by Noah Harris
Drake Street Home. A Place for Healing. He dawdled at the gate for a moment, looking around, and Jack and Fiona ducked behind one of the hedges.
“Frankie, we’re here. He’s about to…he’s walked in,” Fiona whispered into her earpiece. Jack edged along the hedges, peeking over them, he didn’t see Frankie, and he felt his mouth go dry like he couldn’t breathe. She was supposed to be here to take Travis down. She was supposed to be here.
“Frankie J, come in,” he said, but he got no response. Ronnie had turned around in the garden, pretending to examine the flowers, honeysuckle, lavender, rare aromatic plants that Jack didn’t know the names of and which perfumed the garden. Travis walked closer and closer, and as Ronnie evidently realized Frankie wasn’t about to pop out of the begonias and apprehend Travis, he seemed to take a deep breath and turn around.
Face-to-face with Travis, the man stumbled back and stared at Ronnie in surprise. Jack ran around to the entrance of the garden and was about to burst through the gate when Ronnie slowly, languidly raised his hand without looking away from Travis. Jack stopped in his tracks, Ronnie’s hand like a stop sign, and watched him for a second. He lowered his hand as Travis stared at him, and Jack fretted at the gate.
I’ve got this. That’s what Ronnie had meant when he stopped Jack, but it almost felt like too much to bear. How could he let his pregnant omega deal with this, alone? He gritted his teeth and watched, feeling like he was being tortured. His dragon felt like it was struggling against chains, roaring and fighting to get to its mate. But this was important to Ronnie, he was the bait, and now he was going to end it, once and for all. Jack grudgingly crouched back by the hedges with Fiona, watching, his dragon pacing incessantly, growling. It took all the self-control he had not to shift then and there and tear Travis to shreds.
Ronnie stood there, silently watching Travis. Jack saw Ronnie eye Travis’ hands cautiously, and Travis pulled them out of his pockets, empty.
“Hi, Travis,” he said slowly, and Travis’ chest seemed to heave. “Would you sit with me for a minute? We can talk,” he said, and then sat down on a nearby stone bench, dragons carved into the supports. Jack watched, his heart in his feet, on the concrete sidewalk. Travis shuddered and took a step forward, putting his hands back in his pockets, and Ronnie looked up at him warningly. Travis’ voice came out angry, raspy.
“I…”
“Travis, I know everything,” Ronnie interrupted him, and Travis started to hyperventilate. Ronnie, however, kept his voice even and calm, and Jack watched with pride and terror. “I know you’ve been sending Lucy and me letters. I know where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing. I know you broke into the house that I...that I was staying at,” he said, glancing at Jack. Jack nodded gravely at him, grateful he’d refrained from mentioning that Drake Street would soon be his permanent residence. “I know why you’re angry with me, and why you’re doing all this. And…I understand.” Ronnie let out a stable, smooth breath and looked expectantly at Travis , but from the side Jack could see his face twisting in anger and confusion.
“You…you don’t know anything,” Travis bit out, and Ronnie frowned sadly at him. “You don’t know shit, Ronnie,” he raised his voice, and then pulled out a gun, pointing it at Ronnie. Jack jumped to his feet and ran to the gate, but Ronnie held up his hand again, this time it quivered in mid-air. Jack froze, about to jump the gate, and Travis faltered, lowering the gun slightly. Jack watched him inadvertently aim it at Ronnie’s stomach instead of his face, and growled, wanting to shake the gate like a caged animal.
“Travis, I understand. Will you let us talk?” he said calmly, but Jack could hear a tremor, quiet and almost unnoticeable, in his voice. Travis looked behind him and met Jack’s eyes and then looked back at Ronnie.
“Who’s that,” Travis asked breathlessly, shaking.
“He…he’s here to make sure you don’t make a mistake, Travis. Don’t make a mistake. Just sit down so we can talk.” Travis looked back at Jack again. Jack gritted his teeth and glared at him, feeling a vein ticking in his neck.
“Fine,” Travis finally said, looking back at Ronnie. He sat down next to him, keeping his distance, cradling the gun in his lap carefully.
