds when you get to the top of the hill.”

  “But…you’re cold…” he had to run. He had to, but something in him rebelled at leaving her here, as bedraggled as a stray kitten in the rain.

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll probably,” her mouth twisted up, “beat you back.”

  He didn’t see how she would, but his feet were splatting along the trail before he could finish the thought.

  He got to the top of the next rise and his sense of responsibility reasserted itself. He turned back to her, thinking he should walk her back to the hill, but she was gone. He spared a moment to wonder where she went—she’d been limping pretty badly, but that urge, that drive to run took over, and he was hauling ass down the trail again.

  Jack

  Brothers and Lovers and Sisters And Others

  Jack wondered if he should have understood the thing between Teague and Cory just a little better. He’d had a sister. He understood that instant empathy, the person you could talk to, the opposite side of your coin, the unconditional understanding.

  But, dammit, he wanted to be that. Why couldn’t Teague say these things to him? He had grown up sheltered and been allowed to be shy, to be removed. He hadn’t been forcibly isolated from the rest of the world by violence—he had elected to stay uninvolved because the select few people of his choosing had been more than enough.

  Teague—and now Katy—were more than enough to be his whole world. But apparently Cory felt like Teague needed her royal highness in his life in addition to two lovers. Jack had met her as she was being carried in out of the rain by Bracken. She’d been sopping wet and shivering and reassuring Jack that Teague would be all right when his run was over. As Teague ran up the hill, some storm-wrought semblance of peace on his face, Jack didn’t understand why Teague, who had spent so long needing no one could now look so much better after talking to someone who wasn’t him.

  But ‘better’ still wasn’t good, and Jack’s seething resentment all-but evaporated as Teague ran up into the overcast environs Goddess Grove, looking bedraggled and sopping wet and—hard for a werewolf—damned cold.

  Jack stood from the cushion-covered bench and sighed, holding out a giant fluffy yellow towel he’d gotten from Grace. Teague didn’t rush into his embrace and cuddle like a child the way Jack may have wanted, but he did take the towel and wipe his face and nod thanks with a brief, hard smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Teague said, wrapping the towel around his shoulders, and Jack shook his head angrily. The guy made it so hard sometimes.

  “For what?” he asked, throwing his arm over that surprisingly broad back and forcing Teague into his warmth. Teague threw him a bone and rested his cheek against Jack’s chest for a moment.

  “For running out of there like an asshole,” Teague mumbled, and, surprisingly, kept his head right where it was. “For… for biting your tail… and fucking it like a nightmare…you know, for everything.”

  Jack closed his eyes tight, and for a bare moment realized why Teague might want to talk to another leader about dealing with a world full of betas.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he muttered, and then smiled a little, rubbing his own cheek in Teague’s wet hair. “Okay--the running out like an asshole—that was all you, but the other shit? Teague, that was me. That was me being…an asshole, I guess. Dumber than a box of snot. Just—just dumb. I’m glad you stopped me from killing my old man—and I’m sorry I didn’t listen when everybody told me that having it all under control was a load of horseshit.” Oh God, he’d done that… no wonder Teague didn’t want to ride with him. No wonder he got left home like the little woman, while Teague went out and ran the missions.

  Jack’s voice trembled, and now he was the one who needed the embrace. “You are never going to trust me to have your back again, are you?”

  Teague looked up at him through wet eyelashes, managing to look young and vulnerable, when he’d never been the first and would die before admitting the second.

  “That’s just my life, Jacky—fuck that. I trust you to…” he blushed, the heat steaming off his cold, wet skin, “you know. Keep my heart safe.” He ducked his head and mumbled that last part, but Jack still heard it. His arms convulsed around Teague and he felt as though his whole body shuddered.

  “Your life is my heart you dumb motherfucker,” he rasped, and Teague didn’t just submit to the hug—he returned it.

  “Yeah, well backatcha,” he muttered.

  They stood like that for a while, until the emotion got too much for Teague and he pulled back and changed the subject.

  “You have to admit though--it was a helluva thing, turning like that.” Abruptly he sat—not on the bench Jack had been sitting
on, but on the ground.

  Jack followed him, ignoring the wet that sank into his jeans. He’d take another shower—hell, he’d sit in a cold tub all damned day if he could just get Teague to talk to him.

