Red Fish, Dead Fish

by Amy Lane

  Ellery didn’t let up on the kisses, rolling so he was in the vee of Jackson’s spread legs. He raised his hands to cup Jackson’s cheeks, pulling back to meet his eyes.

  “All mine,” he enunciated so there was no uncertainty. “You can’t go. You’re mine. You belong here.” His voice wobbled. “Oh God, baby. Where have you been?”

  Jackson’s eyes grew bright and red rimmed. He turned his face away. “It was sort of a shitty night,” he rasped.

  “You fucking think?” And Ellery lost it. Mindful of the shoulder—which looked awful, black and swollen from blood under the skin—he buried his face against Jackson’s neck and sobbed.

  “No… sh….” Jackson comforted him, running his hand through Ellery’s hair with a tenderness Ellery had never suspected he had. “Don’t… it’s okay. I’m okay.”

  Ellery pulled in a ragged breath. “You can’t keep asking to go,” he mumbled, voice taut with fear. “You belong here.”

  “I’m…. Ellery, my mother was a junkie. And a whore. And a horrible human being. And….” Jackson’s voice broke now. “And I don’t know why it hurts that she’s gone. Doesn’t that make me dirty too?”

  “No.” He had no more words. Maybe later he could use his mother’s wise and well-chosen ones, but not now. Now no was all he had. “No. Not dirty. Whatever happened last night—”

  “He shot me full of smack,” Jackson confessed.

  Ellery kept his face buried against Jackson’s neck. “And?”

  “And he jacked off on me while I lay there, out of it. I got away when he was wrecking the car.”

  Ellery let out a humorless laugh, their bodies bare and sweating together under the comforter. This was as naked as he’d ever seen Jackson, and Jackson couldn’t look at him, eyes turned away, because it was too naked for Ellery to see.

  Ellery didn’t care.

  “You’re really not doing well with Hondas,” he said after a moment. “Maybe we should try a Subaru.”

  Jackson tried to shove up on an elbow. “Is that all you’ve got to say?” he demanded.

  “Do you need a rape counselor?” Ellery asked seriously—because he would.

  “I’d rather die,” Jackson said with deep venom. “Nobody gets this… this… crap inside me. Don’t you get that? Why would I want to give it to you? Do you want to hear the rest of my night? The way I threw up in the street and not even junkies would touch me on the bus?”

  “Why would you want to give it to me?” Ellery rolled to his side, righteously angry. “Because I asked for it, God help me. Because it comes with you.” Jackson went to roll off the bed, and Ellery stopped him with a grip on his arm. “No, you don’t get to run away!”

  Jackson stopped and looked faintly embarrassed. “I was going to pee,” he confessed humbly. “I’ll come back and argue—no worries.”

  Ellery laughed and let him get off the bed. While he stumbled bare-assed to the bathroom, Ellery straightened out the bed covers. He was just about to slide back in when he heard Jackson’s muffled “Goddammit!”

  “What?”

  He ran to the bathroom and found Jackson with a wad of toilet paper on his nose and his head tilted back as he sat on a towel on the toilet seat. The toilet paper was already dripping crimson.

  “What in the hell?”

  “Haven’t eaten,” Jackson mumbled. “Got dehydrated. Happened in the academy all the time.”

  Ellery grabbed a washcloth and ran cold water on it, squeezed it out, and gave it to Jackson to swap for the saturated toilet paper. “What do you mean you haven’t eaten? Since when?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Starbucks, remember?”

  “Goddammit! Get in bed!”

  “What?” Jackson’s eyes over the cold washcloth were legitimately surprised.

  “Get in bed. I’ll go get you ice and food and more ice for your shoulder and some Vicodin and we are going to fucking talk!”

  Jackson stared at him, mouth working but no noise coming out. Finally he said, “No Vicodin.”

  “If you get into bed right now,” Ellery snarled, shaking with anger, “I’ll think about not taking you back to the doctor.”

  “The doctor!”

