Chapter 12
Alert
Is Jackson there?
Oliver stared at the text message from Rune again, wondering what to think, whether he should be suspicious, or nervous, or what. It had come five hours after the last time Oliver had heard from him.
Can he be? He’s got supplies there, right? Basics?
Panic flooded Oliver’s system. Because he knew. It wasn’t about kink.
Rune was in trouble.
Oliver’s replies had been many:
What kind of supplies? Supplies for you or someone else? Are you on your way here? Are you okay? Where the hell have you been?
No response.
“Should I call Adam? He’s good at leveling you out,” Jackson offered. “You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm.”
“I’m fine,” Oliver insisted, knowing he sounded like a tea kettle boiling over—shrill, bursting, aflame. He so rarely freaked out, he wasn’t great at coping whenever he did.
“My ass are you fine. Sit. Sit down, Olly.”
Oliver briefly released the hand he had sealed over his lips. “I’m gonna chain him to the bed. Seriously. We’re talking leashes. I’m so…” he laughed, and knew he sounded insane. “I’m so fucking pissed at him.”
“You don’t even know this kid,” Jackson said softly.
“I fucking know him!” Oliver roared. Then stopped, held up a hand, breathed deeply and counted to ten. “I’m sorry. I’m wound a smidge tight.”
“Ya think? Should I call Jo?”
“I think you should call the asylum, because I’ve lost my mind. What the hell did I get myself into? What the fuck is this?” Oliver said with soft awe.
Jackson stood there, stoic, elegant, dressed in a designer suit, pretty as a picture. He shook his head, then pulled out his phone, tapping out a message. Oliver turned toward the door, forgetting to breathe, unwilling to look away from the knob.
His phone blipped.
A message from his building’s security team read:
On his way up now, sir.
Oliver bent at the waist, blowing his exhale out through his lips.
It was a long two minutes before the door rattled, the knob finally turning.
The door shoved open. Rune shuffled in, his hand pressed to his arm, his bowed head in shadow.
A sheet of crimson stained the pale shirt he wore beneath the leather jacket, and the jeans. His arm was bent at the elbow, his hand gripping the middle of his left forearm.
They locked eyes.
In Rune, there was no apology. No guilt. Just exhaustion.
Rune grunted, raised the arm without letting go of it, kicked the door shut and leaned heavily back against the frame.
“Jackson,” Oliver murmured.
“Yep.”
Jackson ran over, got an arm around Rune’s back and guided him to a nearby stool in the kitchen. As soon as Rune’s ass was planted, Jackson pulled Rune’s right hand away from where it squeezed. The leather was split, blood dripped on the wooden floorboards.
“Scissors,” Jackson barked. It startled Oliver into movement, snapping him out of his trance.
Rune looked up at him quizzically, so Jackson mimed cutting.
Scowling, Rune peeled off the leather coat and dropped it to the floor.
More blood gushed free as he moved. Lots of it. Jackson snapped, “Stop! Stay still!” while holding up his hands, palm out. Rune paid no attention.
He set the arm on the kitchen counter at his favorite spot on the large island and gave Oliver a sunny smile. He fucking waved with the arm that wasn’t gushing blood as Jackson applied pressure and said, “Olly, my bag.”
Shaking with anger, about to explode, Oliver snatched up the satchel and stomped over to the island. He slammed it down, opened it wide and stayed back to give Jackson room.
“Fuck!” Oliver raged.
Rune made a circle out of his right hand, tipped it up as if to drink from an invisible cup.
“And fuck you too!”
Rune just grinned at him and shrugged, pointed to his useless ear.
God, but Oliver wanted to punch him across his smug fucking face.
“Just get him the drink, Olly,” Jackson sighed. Rune focused on Jackson’s lips, his expression relaxed and content. Jackson found peroxide and some swabs. “It’s not that bad. A few stitches should do it. A clean cut.”
Oliver went to the sink, reached for a glass. There was a hollow knocking sound.
He turned, saw Rune rapping his knuckles on the granite. He pointed to the liquor cabinet.
Oliver lost his mind.
