Red Jack nodded and got out of the car. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to talk to Loki yet. Embarrassment about what had happened the night before crept up Red Jack’s face. He should have punched Loki’s teeth in, and that would have been that. Instead, he’d fled that room like a pussy, pushed completely out of his comfort zone. He’d just never thought Loki would try to fuck him when he wasn’t even sober. Especially after his own bad experiences.
Red Jack stood in front of his own door after Sam left, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and trying not to think about Loki’s stiff, hot dick sliding into his crack and prodding at his anus.
His stomach dropped when the door opened, and Loki stared straight at him, standing there shirtless, with wet strands of hair falling on his toned shoulders. Fuck, he was hot. How was Red Jack supposed to give him the silent treatment when all blood drained down his body? Red Jack licked his lips, forgetting his own name when his gaze dropped to Loki’s nipples, pebbled and appetizing.
Loki stared at him like a lost puppy. “Jack? You hungry?”
For dick. “I- uh, no.” Red Jack pushed past Loki to stop thinking of sex. This was one fucked-up situation, and there was Loki, acting as if nothing happened. As if he hadn’t tried to sneak in a fuck while Red Jack was drunk as a sailor.
He followed Red Jack. Of course. “Come on, I got the pancake mix. Did Candy feed you?” It sounded almost like he’d be upset if she had.
Red Jack had four muffins for breakfast, each a different flavor. He’d also wanted to eat a banana, but it made him think of Loki’s dick, and he got self-conscious so he left it in the end. “You can’t cook for shit.”
“I can microwave something. We have stuff in the freezer,” said Loki, rushing past Red Jack, only to stare into his face while walking backward.
Red Jack groaned at how handsome the fucker was. He wanted to punch Loki just so his face wouldn't be so fuckable. But he wouldn’t. He stopped and looked into those big black wells for eyes. “You think I’m gonna put out if you microwave me some food?”
Loki slouched against the kitchen island. “Jack... I didn’t mean it that way. I made a move on you, and you freaked out.”
“No one told you to make a move on me.” Red Jack walked up to the fridge and punched it so hard it rattled. “See this list? It’s not done, so you don’t get to fuck me!” Red Jack wished he wouldn’t be getting so agitated about it, but his blood pressure was going through the roof.
Loki wet his lips. “So you didn’t say you don’t want to do it at all. You were all fine with me on top of you... it seemed like a good moment.”
“I’ve had girls lie on top of me. It’s fine. Feels nice. Doesn’t mean I wanted them to stick a dildo up my ass!” Red Jack spread his arms.
Loki mirrored Red Jack’s gesture. “You could have just said no instead of pushing me off and not speaking to me all night. How was I supposed to know?”
“I told you before, and you still thought you’d steal a fuck, ‘cause I’m drunk and horny? Fuck you! You selfish fucking pig! I do so much for your sick fucking head, and you still try to mess with me!”
Loki stepped back, his cheeks reddening. “You do like my cock in your mouth. Why wouldn’t you like—”
Enough was enough. Red Jack crossed the distance between them and slapped Loki’s face, regardless of how pretty it was. “I said ‘no’!”
Loki stepped away, his chest hollowing. “You said you’d never hit me...”
“I promised I wouldn’t rape you and bury you alive,” Red Jack rasped, finding it hard to breathe. Truth be told, he already regretted that slap. The hurt in Loki’s eyes was the last thing he wanted to see. Then again, Loki had purposefully brought up the dick sucking to make things uncomfortable for Red Jack.
Loki shook his head, and his mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “You’re such a good guy.”
Red Jack took a step back and curled his fists. “I never said I was a good guy. I shot your ex and buried him in concrete. You’re the one who chose me. I never claimed to be a good choice. For anyone.”
Loki kicked one of Red Jack’s high stools, and it fell over like a cut down tree. “Fuck you.”
Red Jack bit into the insides of his cheeks until he drew blood. And this was what he got out of a fucking relationship. And a gay one at that. A gunshot wound, a shit-ton of expectations he couldn’t fulfill, and a ‘fuck you’ at the end of it. No wonder he’d never had anyone living with him.