  “You’re still going, just not today—but that’s only if you just shut up about leaving and get into bed right now.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” Jackson said into the quiet left when he was done issuing orders. “I just—”

  “You just think you’re doing me a big ol’ favor by breaking my fucking heart. I’m over it. Get in bed.”

  Jackson stood up awkwardly, washcloth folded to catch the most blood. “God, you’re bossy.”

  “Only when you’re stupid. Now—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting in bed.”

  Ellery stomped into the kitchen in his underwear, threw a pot on the stove to heat up soup, and pulled two ice packs from the freezer. He grabbed a package of crackers and another washcloth from the cupboard and stomped back into the bedroom, thinking Jackson would have to do a lot more than get crumbs on the sheets before Ellery let him out of bed again.

  He was struggling one-handed into boxer shorts.

  “So help me, Jackson—”

  “I was naked.”

  Ellery let out some of his anger. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Usually nudity wasn’t a problem. In fact, he tended to flaunt his body, telling the whole world to fuck off if they didn’t like his scars. By God, they were his scars.

  But not right now.

  Ellery set down the crackers and ice packs and moved carefully behind him. “Here—hold the washcloth. I’ll get your underwear.”

  “I’m not helpless.” It was almost the tone of a whiny toddler—but Ellery knew better. He kissed the back of Jackson’s good shoulder gently after he’d pulled up the boxer shorts.

  “You’re not. You’re never helpless. I just like to take care of you. That’s all.”

  Jackson’s head drooped dispiritedly. “I don’t know why.”

  Ellery wrapped his arms around Jackson’s middle and rested his cheek on the back of his neck. “I’m going to say something right now that will scare you. Don’t freak out and don’t respond—”

  “Don’t do this—”

  “No, I’m going to do this. I’m going to say it, and you’re just going to let the words sink in. They’ll probably bounce off the first time, and maybe even the second or the third. But I don’t give up—you know that about me.”

  “Stubborn fucker.” His voice sounded clogged beyond the towel he was holding to his nose.

  “Yeah. I am. And I’m going to say the words. Are you ready?” Ellery could feel the fine trembling that emotion and hunger and horror had started in Jackson’s body and that hadn’t stopped, not once, since Ellery had first crawled into bed with him.

  “No.”

  “Tough. I love you. I’ve never loved another man like I love you. This thing that just happened to you, it feels like the end of the world. But the man in my arms?” Ellery squeezed him tighter, knowing that even if it hurt, Jackson could take it. “He’s still strong. Still good inside. It hasn’t stopped how I feel about him. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

  Jackson’s deep breath through his open mouth shook his entire body, and Ellery could feel the fine, hot spatter of tears on his forearms.

  He kissed the back of Jackson’s neck again. “Get in bed.”

  Wordlessly Jackson nodded and clambered into bed, pulling the pillows behind his back so he could sit up. Ellery handed him the ice pack for his nose and then wound an Ace bandage around the one on his shoulder. When he was done, he handed Jackson the package of crackers.

  Jackson accepted them—but he wouldn’t look Ellery in the eyes.

  “Eat,” Ellery said, satisfied when he moved a cracker from the package to his mouth. “I’ll go get your soup.”

  He came back with the bowl of soup on a towel and a glass of milk. He sat the milk on the
end table and crumbled crackers into the chicken soup until it was more paste than soup. He’d seen Jackson do this before and been appalled—until he realized it was a habit from when food was scarce and free crackers could stretch one tin of soup for two days.

  Once the soup was fixed, he nudged Jackson aside under the covers and sat at the edge of the bed before pulling up a spoonful and holding it out.

  The bleeding had stopped by this time, and Jackson glared, his head turned. “You’re not going to feed me—”

  “How’s your shoulder feel?” Ellery asked sweetly.

  Jackson grunted and shrugged—with his good shoulder.

  “You have to look at me,” Ellery said after a moment.

  “You’re making me feel like a child again.” And he managed to take a bite without meeting Ellery’s eyes.