“I understand why you’re angry, Travis. When…when I was working with Perry, he did a lot of horrible things to me. I have nightmares, still, sometimes. If I could go back, I would’ve done anything to stop him. To stop him from hurting me, and from hurting other people. But at the time…I was traumatized, and I just wanted to escape.” Jack listened to Ronnie speak his truth, his stomach turning as he thought about the pain his mate had been in that he hadn’t been around to rescue him from. “Can you understand that?” Ronnie asked Travis, and Travis let out a shuddering breath.
“He raped me,” Travis said, then looked around, paranoid. He looked back at Ronnie and sniffled, his body seeming to vibrate. “He raped me over and over. He said he would make me a star like you and Lucy were. But you guys left me, you left me,” he repeated, and Ronnie nodded, staring at Travis with insurmountable sadness and guilt. “And then when Perry had used me and taken everything from me, he left too.”
“I’m so sorry, Travis. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer the same things I did. I never intended for this to happen,” Ronnie said, reaching out and touching Travis’ arm lightly. Travis jerked back and clutched the gun tighter, but Ronnie didn’t flinch. “Lucy and I teamed up to take Perry down. I sent out a video exposing him, and we told all the people we know what happened.” Travis quivered and looked around the garden like he didn’t know where he was, his world was falling apart, his entire perception of reality.
He said nothing, and they sat there for a few moments, Travis’ hold on the gun slackening. The birds chirped. The music from the festival floated through the air. Jack watched it, as did Ronnie, and then Ronnie spoke again.
“Travis, I understand why you targeted me but…but why Lucy?”
“She saw it all with you. She knew it was happening, she knew it could happen to me. She knew what he was, Ronnie, just like you did,” Travis said, his voice cracking like he was trying to defend himself, prove that he had a reason for everything he’d done.
“Why not go after Perry directly?” Travis opened and closed his mouth, gaped like a fish at him, looking around at the garden like he was looking for an excuse. Jack watched him break, could pinpoint the moment it happened, his chest collapsed in, and he let out a low sob, more like a moan, a wail. Jack stood up, now was the moment. Travis would either give in or go berserk.
“I’m so tired,” he croaked brokenly, leaning over onto his legs and wiping his face with his sleeve. Sobs wracked his body, and before Jack had a chance to get through the gate so he could take the gun, Ronnie took the shivering man in his arms and hugged him to his chest. He rubbed his back as he reached down carefully, extracting the gun from Travis’ lap struggling, for only a moment, to put the safety on with one hand. Then he tossed it into the bushes.
Then he leaned over Travis and hugged him tighter, biting his lip and letting a few tears stream silently down his face. Jack relaxed and leaned against the gate, wet with dew. He felt his dragon settle, watching Ronnie take care of Travis, stroke his hair, rub his back, exorcise his demons. All his anger and fear over the situation seemed to melt into the soft earth of the garden as he watched.
Ronnie had impressed him every step of the way for the past few days, but here, Jack felt he was in awe of his omega. He knew when they’d made love the night before, that they were meant to be together, the feeling, the emotion, the way Ronnie’s hands had felt on his skin, the sounds he’d made…it had been like watching a piece of moving, breathing artwork. But now, in the light of the day, with other people around, watching Ronnie take care of the man that had threatened his life and tormented him for weeks…Ronnie was unbreakable, infallible. He met everything head-on. When he’d found out about Jack, when he’d met with Clara, when they’d forged this plan. And now, staring deat
h down, a gun in his face, he hadn’t crumbled; he’d gotten stronger, taller.
Jack could barely believe he’d thought Ronnie was weak and silly when they’d first met. He was the bravest of them all, and he’d had the most trauma to fight through, more than anyone. And now he could rest.
The flowers of the Drake Street Home’s gardens rose to face the sun as it floated across the sky and warmed the earth. As Ronnie and Travis calmed down and Ronnie hugged his shoulders and patted him on the back of the head, the garden seemed to come to life around them. Clara had been right, there was no better place to save a life than right here on Drake Street.