  “It was,” Jack agreed, switching gears—talking about the werewolf was a necessary thing. “It was actually kind of…cool.” He smiled, remembering the power and the speed he’d had, the freedom of being a creature that could rip someone’s throat out.

  Teague cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Jack’s dreamy smile, and Jack blushed.

  “It was quiet,” Teague murmured into the silence. “In my head—there wasn’t all this… should-I-or-shouldn’t-I bullshit. Wasn’t this,” Teague’s turn to blush, “fear, you know? Of taking something that wasn’t mine.” He shot Jack a quick grin, his eyes full of something Jack had longed to see. “You are mine.”

  He said it with such a simple pride that Jack found himself swallowing and nodding. It really had been that easy.

  “But it was nice,” Teague said, nodding in return. “Not worrying whether I was good enough, whether I could provide for you and Katy, whether I could do right by you.” He shook his head, wrapping his arms around his legs and resting his chin on his knees like a little kid. “I just wanted you and took you. So easy.”

  Jack nodded and swallowed again, and threw his arm around Teague’s shoulders again, pulling his lover in, forcing his head to his chest and shielding him from the cold and the loneliness with sheer force of will.

  “”It can be that easy, Teague,” he murmured after a moment. “All you have to do is reach for us, and we’ll be there.”

  There was quiet then, between the two of them, and Jack treasured the feel of Teague’s breath against his neck and the strong heartbeat his new hypersenses could hear throbbing under Teague’s Irish-pale skin.

  “Do you think Katy will forgive me?” Teague asked, after that fraught, peace-filled moment, and Jack dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

  “It’s done. She was puzzled, I think—maybe a little hurt. But if she can walk down to banquet tonight on our arms, it will all be forgiven.”

  Teague chuckled a little, the effort making his shoulders shake.

  “What?” Jack asked, curious and liking the feeling of Teague’s laughter.

  “I told ya, Jacky—this place is just like high school but worse.”

  Jack nodded and pulled back so they could both stand—even he was getting cold. “That’s true—you did. So?”

  Teague shrugged and started to shoulder his way towards the trap door. “I just never thought my total happiness would ever boil down to taking a girl to prom.”

  Jack rolled his eyes and grunted, then grabbed Teague’s hand before he could disappear down the granite staircase. “Our happiness, beloved,” he said hoarsely, and then, because Teague let him, gave him just enough power to do so, he pulled his lover into a kiss.

  For once Teague opened his mouth, let Jack lead, let him invade, let him take, returned softly and finally pulled back and gave a lingering, soft, playful little suction on Jacky’s closing lips. Jack smiled shyly. He’d gotten to lead—it was a first.

  And typical Teague, he didn’t say a word about it—just pounded his way down the stairs in stoic silence.

  A silence that was broken when he hit the hallway and said, “Hey—what in the fuck happened to the paneling?”

  Jack guffawed and blushed and followed downstairs to tell him.

  Teague

  A Fork, Some Salt, and Beer

  “You sure you don’t know where the clothes came from?” Teague grimaced in the bathroom mirror and slid his finger under the collar (!) of the olive green shirt that had been waiting on his bed when he got out of the shower. It had been paired with some black slacks and leather dress shoes—none of which had been in Teague’s possession when he’d woken up that morning.

  “Positive,” Jack echoed dryly. Unlike Teague, he had dress clothes—back when he’d been a student, he’d worn them dancing and on dates. Tonight he wore black slacks and a cerulean blue mandarin collared shirt and Teague was pretty sure he was vain enough to know that it matched his eyes.

  “I think,” Jack told him, reaching for the hair gel on the counter and squeezing a dollop into his palm, “that Green probably left them. Katy says he likes giving gifts.” With deft movements he slicked the gel in Teague’s rough-cut, dark-blonde hair before Teague could duck like he’d been planning to.

  “Fucking girl shit,” he bitched, mostly for form. He didn’t know much about dressing up—usually, when he got laid, he showed up in a bar wearing his usual Henley-shirt and flannel, and the girl of his choice would follow him home. He didn’t know why they did it, but he was usually pretty damned grateful. But tonight he was trying to show Katy he valued her. Looking decent was part of it.

  He grimaced into the mirror. “I look like a redneck in dumbshit’s clothing,” he grumbled sourly, and was unprepared for Jack’s arms to wrap around his shoulder. He was abruptly confronted with both their reflections in the mirror, and his face heated as he remembered the first time they’d had sex…shit. Made love.