  “You were never a child,” Ellery told him. “Childhood was a luxury, and you barely had food. And don’t bother trying to shrug that off. For one thing, it makes me hurt watching you. But you need to know that I get it. It wasn’t my childhood. I wasn’t there. But in my childhood, we were taken care of. I had mono in my senior year of high school. I stayed home for six weeks on home school, and no, Mom couldn’t be there all the time. But one night, when I was so weak I really couldn’t lift the damned spoon, she held me up and helped me drink broth from a little kid’s sippy cup while she told me about the corporation she was going after for pollution and explained how my father had researched the ingredients of the broth and added vegetables while it was cooking for optimum health.”

  Jackson smiled faintly and took the next offered bite. “Sounds horrible,” he said when he was through.

  “I thought it was,” Ellery confessed. He offered the next spoonful. “Until now.”

  Jackson met his eyes and let out the breath that had been holding his back ramrod straight. He took the next bite and looked around the room, reaching out to Billy Bob, who had settled in next to him while Ellery had been busy.

  Billy Bob rubbed his whiskers against his fingers and went back to napping.

  “I was going to leave,” he confessed, looking away again.

  “You’re expecting me to be surprised.” Ellery rolled his eyes. “I’ve been expecting you to run off since Toby called me.”

  Jackson gaped at him, and Ellery stuffed his open mouth full of soup.

  “Yes. I knew what you were thinking. No, I frequently don’t know what you’re thinking, but this time you were fucking transparent. Now I wish I’d been able to see that you were thinking about committing suicide by serial killer before I let you go yesterday afternoon, but since that didn’t work, I’m going to hope you settle down and talk to me before you try to take off again.”

  “I….”

  Ellery held his breath, not sure what he was hoping for from the world’s most emotionally constipated thirty-year-old toddler.

  “I couldn’t take the cat away from you,” he said.

  Ellery almost dropped his soup. “I’m sorry?”

  Jackson glared at him. Then he picked up the last spoonful and fed it to himself. “The fucking cat. You love that damned cat. I couldn’t take him away—but I couldn’t leave him here, because… you know.”

  “He’s your cat.” Ellery’s heart was suddenly doing triple time in his chest. Oh God. He’d never owned a cat. What if he’d just assumed it was Jackson’s animal and hadn’t gotten attached to the cat? What if the cat hadn’t liked him—cats were notorious for that. What if the goddamned cat had puked in his shoes every morning, and they’d had one of those sitcom/comic cat/owner’s boyfriend relationships, and Jackson had come into this house thinking “Oh, Ellery doesn’t like the damned cat. I’ll just disappear into the shadows with it and die!”

  “Yeah.” Jackson nodded. “I couldn’t leave him behind.”

  Ellery set the soup down by the end-table lamp with precise movements before pausing to wipe Jackson’s full mouth with the corner of the towel. “Give me the ice pack.” He gestured for the pack and the stained towel, and Jackson held them close, glaring.

  “Did you not hear that I got popped with a random needle last night?”

  “I don’t have any open cuts,” Ellery snapped. “And the blood is dry. Now hand it over.”

  Jackson did, still scowling.

  By the time Ellery got back from throwing the towel in the hamper and the ice pack back in the freezer, his hands had stopped shaking.

  He sat down again by Jackson’s side, conscious that neither one of them had said a word for a few moments. Careful of the shoulder, Ellery took Jackson’s hand from his lap and twined their fingers together.

  “Yes, I love the cat,” he said, this time the one to avoid Jackson’s eyes. “But I love you more.”

  Jackson tightened his fingers around Ellery’s. “We need to have some uniforms go to that house in Meadowview,” he said gruffly. “There were….” His voice failed, and Ellery looked up quickly. “Dead people,” he finished. “Junkies. Owens opened the house to Billy’s stash—must have been three ODs in there last night alone.”

  Ellery swallowed. God. “And your mom’s dealer?”

  Jackson closed his eyes and shuddered, looking away. “He was killed last night.”

  Jackson saw it—Ellery had no doubts.

  “Tell me.”

  “Why?”

  “So when you dream about it tonight, I know what I’m fighting.”

  “Knife in the throat,” Jackson muttered. Then, almost horribly, “He remembered me. Knew my mom. Was glad to see me.”