He flew around the island, slammed into Rune, his hands locked up around his throat, and squeezed. A wheezing gasp sounded from Rune’s pretty lips.
“The fuck is wrong with you?!” Oliver yelled right into Rune’s face.
Mouth working, strangled wheezes the only sound in the room, Rune didn’t even fight back.
“Stop it. Back off,” Jackson scolded gently. “Or I’m kicking you out of your own home. Don’t think I won’t.”
Oliver let go, sank into a crouch, hands raking through his hair, pulling hard at the strands nearly hard enough to tear them from his scalp.
Jackson had started the first stitch before Oliver had gotten it together enough to provide Rune with some bourbon, which he downed greedily and waved for more.
The hooked needle pushed through the sliced-open skin and Oliver stared at the blood pooled on the gleaming stone below Rune’s arm.
“I hate this,” Oliver said, knowing that Rune kept tracking their lips, reading their words. “I hate that he’s deaf. I hate him.”
“No, you don’t. Quite the opposite, I think.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Oliver sneered.
“Mmm,” Jackson hummed, pulling the thread tight and going for stitch four. Rune didn’t flinch or react much, to Oliver’s anger or anything else. He tapped the edge of his glass on the counter in a steady rhythm.
Oliver went and grabbed a pad of paper from his desk, brought it back to the kitchen, slapped it down on Rune’s thigh. Setting a pen in his right hand, he pointed to the pad, expectantly.
Rune gave him an easy, crooked grin, then began to write in tight, small letters.
I’m fine. I’m great. Stop worrying so much.
Oliver groaned, rubbed hard enough at his eyes to see stars.
I appreciate the help, he wrote next. Then he set down the pen.
“Oh, no you fucking don’t.” Oliver signed and said: “Explain. Now. Right now.”
Rune glanced over at Jackson’s work, barely reacting to the punch of the needle through his skin as it looped through for the seventh time.
He picked up the pen.
Something I had to do. They were targeting black kids. Driving by. Throwing bottles. Laughing. I got their attention. Had them chase me instead. Led them to a speed trap I heard about. Let the cops take over. No big deal.
“No big deal. I swear to—” Oliver growled. With oodles of exasperation, he signed and shouted, “Why is your arm sliced? Were you on a bike? How? Whose?”
Rune gently scribbled: Like I said, they chased me. Got too close at one point and I got clipped with a knife. They were drunk as fuck. It was easy to get away once the cops noticed them. Just doing my civic duty.
“Knives. Awesome. Who is ‘they’”? Oliver asked.
You know.
“The pricks who ran you off the road,” Oliver said. Rune followed the movements of his lips in a way that stirred Oliver’s cock in unwanted ways. “How the fuck did you find them? Why were you following them?”
“Why do you think?” Jackson asked.
“You can’t do shit like this,” Oliver told Rune.
I think I just did, Rune scrawled in tight script.
“Not anymore. I’ll stop you,” he said, signed.
Rune just smiled, shrugged.
Oliver barely controlled the urge to yank him from the stool, throw him over the counter’s edge and fuck him into submission.
He grabbed Rune by the throat.
“Stop, Olly,” Jackson pleaded, knotting off the last stitch, leaning down to inspect the wound, prodding gently at the neat work with gloved fingers.
You’re mad, Rune signed, his face’s expression mimicking the emotion.
He understood all of the implied commentary, everything spelled out in the cool control reflected in Rune’s eyes.
Why did Oliver care so much? Was he mad at Rune’s good deed? The pricks who’d gone after kids? Himself for giving a fuck about some punk sub who wasn’t so easily controlled and ordered around?
Jackson moved to clean up, packing supplies away, wiping down the skin around the wound with peroxide again to clean away more of the blood. Rune sat patiently, watching Oliver, biting at the edge of his lip, his head cocked at an angle.
Rune jabbed his thumb at his own chest, then in the direction of the apartment’s door.
Oliver pushed down on the fury and upset as hard as he could, stepping into Rune’s space, twisting a hand in the front of the bloody shirt, then yanking Rune closer without pulling him off the stool. Tilting his head, Rune offered his neck, stayed still, calm.