The sound of his cell phone fought through the throbbing in his brain. He was glad there was something to divert his attention from that beautiful, hateful face. Monster.
“Hey, what’s up?” Red Jack asked, continuing the staring contest with Loki.
Monster was straight to the point, as always. “Found your second guy. Brian Schultz. I can mail you the pictures for Loki to identify.”
“Okay, do that. How fast can we do this?” Red Jack would not go back on his promise. He’d get rid of every single last one of those fuckers, even if he didn’t want to please Loki in any way at this point.
Loki picked up the stool and sat on it with a sour face as Monster continued. “I gave him some dope, so he’s probably not gonna leave home tonight. Might be a good time.”
Red Jack put Monster on speaker phone and opened the photo as soon as it came through. He turned it around to Loki. “This one of the guys?”
He didn’t even need to hear a confirmation after seeing Loki’s body tighten. His face paled so abruptly Red Jack could almost follow the color dropping off Loki’s face.
Red Jack kinda wanted to hug Loki. But also kinda didn’t. “That’s the one.” He turned the phone away to spare Loki’s eyes from looking at the miserable fucker who was a dead man walking anyway.
“How about 8:00 p.m.?” Monster asked. That would leave him enough time to deal with the body.
“Sounds good to me.” Red Jack was kinda surprised at how easily Monster agreed to help him with this. And all that behind Borg’s back, to avoid any possible interference. He was pretty sure Monster took some sick, twisted pleasure from all this killing.
“At the Crossbones,” said Monster before disconnecting. It was a codename for a crossroads a few miles out of the city. Red Jack put his phone back into his pocket, not really keen to browse through photos of another one of Loki’s rapists.
All of a sudden, the silence in the kitchen seemed to force its way into Red Jack’s lungs, and Loki wasn’t talking either, too busy playing with a pen he must have found on the countertop.
Red Jack waved his hand for Loki to get up. “Get dressed, dry your hair. We’re going to take out the trash later.”
Loki nodded, turning the pen in his fingers. “Okay. That was quick.”
“I’ve got Monster helping us track them down and get rid of the bodies. He’s good at this kind of shit.”
Loki bit into his lip, rocking on the balls of his feet. “So you don’t want the pancakes,” he asked flatly.
“No. I have a headache. Gonna lie down for a few hours. And that’s not an invitation.” Red Jack got himself a beer from the fridge, because the pounding in his head was getting worse.
The muscles around Loki’s jaw tightened. “Come on, Jack... I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I have no idea how you meant trying to stick a dick in me.” He turned around and headed for the bedroom. Loki was already talking some shit Red Jack purposefully ignored, but his phone rang again, and he picked it up without looking who it was.
“Change of plans. Come now, I have a date later.” Monster. Had a date. What the actual fuck?
“Hope it’s not a date with our deadie? You into that?” Red Jack couldn’t help a little smirk despite his headache intensifying at the thought of having to deal with something now.
“No. A lady needs her spanking badly,” said Monster with nearly as much enthusiasm as Red Jack had for ponies.
“Okay. We’ll be there soon.” He hung up the moment his thoughts s
trayed to spanking Loki’s ass. He’d done it quite a few times during sex and Loki never complained about it. When Red Jack began wondering if he himself would like getting spanked, he knew it was high time to turn off his own brain.
“Jack.” Loki’s curled his hand around Red Jack’s wrist and pulled.
“What? We’re leaving now. Put on a shirt.” He shook off Loki’s hand as if it were toxic.
“Fine,” grumbled Loki before rushing off. The slamming door came next, but Red Jack didn’t care anymore. This whole relationship thing was going downhill fast.
“I’m waiting outside!” he yelled as soon as he’d downed his beer and rushed out of the house for a breath of fresh air. If there was something that could help him feel better, it would definitely be mounting his bike and driving at a breakneck speed.
Loki joined him all too soon, dressed in a fitted hoodie and high-tops. And of course, he went straight for the bike, as if it were his God-given right to ride in Red Jack’s bitch seat. Red Jack needed to amend that sort of thinking. He put his palm on Loki’s chest when the guy was close enough.
