Blood Howl

by Alex Kidwell

  “Jed?”

  The voice stopped him cold as the rest of reality rushed back to him. The gunshot. Redford. Fil. Blood. Explosion. Redford. Swallowing back the sour tang on his tongue, Jed forced both eyelids open, looking around the room.

  Redford was sitting in a chair next to the bed, ramrod straight, hands folded tightly on his lap. He looked like he was barely holding it together, like that death grip he had on his fingers was the only thing keeping him from coming unglued. Both of Redford’s eyes were bruised, a cut standing out against one cheek. Jed’s brow furrowed, and he reached out, limbs feeling heavy and disconnected, to brush his fingers across Redford’s face.

  “You’re hurt,” he rasped, surprised when Redford choked out a laugh, a sob, reaching up to tangle his fingers in with Jed’s.

  “Shut up.” Then Redford was kissing him, slow and gentle, tears getting lost between their lips. Shocked, Jed lay silently for a moment, unresponsive. After everything, all the blood and the pain and the uncertainty, Redford was still there. He still wanted to be close, still wanted Jed, and that was something a lot bigger than he’d been prepared to deal with.

  After a ragged breath, Jed tilted his head up to catch Redford in another kiss, featherlight and achingly sweet. “Don’t tell me to shut up,” he rumbled, nipping Red’s lower lip with a tired, confused little smile. “Jerk.”

  Redford was hanging onto his hand like it’d kill him to let go, and Jed really couldn’t find it in himself to complain. He sighed quietly when Redford’s fingers brushed across his forehead, concentrating on that rather than the dully leeching pain or the fact he really wasn’t sure what had happened. There were bits and pieces that surfaced, murky against the morphine haze, but Jed couldn’t nail any of them down.

  “You were dead.” Redford was staring at him, eyes wide and solemn. There were still tears drying on his cheeks, still that agonized red circling stormy grey that showed all of the hurt Jed hadn’t been able to stop. Hesitating a moment, Redford looked around them before nudging Jed over, jaw set determinedly. He crawled into bed next to him, wrapping his arms around Jed, burying his face in the curve of his neck.

  Yeah. He’d been dead. For a long fucking time he’d been chasing every kind of high he could get, any kind of connection to make himself feel real. Jed had been dead and buried ages before Redford had showed up. He just hadn’t realized it. Until everything else had faded away and that one need, that one urge, had drowned out all the other bullshit.

  “What happened?” he asked lowly, deciding that the time for deep, emotional soul searching was not while drugs were dripping into his system. “With Fil? I remember….” A faint smile, then, tipping up his lips, and Jed reached out to brush his fingertips along the chain that disappeared beneath Redford’s shirt. “The whistle.”

  Redford just shook his head. “The rest isn’t important right now,” he mumbled, resting his cheek on Jed’s uninjured shoulder. “You should sleep. The doctors said you need lots of sleep.”

  Frowning up at the ceiling, Jed let his mind shift back, trying to pick up the pieces. “Were you a wolf?” he said after a little while of silence, looking down at Redford next to him. “Jesus, I think I was loopier than I thought. I swear you turned into a fucking huge wolf just because you felt like it.” A pause, and he rubbed his forehead with his free hand, wincing as the movement pulled at stitches. “Just tell me we killed the bad guy, Red.”

  There was a laugh buried against his shoulder, a relieved smile turning up the edges of Redford’s lips. “You killed him,” he confirmed, and added, “and I was a wolf,” a little bit more quietly. He took a quick look around to make sure there were no doctors or nurses hovering, and pulled up his sleeve, baring three puncture marks on the inside of his elbow. “Fil gave me his blood. He said it was his gift to his pack.”

  Wow, okay, and he had officially reached his threshold of weird-ass shit for the year. Staring blankly at further evidence of Fil’s insanity, he just huffed out a long sigh, letting his thumb rub over the holes. “Well, all right then,” he mumbled, nudging his face into Red’s shoulder, deciding that was a good place to hide. “I’m twice as glad I killed him, now.”

  According to Redford’s expression, Fil’s death wasn’t nearly as important as some things—say, the fact that Jed was here and not dead in a hallway. “I’m just happy you’re alive,” he said quietly, watching Jed. “I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I got free, but you… weren’t there.”