But Jack knew he’d also been right in seeing Ronnie as the brave masterpiece he was, sitting there in the sun, his red hair looking like a golden crown, his face solemn, Jack saw the difference. He had walked through his pain and met Travis there, and carried them both out of it. He was a man, the one he’d always wanted to be, strong and kind and no longer weighed down by his past. Jack felt a sense of pride so overwhelming that his own chest heaved with un-spilled tears, and he crouched back down. Fiona joined him, sitting on the sidewalk with her legs splayed on the grass.
“Well, looks like it’s over,” she said, and Jack nodded.
“Looks like it,” he said gruffly.
“He’s really something, isn’t he?” Jack nodded, still watching Ronnie, illuminated by the sunlight and surrounded by the beauty of a garden that didn’t even come close to his own.
Jack loved Frankie J, and Portia, and even unemotional, strange Clara and Fiona. But for Ronnie, he’d never known this particular kind of love, the one that made his body ache as he sat on the ground, smelling the sweetness of the flowers.
A Place for Healing
Ronnie
The inside of the Drake Street Home was lilac. The walls, carpets, even the furniture was lilac if it wasn’t a soothing, neutral tan. The windows were wide and reinforced just as Ronnie had been told by the head of the Home, Teddy Ross. There were two wings, one for non-violent patients, the other for the more volatile ones. There was a third in progress, but Ronnie didn’t get a good look as he followed Teddy through the building, getting the tour.
“So, we would have a bed for Travis in this room,” Teddy said, his warm brown eyes smiling down at Ronnie. Ronnie nodded and peered inside the room. It was green, pale green, with two beds and sparse furniture. One half of the room was covered in artwork and personal effects, a radio on the bedside table, some pictures in frames. “He’d have a roommate.”
“That’s good,” Ronnie replied.
“Alright, well, if you’re happy with the arrangements, we can go to my office to handle the paperwork.” Ronnie followed him to the back of the home into a small room, filled almost entirely by a paper-strewn desk and two cramped chairs. Teddy squeezed behind his desk and sat down, and Ronnie settled into one of the chairs that hugged his hips.
“So, I’ll just need you to write down all the information about him that you know, and we can fill in any blanks with him tomorrow. You said he’s functioning, so we can count on him to give us whatever we’re missing.”
“Right,” Ronnie said, taking the pen from him and filling in the sections of the paperwork, thinking about Travis the entire time. Would he be happy here? Would he find the help he needed? Ronnie hoped so.
“Right. And then…I always hate this part,” Teddy said with an awkward chuckle, leaning over the desk and flipping to the next page of the packet Ronnie was filling out. “The payment method.” Ronnie looked at the cost and glanced curiously up at Teddy.
“This is…is this correct?”
“Yes, that’s what we charge for the three-month ‘trial’ period. If they need to stay, it only goes up a fraction, so…” Teddy said, seeming nervous.
“No, I mean, I’ll be honest, this isn’t a lot at all. This is far cheaper than any other home or rehabilitation center I’ve ever seen or heard of,” Ronnie explained, still looking between Teddy and the price, he couldn’t believe it. He had to be reading it wrong. Teddy’s smile faltered.
“Well, we try to keep prices down so we can help more people. We have to cut a few corners when it comes to staff and management, but it doesn’t affect the experience of the patients. I’m glad you think it’s affordable.”
“I, um, I’ll be taking care of Travis’ treatment. Can I ask, where do you get your funding?”
“Well, Clara Anaheim, I don’t know if you know her, she gives us a sizable amount every month to keep us up and running. And the clients, our patients, they pay what they can if not the entire amount, which covers basic costs. Other than that, well, Drake Street is for artists and chefs, musicians and celebrities…no one who might notice a Home at the end of the street.” Ronnie frowned and looked back down at the papers.
“What’s that construction at the front of the building?”
“Oh, that’s probably never going to get done,” Teddy sighed, shrugging disappointedly. “It was meant to be another wing. You see, as I showed you, we have a wing for people who are non-violent, and people who are generally violent. As in, outwardly. But we don’t have a wing for people who are inwardly violent. Drug addicts, self-harmers. We were hoping to expand because that kind of struggle is rampant on Drake Street but kind of ignored.”