  Jesus.

  Ellery leaned over and kissed his temple. “You would have saved him if you could.”

  Jackson nodded, and Ellery kissed him again. “I’m going to go call Kryzynski and Campbell—oh, and Pierpont. They should get a piece of this.”

  “Good,” Jackson said quietly. “I don’t want it. I don’t want a goddamned bit of it.”

  “I’ll let them know.”

  He grabbed the soup bowl this time and made his phone calls. Kryzynski, in particular, was grateful.

  “Seriously—massive drug bust?”

  “And a possible serial killer—God, you really are too young to get old.”

  “Are you certain former officer Owens is a serial killer? Remember, last time we talked you still didn’t have proo—”

  “We have his DNA. It’s only a matter of time before we encounter a match. There were sexual components to all his crimes. We just didn’t have anything to match with. And we have a witness who saw him kill someone. And—” Ellery did a quick send of Owens’s military photo. “—we have what he looks like without the prosthetics he wore for two years. Can we at least take him in for questioning and get him off the street?”

  “Well, if I see him in a house full of dead people, I’m not going to ask him out! Oh hey….”

  “Yeah, he’s cute. He’s so cute he makes our wit throw up just looking at his picture.”

  “Who is your wit, anyway?”

  “Just find him,” Ellery snarled, not wanting to tell the world that just yet. Hoping for a way to not have to tell them ever. He’d protect Jackson from all of it—trial, deposition, cross-examination—all of it, if he possibly could.

  “Okay, okay! We’ll let you know if he’s there. What exactly are we looking for at the house, anyway?”

  He thought of Jade’s reaction to Jackson’s clothes. “You’ll know it when you smell it,” he said grimly. “Don’t forget to call Campbell and Pierpont and Pierpont’s buddy, Officer….” Crap. He couldn’t remember.

  “Yeah, yeah—I’ll tag all your friends. Trying to suck up to the police force, Cramer?”

  Ellery thought of Jackson, alone on the streets. He hadn’t said how he’d gotten home, but he obviously hadn’t felt comfortable talking to a police officer.

  “I need you to have his back,” Ellery said, voice hard.

  Kryzynski sucked in a breath. “Okay. Yeah. Deal. What’s he doing right now?”

&nbs
p; “Taking a Vicodin for his shoulder.” If Ellery had to shove it down his throat like the cat.

  “Ouch—rough night?”

  “You have no idea. Ring me when the house is secure.”

  They signed off, and Ellery brought back some fruit juice and the painkillers, thinking maybe Jackson would be ready for more now.

  He was asleep, shivering, in the throes of the dream again.

  At three in the afternoon, Ellery left a desk full of work and a raging case in progress and a chance to gloat over the entire police department that yes, they had been right, Owens was a serious problem after all, in favor of sliding in behind his lover and holding him as he shivered and moaned in fear.

  But at least he wasn’t planning to leave.

  Fish Takes a Breath

  JACKSON WOKE up after dark, alone in bed, shivering in the thin light from the bedside lamp. Ellery’s computer was still open on the end table nearby, but the screen had gone dark. He must have pulled it in to work while Jackson had been out.

  He tried to sit up and yelped because God, yes, he really had refucked his shoulder in the last two days.

  “Don’t move!” Ellery called from the kitchen. “I’m bringing you some ibuprofen for your fever!”

  “I do not have a fever!” But he couldn’t stop shivering. His shoulder felt hot to the touch.

  “And I don’t have control issues!” Ellery snapped.

  A rusty chuckle escaped Jackson’s chest. Ellery organized his shoes by color and type—oxfords or wingtips. He organized his socks by color and type—black dress or white athletic. He organized his suits by color and type—and so on. He’d never seen anyone so neat and so organized.

  “Shit.”

  “Reality setting in yet?”

  You said you loved me.

  “Sort of.” Jackson grunted. “Dammit, I’m going to have to get tested again.”

  Ellery popped his head in, a glass of juice in one hand and a bottle of painkillers in the other. “We can do that tomorrow morning before we go in to work.”