  “You would’a lived,” Jed half shrugged, closing his eyes and letting himself sink into the warmth of Redford’s body. Though he’d be the first to admit that he, too, was pretty damn happy to not be pushing up daisies, he couldn’t imagine his status on the whole living thing would affect Redford that much. Sure, yeah, the guy would be sad. That was what happened after death. People were sad for a little while, and then they moved on. Surely it’d be the same for Redford.

  Except he remembered what it was like, to wake up alone. To know with utter certainty that Redford was gone. If he hadn’t reached Redford in time, if Fil had been even more of a bastard… there wasn’t pain for a thought like that. Pain was transient, too weak of a word. Pain could be borne, pain could fade, pain could be dealt with or embraced or passed over. If it had been Redford lying bleeding on the floor, Jed wouldn’t just hurt. He knew that, could feel the threatened edges of the abyss just at the corners of his mind. It wouldn’t be merely pain. Jed would just come apart. Be swallowed whole by the skin-tight agony of having to breathe in and out in a world where he wasn’t.

  “Not very happily ever after,” Redford grumbled, shifting so that he didn’t cause Jed any pain. Jed snorted quietly, nudging his forehead against Red’s temple. For a moment he was silent, oddly so, the words only half forming before he swallowed them down again, afraid of letting them tumble out and become real.

  Finally though, he opened his eyes and met those cool, gray depths, and he asked the question. “You want an ever after with me?” There was a slow smile starting at the corners of Redford’s mouth, edging upward, and Jed tried to stop it, cautioning, “I can’t promise a happily in there anywhere, and I’m kind of a bastard. I don’t clean, I’ll leave my guns out everywhere, I can’t remember the last time I was sober for a week at a time. Oh, yeah, and I feed my cat better than myself. Seriously, I often grow mold that would make a dump look sanitary. And I don’t know how to be anything other than a slut, swear to God, Red, I’m a mess, and—”

  He got cut off by a kiss, fierce and intense, Redford wrapping his arms around him, hitching him in close. “Yes,” Redford whispered, smiling into his mouth, grinning, a laugh buried into the meeting of their lips. “Yes, yes, please, yes. I want that. I want you.”

  There was a difference, Jed was learning, between being content and being happy. Before, he would have categorized himself as happy. He had a job that didn’t suck. He set his own hours, did his own shit, and no one bothered him. There was an apartment with cold beer in the fridge, all-night marathons of buddy cop movies and porn, and a cat to talk to when he got bored. What more could he have asked for? But then there was Redford, and Jed realized that all that stuff just meant he didn’t hate his life, most days. It didn’t make him happy. It wasn’t what he really needed.

  This was.

  “Well, okay, then,” he murmured, realizing he was grinning, too. Probably looked like an idiot. “You know what this means, don’t you?” Redford shook his head slowly, a faint line appearing between his eyes as he thought it over. Jed just laughed, a low chuckle that shook in his chest, as he leaned up to kiss away the furrowed brow. “We’re going to have to buy another towel.”

  Redford let out a surprised snort, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “One seemed to work just fine.”

  “Well isn’t this just the cutest thing,” the voice drawled from the doorway, and Jed had to remind himself that he didn’t have a gun under his pillow here. Pity. “Seriously, you two should get matching shirts
, or something.”

  Huffing out a sigh, Jed flopped back in the bed, narrowing a glare at the intruder. “David. Are you just stalking me, sweetcheeks, ’cause if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, you are not my type.”

  “Hilarious, Walker,” David said dryly, setting a vase down on the table next to the bed and taking Redford’s abandoned chair. “You are, as always, the height of wit.”

  “What are those?” Redford was staring at the vase, perplexed. Unlike the last time David had walked in on them, Redford seemed to be quite happy staying right where he was instead of diving under the sheets. Jed let his hand slide under Redford’s shirt to rest against the small of his back, finding comfort in the warmth of his skin. Jed snorted back a laugh as he lazily examined David’s gift, one eyebrow arched up.