Breathing hard, Oliver’s lips skimmed Rune’s ear. He pulled back just far enough for Rune to see his mouth as he whispered, “Fuck you.” His lips moved to Rune’s neck, latched on. His teeth sank into the skin, leaving a mark but not breaking through. He let go, shifted lower, bit again, felt the heat of Rune’s body baking the air.
“Rune, you might need a transfusion. You must have lost a lot of blood, but… you look okay,” Jackson observed, touching Rune’s face, looking into his eyes.
Oliver buried his nose in Rune’s skin, breathing in his coppery smell. Jackson’s latex-covered hand gripped the back of Oliver’s neck. “He’s okay, Olly.”
Oliver let go, stepped back.
“Hold him,” Oliver said softly.
“Yes, sir.”
He waited until Jackson had a good grip, then pushed Rune off the stool, spun him around, bent him over the counter’s edge, and freed himself before yanking at Rune’s belt, then his fly. He got the jeans down, used some lube from Jackson’s kit, then moved closer to Rune’s backside.
The first thrust drew a strained growl from Rune. Oliver could tell it hurt.
So he pushed harder.
The door opened on his next withdrawal, Rune’s breathing getting harder, his body straining against Jackson’s hold on the back of his neck and upper arm.
From behind Oliver, a familiar voice said, “Came as fast as I could.”
Something in Oliver loosened. He smiled. “Missed you, dear.”
“Busy? Who’s this?”
“Pain in my ass.”
“Mmm,” Adam hummed. “Think you have that backward. So this is payback?”
He strolled over, stepping carefully around the blood drips, and kissed Oliver’s cheek. Oliver knew it was rude to not warn Rune of Adam’s arrival or translate what they were saying, but his sour mood caused him not to care as much as he might. He did, however, see it more as though they were in a scene. If Rune had been blindfolded or wearing earplugs instead, Oliver still wouldn’t have alerted him until he was ready to. Voyeurism was built into their contract.
Moaning happily on the next push, Oliver bottomed out and held still inside Rune, kneaded the side of his ass, felt him clench and quiver. The worry, the wait, the tension, he pushed it all together and used it as fuel. Oliver felt Adam fingering the hair at the nape of his neck, raising goosebumps, and moved to ride Rune harder, shallower, faster. Rune’s face was turned to the other side. Adam was totally out of his field of view.
Rune strained again against Jackson, his back arching as he struggled to take the pounding, but Oliver kept up the pace until he climaxed. Moving slower on the come-down, he waited until he was fully spent, then bent himself over Rune’s body, wrapping himself around it.
“Let go.”
Jackson released Rune. Oliver took total control, wrapped him up. Rune’s intact arm wound around to overlap Oliver’s, which was crossed over Rune’s slim hips. Oliver kept his hips tucked snugly against Rune’s pale cheeks. He felt Rune’s heartbeat—steady, a little quick.
“He’s fucking killing me,” Oliver sighed.
“Again, beg to differ, what with the blood and all. The hell happened here? Hey, Jay.”
“Sir. Thanks for coming.”
Jackson had walked around to the sink and began washing up. Adam leaned back comfortably against the counter right beside where Oliver was still buried to the root in Rune’s ass.
Oliver pulled out, stepped to the side, signed to Rune.
Rune stayed where he was, watching. Always watching.
Oliver crooked a finger, drew Adam into Rune’s field of view at last, saw him tense and flush. But he didn’t move. He obeyed the command.
Oliver pulled Adam into his arms, hooked a hand around Adam’s jaw, around his ear, angled his head and went in. Adam opened for it, letting Oliver lick deeply into his mouth, sucking a kiss to his lips, took his time. Oliver poured emotion and intimacy into the kiss, giving Adam the tenderness Rune likely craved for himself.
Warning flashed in Rune’s eyes. A bit of hurt. Anger.
Oliver savored the selfish victory as much as the taste of his best friend and broke the kiss. He licked the flavor of Adam from his lip.
He finger-spelled the name.
Rune closed his eyes. Surrendered.