Chapter 26
Taking Care
Standing in the kitchen of Oliver’s apartment, Rune’s blank and unfocused gaze pointed to a spot in mid-air about a foot from the tip of his nose. The fingers of his left hand drummed a steady, rolling rhythm on the countertop. His dark hair was disheveled. Barefoot and bare-chested, he wore only a pair of pajama pants.
Fighting the nonsensical urge to call out and alert Rune to his presence, Jackson eased into the room, wriggling his key from the lock. He made a mental note to take on the job of calling about getting some electrical work done to set up a visual doorbell. It was just one of those tasks that had fallen by the wayside and Jackson needed to correct it.
Setting his keys down on the table by the door, Jackson continued to fail to catch Rune’s notice. The bags under his eyes and his sagging posture spoke of an exhaustion of the sort Jackson had never seen on the feisty submissive. For once, he actually looked older than Oliver, which Jackson knew he was.
It had been a few endless days at the hospital with Rune trying to stay awake twenty-four seven to watch over Oliver’s recovery. Jackson had been the one to physically drive him back to the apartment for some mandatory sleep in an actual bed, but hours later and looking at him again, Jackson wasn’t sure Rune had slept at all.
Dawn was breaking over the city. An amber haze shifted the darkness to light and spilled through the huge windows at the far end of the living space. Jackson had to go into the office soon, but planned to bring Oliver some supplies from home first, like some fresh clothes, pajamas, and toiletries.
Jackson was about to wave his arms to try catching Rune’s eye when he saw Rune’s gaze shift without any indication of surprise to Jackson’s lower legs, tracking them as he walked around and into the kitchen, behind the island where Rune stood. Then he unfocused again, his head slightly bowed.
Jackson wasn’t sure what in particular haunted Rune, or if it was all just catching up with him. All Jackson knew was he couldn’t force Rune to talk if he didn’t want to.
Putting himself in Rune’s shoes, Jackson could imagine a spectrum of hate, helplessness, elation, and terror taking a toll on his mental state. He’d had a loaded gun pressed to his head, sure to succumb to a murderer’s wrath if no one had stepped in to stop it. And instead of getting hurt, Rune had seen his lover shot in his place. There was misplaced guilt there Jackson yearned to soothe away.
Stepping up behind Rune, Jackson set a hand gently on Rune’s right shoulder and caressed the warm, firm muscle. Burying his nose in the top of Rune’s tumble of hair, Jackson inhaled the musky, natural scent of him.
Jackson wondered how he could possibly help Rune.
There was no question of Rune’s devotion to Oliver, but Jackson could so easily see Rune getting swept away in a new obsession of righting the latest wrongs done. Avenging Oliver or undoing what was done—it was impossible.
The White Lion who wasn’t dead on arrival had been pronounced brain dead that morning, and nothing Rune could ever do would remove the bullet wound from Oliver’s shoulder.
Rune couldn’t use it as a cause for vengeance like he’d done before. Not in the same way.
He needed to find a way to work through it. To let it go.
But how?
Rune pressed himself back against Jackson, his head falling to the side to allow Jackson’s lips to skim over his temple, a severe frown furrowing his brow.
He took hold of Jackson’s left hand, guided it around in front of him, pushed it down inside his pajama pants. Jackson found him, held on and started to gently tug him hard. Turning his face away, Rune tried to hide his expression, but couldn’t mask the heaviness of his breaths or the quivering coming from the low center of his body, radiating outward in all directions. He gripped the edge of the counter, bent slightly over in front of Jackson.
Taking the hint, Jackson spit on the fingers of his right hand. When Rune slid his pants down in back to bare his ass, Jackson reached downward, pressed two fingers into him, heard Rune grunt. Jackson saw Rune’s clenched jaw and his renewed grip on the granite. Jackson pried at him a little more, going slow but forcing Rune to yield quite a lot.
Rune’s control of his breathing slipped with a heavy exhale and gasp, but his eyes were closed. He just braced himself and stayed open, giving over to it. He’d become fully erect, pre-come slicking his shaft as Jackson played with it, pressing it down with a hand to encourage Rune to bend over more sharply. Letting the elastic of Rune’s pants hug just below his sac, Jackson reached to open a drawer and fish out what he needed.
When he withdrew his fingers from Rune’s body, Jackson felt how tangible Rune’s displeasure was, and his impatience for more. As Jackson pulled out his cock and rolled on a condom and lube, Rune gave a tormented, yearning look back over his shoulder before facing front again and willing Jackson silently to get on with it already.