  Sitting proudly in a glass vase were brightly colored foil wrappers, arranged like flowers. “I hope you got the triple extra large,” Jed smirked, reaching out to flick the edge of one of the condoms, the entire bouquet waving gleefully at them. “Or the ribbed, those are nice.”

  “Glow in the dark,” David answered with a sly smile. “To help you find your cock.”

  Redford surprised them both with a burst of laughter, clapping a hand over his mouth in shock at the almost-loud noise he made. “Sorry,” he apologized, eyes alight with amusement as he looked at Jed. “Just… you really don’t need any help.”

  Amazed at the sight of Redford that free, at how gorgeous he was when he laughed, Jed found himself with that damned stupid grin again. “You are incredible, darlin’,” he murmured, drawing Redford in for a long kiss, ignoring the stab of pain in his shoulder in favor of wrapping himself around the other man. He ignored David clearing his throat, wondering if he could talk Redford into putting that bouquet to good use if they reclined the bed and he stayed on the bottom.

  Apparently, his thoughts were a little more obvious than he’d assumed. Redford sniffed, eyebrows creasing in concern. “No,” he said, “the doctor said no physical exertion. I know what you’re thinking; I can smell it on you.”

  Mouth dropping open, he gave Redford a petulant look. Well, that was just very much not fair. “I do not smell,” he grumbled, rolling onto his back and huffing out a sigh. Stupid wolves.

  “If I’m interrupting, I can always go find a nurse to amuse myself with for a while,” David offered, giving Jed a smirk. Something lurked behind it though, a question or a tinge of wondering jealousy. Jed got it. Hell, he still didn’t know what the fuck had happened. Hurricane Redford had turned his life into something else, something real. He could see how it might baffle people.

  Curling further into Redford’s side, Jed just arched an eyebrow at David. “As much as we appreciate your foray into flower arranging, I doubt that’s why you’re here. Spill it so I can get back to convincing worrywart here that a long, hard fuck is exactly what I need to speed up my healing.”

  Snorting, David rolled his eyes, lounging back in the chair. “Ah, yes, healing semen. A well known homeopathic remedy.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Really?” Redford looked surprised, but the expression faded into suspicion, and then embarrassment. “No, of course not,” he muttered to himself. “Sorry.”

  Jed grinned, kissing the curve of Redford’s jaw. “If only. I’d never get out of bed.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead,” David explained, shrugging, staring up at the ceiling with a faint frown. Even he seemed a little surprised by his concern. “I arrived at your apartment, saw the blood, and assumed your stupidity had finally gotten the better of you. When I finally made sense of your maps—which, by the way, are less organized than a schizophrenic’s wet dream—I arrived just in time to see Mr. Reed hauling your unconscious ass out of the remnants of a building.” His lips quirked up ruefully. “I probably would have been better off just driving around, looking for explosions, but there you are.”

  Strange. Jed had worked with David for years. They’d fought and flirted and gone back and forth more times than he could count. In his very small circle of trusted contacts, the ones he wasn’t constantly expecting the knife in his back with, David was near the top, but not once had they ever interacted outside of a job. He certainly hadn’t ever shown up at one of Jed’s many hospital beds with concern or condom flowers. It was… kind of nice. Weird, yeah, but mostly nice.

  “I am alive,” he confirmed, giving David a flicker of a smile, combing his fingers absently through Redford’s hair. “And my map system is flawless. Just because you can’t comprehend my brain’s wizardry, don’t hate on the system.”

  “I understand the maps,” Redford piped up. “They’re probably the only reason I’m alive.”

  “See!” Jed crowed happily, nudging David with his foot. “Geniuses, the two of us. Feel free to wallow in jealousy.”

  “You are both insane,” David declared, standing and smoothing invisible wrinkles out of his suit. “And now that I’ve confirmed that, I should go. Work calls and all that.” He hesitated, eyes flicking over the two of them, starting a sentence twice before he sighed and shook his head. “Call me about my fee,” he said as he shrugged his jacket back on. “Try not to get kicked out of the place for indecent exposure.”

  “David,” Jed stopped him, fingers fidgeting with the hem of the blanket, considering him. The snack wasn’t present. Jed so wasn’t going to ask, but it definitely was noted. “Before you bill me, I wanted to double check some shit. There was a guy, one of Fil’s hired guns. He’s the one I sent you the sketch of.”