“Take your car.”
And there it was, that kicked puppy look that was probably just as real as the Tooth Fairy.
“Jack... you know this is difficult for me.”
“What is? Driving?”
Loki stuffed his hands down the front pockets of his jeans. “No.”
“Then get in the car.” Red Jack lit himself a cigarette that would probably not help his headache, but would soothe his nerves.
“Fine,” said Loki for the second time within the last few minutes, though it seemed even more passive-aggressive than the first time. Loki took his time walking to the car, as if he honestly believed Red Jack would take pity on him.
Tough luck.
Chapter 21
Loki sat cross-legged on the hood of his car while Jack talked to Monster. The constant tweeting of birds coming from the branches above him was slowly drilling tiny holes in his skull, only to hack into his brain. Brian was so close it gave Loki shivers, and his eyes hardly strayed from the ruined house at the edge of the woods. Small, with most of the paint gone from the wooden panels of the outer walls and windows blocked with either wood or plastic, it looked oddly similar to Loki’s family home. Though he didn’t remember it in a shape quite so bad.
At least Brian wouldn’t die in a nice place. According to Monster, the guy had fallen completely off the wagon, and even his family didn’t want to have anything to do with his junkie ass. He had been the one straight guy at the scene, and yet he’d still put his dick into Loki several times. And just before they buried him, the bastard had taken a fucking selfie in the makeshift grave, laughing into Loki’s face when he was too weak to move anymore.
Jack had a scowl on his face that seemed to be a permanent fixture. Loki hated the way Jack wouldn’t look into his eyes anymore, it hurt more than the throbbing under Loki’s skull.
“Let’s go,” Jack said and waved at Loki, as Monster led the way.
Loki slid off the hood and ran after them with his heart in his throat. Brian found being buried alive so funny? Maybe he should get a taste of his own medicine then? Die a slow death in a casket buried six feet under. Would Jack let Loki use his knife? Loki would love to have a try at carving, too.
Jack pulled out his gun, but as he began moving slower, Monster dismissed him with a short hand gesture.
“He’s drugged up to his eyeballs, he won’t hear us,” Monster said and was the first one to enter the house.
“How long until he sobers up?” whispered Loki, standing next to Jack and looking up at him. The moldy, wet smell of the building mixed with the awful tang of urine made Loki hold his breath.
Jack shrugged, glancing at Brian curled up on the filthy couch in the corner. He looked like shit, pale, with scabs at his mouth and matted hair, but before Loki could absorb the whole picture, Jack stepped forward. “Does it matter?” He pointed the gun at the sofa, and Loki yelped, but it was too late. Jack pulled the trigger, splattering Brian’s brain over the wall.
It was like a punch in the gut. “No! No! He didn’t deserve to have a peaceful fucking death in his sleep!” yelled Loki, staring at Jack, with hurt pulling at his heart. Jack knew how much this meant to him. He’d practically torn Ted apart, and now he was okay with just blowing up Brian’s skull?
Jack tensed, and still wouldn’t look Loki in the eye. “You wanted him dead.”
Having this conversation with Monster’s cold eyes watching was the last thing Loki wanted, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
“Not like this! You know this! You know what he did!” yelled Loki, balling his hands into fists. His chest was bursting with anger, and it kept coming in rapid waves. He felt betrayed. Helping him find closure was yet another chore for Jack.
Jack put away his gun and slid his hands into his pockets with a scowl. The silence from him was only making the whole thing worse. Even if he did regret shooting Brian like he did, it was too damn late. No matter how much Loki would tear into Brian’s body with a knife, it was all it was now, a dead body. He might as well carve up a pig carcass and have the same effect. Still, he rushed over the dirt-caked floor and pulled on Brian’s hoodie. The fucker rolled to the floor like a rag doll, and bits of bloody tissue sprinkled Loki’s shoes.
“No... you disgusting fuck!”
It was only now that Jack cleared his throat and came up from the back to pull on Loki’s T-shirt. “Leave it.”
Loki shoved him away and bared his teeth. “Let go!”