  “You look handsome and wonderful,” Jacky said thickly, and Teague blushed even more.

  “I can’t believe you said that with a straight face,” he muttered, not able to look either of them in the eyes.

  “Look at me, Teague,” Jack ordered, and Teague scowled unaccustomed obedience into his lover’s eyes in the mirror. And swallowed—hard—because it was all there. Everything Jacky felt for him, everything he couldn’t see for himself, it was all there for him to take. All he had to do was reach for it.

  “Yeah,” he said with a gruff, jerky nod. “I hear you.”

  “I love you too, you…”

  “Dumb motherfucker—I know.” Teague’s mouth twitched. It really was starting to sound like an endearment. “We’re going to be late.”

  It was imperative that they not be late—not when Katy was waiting for them, thinking that Teague might bail out in sheer terror.

  Teague looked at Jack again and at their black slacks, which were cut similarly. “You don’t think she’s dressing to match us, do you? Because that would be just too damned squishy.”

  Jack laughed and shooed him out the door. “No, beloved. I think it would be impossible to make us all match. We’re as different as salt and beer.”

  As easy as reaching for the salt or a fork or another drink of beer…

  Teague almost tripped on the smooth carpet as he heard Cory’s voice in his head, but they were at Katy’s door now and he’d already done ‘asshole’ this day and was trying hard to avoid that mistake again.

  He stood in front of Jack and stared at the blonde wood of Katy’s door and wondered when he’d felt so nervous. Maybe that first time with Jacky, when he’d kissed the unmarked column of his spine and felt the scar that Jack’s belly sported, just for Teague. He’d been scared to death, scared of rejection, almost as scared of acceptance, because either one would mean change.

  As easy as reaching for the salt or a fork or another drink of beer…

  His hard raps on the door were unnaturally loud, and when the door swung open almost immediately, he almost jumped in the air like a spaz.

  And then his heart and his balls jumped up in his throat and he had a hard time moving at all.

  “Urgh…” He swallowed hard and tried again. “Urgh…”

  Jack covered a laugh with a cough. Real fuckin’ subtle, Jacky. “You look really nice, Katy,” Jack said softly, and Katy beamed shyly from darkly-exotic made-up eyes.

  “You think?” The dress was a dark wine color, form fitting above the v-shaped waist, with a black wrap around her shoulders. The skirt flared softly and ended just below her knees, and her fine, plump calves showed off black stockings with a little line up the back.

  Teague swallowed, blushing. “Nice dress, Katy. You look real fine.” He managed a strangled smile and was going to ask her if she was ready to go, but sh
e backed up a step.

  “Can you guys wait a sec? Green gave me a necklace I need to put on—I need help.”

  So together they ventured into the sanctuary of her room.

  She had made it her own.

  Green was free with is money—he’d frequently urged Jack and Teague to spend more of their salary and all of their allowance, but Teague, being frugal to start with, had declined. Katy had no such reservations, and her room was decorated with gauzy, jewel toned silk scarves draped everywhere, including over the canopy of her queen-sized bed.

  The bed itself had a quilt on it with a giant wolf applique, and Teague would bet it was Grace’s work right there. The dark blue, red, and green colors around the quilt reminded Teague of something, but he was damned if he could think of what it was—he just knew that the vanilla and cinnamon scented room was a wonder of strength and femininity and he liked it very much.

  “Nice room, Katy,” he said gruffly. “It’s you. A lot you.”

  Katy’s white smile as she came out of the bathroom actually quickened his breathing. “You like?”

  She handed Teague a white-gold necklace with an ornate, abstract charm in the front, and Teague found his hands shook as she swept aside that luxurious swath of curled black hair so he could fasten it.

  “It’s real pretty. All girl. You might want to think, you know, after we’re all mated and stuff, about keeping it still.”

  “Why?” Her voice cracked with worry, and Teague would have kicked himself but Jack’s hand smacking the back of his head did it for him.

  “Sanctuary,” he croaked, putting his rough palms on her soft shoulders and turning her around so he could adjust the charm. The skin on her neck heated his fingers, and he found he was stroking it softly, just to see the way Katy rocked sinuously to lengthen that touch. “Jacky and I are…” he grimaced and scowled at Jacky, “we’re men. I’m a grumpy bastard, and Jacky can bad-vibe the sky ‘til it’s black. You deserve a ‘Katy place’, where you don’t have to put up with that bullshit.”