  “Edward Grasio?” David confirmed. Off of Jed’s nod, he shrugged, leaning against the doorframe again. “The building was toast, Walker. Your boy was making his way out of the rubble. If Grasio was in there, I have to assume they’re finding his pieces in Vermont right about now. Besides, there were more stiffs than at a Bieber concert. Maybe you blew him away.”

  Frowning, Jed sighed, trying to remember. Everything was so blurred. He liked to think he’d remember shooting Mr. Handlebar, but hell, he might have passed his own mom in there and he’d never know. “I shot the bastard,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead with his good hand. “Fil. I unloaded a fucking clip and he barely blinked.”

  David snorted a laugh. “Oh my God, Jed, do you ever listen? You can’t just shoot things like that. Jesus, I thought you got Ratty’s message, considering Fil’s dead and you are not, but apparently you’re just the luckiest damn bastard in the world. What the hell are you doing carting around a silver knife?”

  Jed blinked, surprised. “What? I lifted that knife off of you, back in Reno. It was in my emergency stash. I just used it because my crater-making bullets seemed to just tickle the bastard. Are you saying Big, Bad, and Ugly had an allergy or something?”

  “The silver knife had your blood on it, Jed,” Redford piped up. “That was what killed him.”

  “Of course it was,” David answered smoothly, straightening up and shaking the sleeves of his jacket to straighten them. “Blood of sacrifice on a blade of silver. That’s the only thing that really works for werewolves of Fil’s caliber.” Glancing at them sideways, he snorted out a half-amused laugh. “Go buy yourself a lottery ticket, Walker.”

  Then he was gone, graceful and silent as he turned the corner. Staring after him for a moment, Jed just exhaled out a quick breath, flopping back on the pillow. Jesus tapdancing Christ.

  “So,” he murmured, turning to look up at Redford. “What now?”

  “Now you concentrate on getting better,” Redford replied, pressing a kiss against Jed’s jaw. “And forget about sex in a hospital bed. It’s not happening.” He nudged his nose in against Jed’s neck, smiling. “Although you do smell good when you’re thinking about it.”

  Ah, yeah, right. The wolf thing. Now compounded by about a thousand, thanks to a certain asshole. Jed reminded himself to go and burn down the rest of the building when he had a chance. Might make him feel better.

  He wasn’t
actually sure how he felt about the New and Improved Redford. It wasn’t like it really changed things. When your… whatever Redford was, when he was a freaking werewolf, the degrees between the types hardly seemed important. It still hadn’t really sunk in. Jed imagined it might take a while. His whole world view was kind of based on the idea that this was it, that what he knew was everything there was. Now he was second guessing the existence of the Lucky Charms guy.

  What Jed did know, however, was that he fit pretty damn perfectly into Redford’s arms. Really, werewolves or not, that was more important than some philosophical pondering on the state of reality. He’d figure out what all of this meant later. Or maybe never. So long as he got to do it with Redford right next to him, as corny as it sounded, Jed figured they’d be all right.

  “Imagine how great I’ll smell when I’m actually having it,” he leered hopefully, waggling his eyebrows. Redford just breathed out a laugh, shaking his head and smoothing his hand through Jed’s hair.

  “I will imagine,” he replied dryly, and Jed would have sworn there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. Bastard was enjoying this. “For four to six weeks, which is what a normal recovery time should be.”

  Oh, screw his great Aunt Fanny, four to six weeks. Jed would be back to normal in one if he had to kill himself to get there. Exhaling noisily to show his displeasure, Jed shifted closer in to Redford, letting his head drop onto his shoulder. Okay, he’d admit, he was a little tired. A brief nap wouldn’t hurt, and when he woke up, they were revisiting the topic.

  Napping he did a lot of, in the following days. As well as flicking through basic cable and bitching at nurses for bringing him inedible food. Seriously, Jell-O was not food. It was a freak of nature. It wiggled. Real food did not wiggle at him. Also, no one would let him smoke, which was unconstitutional, and he would have killed for a drink. Hell, he might kill just for shits and giggles. He couldn’t remember being this bored before.