“That’s a really great idea,” Ronnie nodded, thinking of all the ways he’d tried to cope when he’d been under Perry’s thumb. It had never escalated to self-harm or severe drug abuse, but he remembered, underage and hurting, being desperate to get his hands on any alcohol or pot he could, just to numb it all.
“It was the idea of a resident, actually, he’s very involved with the community. His name is Shaeffer Gipson. Maybe you’ve met him during your stay here?” Ronnie’s mind clicked and he leaned forward.
“Yes, I know him!” He thought about the man he’d met a few weeks ago, at the fair, while he’d been trying to attract Travis to him. “Black hair, green eyes? Very tall? He has a daughter.”
“Yes, that’s him,” Teddy nodded. “He has, um, experience with drug addiction. He lost a close friend to it.” Ronnie thought about Shaeffer, how kind and helpful and happy he seemed, what a great parent. It was shocking to hear, at first, but it made sense. It was always the people who had suffered and healed who were the kindest. “So, he brought the idea to us, and Clara, and we agreed it was a good idea. But Clara had already been funding our Home in other ways and taking an interest in some new projects, so Shaeffer donated a very generous amount. After that, though, well, he has a daughter, he can’t just throw all his money into our Home, no matter how helpful it might be.”
Ronnie nodded thoughtfully. Drake Street, sure, it was a place for artists and chefs, musicians and celebrities. But it was also home to a huge flight of dragons and many people who needed help and simply weren’t getting it. It might be his new home, too.
Perry was getting sent to jail, and the settlement from his bankruptcy was getting awarded to him as recompense for the abuse and medical bills he’d had to pay. Travis hadn’t lucked out so much, having been charged for sending the threatening letters to him and Lucy, but they’d petitioned for him to get help instead of being sent to prison.
“I think I have an idea where you can get the rest of the funding you need to open that wing. I’ll come back when I have everything settled, and we’ll get it all figured out.” Teddy stuttered and stood up, reaching out his hand.
“Well....well, we’d appreciate anything, Mr. Redcliff,” he stammered, and Ronnie shook his hand firmly. “I think, other than that, you’re all set here, with the paperwork, I mean. Did you want to wait until Mr. Caulfield got here?”
“No, I don’t think it’s a very good idea for me to be here when he arrives. I’ll come when he’s settled in,” Ronnie said, and Teddy nodded understandingly.
“Of course. Well, let me walk you out.” Teddy slid out from behind his desk and then led him out of the office and down the hallway. “The new wing, did you ha
ve anyone you’d like to name it after?” Ronnie thought about it as they approached it, thinking of Shaeffer, so selfless, giving away so much money right after having his child.
“I think that should be up to Shaeffer,” he mused, and Teddy nodded quickly as they approached the exit.
“That’s a great idea. We are really looking forward to hearing back from you, Mr. Redcliff,” Teddy said, reaching out and shaking Ronnie’s hand again. Ronnie smiled at him and walked out into the sunshine.
Now that was taken care of, he could get back to Jack, his Jack. The past few weeks had been stressful, what with Travis’ trial, Perry’s sentencing and the bankruptcy, his body changing swiftly with the pregnancy which he’d learned would only last half that of a human pregnancy. But yesterday had been calm, not a whirlwind, and he and Jack had finally spoken about their relationship, where it and they were going. He’d been worried that in the stress of the past few weeks, dealing with things on his own and no longer needing Jack to protect him, things might cool off. That whatever had happened between them might disappear once the pressure was off. He’d been so wrong.
As Ronnie walked down the street toward Fort Anaheim, he thought about Jack’s tentative face, his fidgeting hands as they’d discussed their lives together the night before.
“Ronnie, can we talk about something?” he’d asked, and Ronnie had twisted around on the couch and looked up at him, resting his chin on the arm of the couch.
“Anything you like.” Jack had sat down next to him, laying his hands flat on his thighs, looking intensely at Ronnie. That look, his dark eyes staring unwaveringly at him, the hair that fell in his face, that Ronnie would never get used to, making his stomach burn with love and desire.