Jack stepped back and sighed. “Don’t you want this over with?” He finally met Loki’s gaze, but he didn’t sound like he believed his own words, which made his attempts at convincing Loki quite useless.
“You put him down like a dog, with fucking tranquilizers in his blood so that nothing hurts! And it should hurt! He didn’t even know I came for him!”
“I’m sorry,” Jack muttered in the end. “My head hurts.”
Loki exhaled, staring at Jack as his own body slowly deflated. Was this an adequate response to how Jack felt about Loki making a move on him the night before? Was Jack really so hurt? “You should lie down.”
“Yeah, do that,” said Monster, suddenly reminding them both he was still there. He put a gas can on the floor and stretched. “I need to get moving.”
Jack scratched his forehead and looked at Brian’s body with a tight scowl.
“Thanks,” muttered Loki and walked past Monster, eager to breathe the pine-scented air outside. Only now did he look down at his sneakers, and he wiped them on a patch of moss. His chest felt empty and heavy at the same time. Two down, three to go.
“We’ll be waiting for your next call,” Loki heard Jack say to Monster, but he already rushed toward his car, as if Jack pushed him. The rift between them was only growing, and Loki was slowly becoming desperate. What if Jack never forgave him? What if in his mind Loki just trying something new in bed was a betrayal of trust, an assault?
Jack went back to his bike without a word, but didn’t mount it, fiddling with something on his seat. Loki didn’t shut the door of his car right away after getting in He watched the broad back, the fiery hair, the big hand resting on the bitch seat of the motorcycle. He wanted to say something, but then again, clearly, Jack didn’t want to have anything to do with him at this point. It hurt Loki to even look at the vacant space between them. He wanted back on that bitch seat, and he knew exactly how to show his commitment to Jack.
He started the car with a new sense of purpose.
Chapter 22
Red Jack sat on the beach, smoking a cigarette. The freedom of watching the dark gray sky above the ocean as the waves whispered into his ear was one of the reasons why Red Jack had invested in this house. Sometimes he enjoyed getting smashed, fucking, playing video games, but other times—all he wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, far away from anyone who’d bother him. Only right now, the faint buzz from the road nearby
wasn’t enough, and both the beach and the house seemed too deserted. Red Jack needed to cool off, so he had even gone for a quick dip in the ocean before. Not because of the killing. That was easy-peasy in comparison to what he had to deal with now.
Loki didn’t come home after the murder. He also stopped answering Red Jack’s calls. At first, Red Jack was pissed off and thought this was just some mindfuck Loki-style, but after the five voice messages and ten hours without a reply, he was getting worried. The moon was laughing into his face. A few weeks with Loki around, and an empty house felt weird, as if something important was missing. And now that Red Jack had already slept off his hangover in the afternoon, he couldn’t even fall asleep and stop worrying for the damn pest.
He made one more call as he finished his cigarette and got up from the sand when no one answered. Again. Back in the house, Red Jack half expected to find Loki sitting there on the couch and playing Xbox with no shirt on, as if nothing had happened, but he found the living room empty.
Red Jack went over to the fridge for a beer but stopped before opening the door and stared at Loki’s bucket list. ‘Fucking Red Jack’s ass’ was crossed out with a marker so black, it was not readable anymore, but Red Jack knew what was underneath the thick lines, and that knowledge was biting deep into his guts.
There was something about a dick sliding against his ass that created a reaction so visceral it was hard to breathe. But after Loki disappearing for so many hours, Red Jack would put out just to have him back safe at home. How stupid was that? Loki pursued Red Jack with so much ferocity that it felt weird to have all that interest removed. Maybe bottoming wouldn’t be that bad? Loki seemed to love it, and Red Jack had already discovered that giving blow jobs wasn’t unpleasant either. Surely, Red Jack could bear it that one time. It wasn’t like anyone would know he’d done it. A secret between him and Loki.
The longer all those questions floated through his brain, the more agitated he became. What if the outcry against the assfuck, plus the shitty way of killing Brian was too much for Loki to handle, and he had simply decided Red Jack was too much hassle to deal with and a waste of the precious time he had left?
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