Jackson lined up, held Rune by the junction of his shoulder and neck, and himself by the root, and pressed to enter. Rune’s mouth fell open with a small cry as he pushed back onto Jackson, his pleasure at the pain audible in the soft breaking of his moan when the head breached him and locked their bodies together. His back curved in a graceful line, his ass pushed out to receive more, his arms trembling, Rune let Jackson force his way to full penetration despite the inner resistance of his body. And when Jackson was seated, he didn’t wait but kept taking Rune harder on each thrust, letting him try to withstand it. Soon, Jackson pounded him, sliding more easily, enjoying the little clenches of Rune bearing down on him and gripping him from inside. Rune’s right hand let go of the counter to find his straining erection, jacking it as he got fucked.
Rune’s orgasm hit first. He gasped, shuddering, and Jackson came right after with a satisfied moan, folding himself over Rune’s back and winding him in an embrace as he slowed down.
The frown was gone, Jackson saw, though not the weariness, or the sadness.
Jackson turned Rune around to face him.
“It’s gonna be okay, kid,” Jackson promised, kissing his jaw. “We’re in this together. All of us.”
Overheated and breathing easier, Rune undulated in Jackson’s arms. Jackson reached down to caress over the hip marked with the rainbow triangle tattoo.
Rune reached for his phone, set on the counter beside them and typed:
I’ll shower and come with.
Jackson shifted the screen so he could type instead, and replied:
No, you’ll sleep. You need rest. That’s an order. He asked me to pass it along. I promised him I’d take care of you.
Rune gazed down at the message, then closed his eyes and kept rocking ever so gently against Jackson’s cock still buried in him. Jackson took Rune’s chin in hand and kissed him for a while.
After he pulled out, Jackson led Rune by the hand to the shower, set the water to run hot, and took Rune’s face in both hands. He enunciated slowly, “Stay in bed. Stay.”
Then kissed the soft bow of Rune’s lips.
Rune watched him with wonder and gentle submission.
Rune touched his chin with the fingertips of his flattened right hand, drawing the hand away and down.
Jackson kissed him once more and Rune wove their fingers together. Jackson turned to go before temptation got the best of him again, but Rune didn’t let go until he was forced to, their arms stretching out between them, then slipping out of reach.
Everything had flipped, and it left Oliver with whiplash. Days slipped by in a fog of poking, prodding, arguing with nurses, and living with the constant annoyance of being stuck in bed because of the undeniable reality of his exhaustion.
He hadn’t even felt the shot when he heard it. He’d been too busy dealing with the onslaught of utter terror of waiting to see Rune die right in from of him. In the moment, it had been unavoidable. In fact, part of Oliver had subconsciously convinced himself that it had happened, like part of his mind splintered off into a hellish parallel reality where Rune was dead and refused to leave.
Back on that road in front of the clubhouse of The Born Soldiers, Oliver hadn’t any time to think about himself when Rune’s grisly murder was taking place a few strides away.
When Oliver’s legs buckled and his body stopped cooperating, Oliver’s only thought had been for Rune. That he had to get to Rune. He had to do something. Stop them. Help.
When one of the Soldiers knelt by Oliver, a cell phone pressed to his ear, the stocky, leather-clad guy looking Oliver over and relaying things into the phone, all that mattered to Oliver was trying to stand up again, and trying to keep calling Rune’s name.
Even when Rune had appeared at Oliver’s side, the dread didn’t lessen, because delirium took over along with a thick helping of pain and shock.
Paramedics eventually arrived and sedated Oliver because he wouldn’t fucking lie still.
He remained so agitated when he came to again, the decision was made to keep him sedated well after the surgery was complete.
Needless to say, he had no memory of the lead-up to the surgery or the immediate aftermath. He stopped being able to track time and lost several hours at a stretch to sleep that he couldn’t shake off no matter how furious he was.
Now, Oliver knew days had slipped by. He didn’t know how many. What he did know was that Rune was always there when Oliver woke up, holding his hand. The only exception was when it was nighttime, and then Oliver tended to slip into panic attacks until a nurse came to reassure him Rune was alive. They regularly helped him call Rune to ease his mind.
It freaked Oliver out how dependent, mentally, he was on Rune’s presence, especially given the look of Rune. He was pale, with bags under his eyes and a drawn expression. Oliver could see that Rune was physically drained, but it was the listlessness that worried him the most. The sight of him like that, with so much fear and intensity reflected in his eyes and tense posture, didn’t really help Oliver calm down.
So, he’d ordered Jackson to order Rune to get some damn sleep at home, in a real bed.
A big chunk of hours had passed since then, in which Oliver’s vitals had been tested regularly. His heart-rate had been monitored, and his unshakable sleep was constantly disturbed.
But Rune was back. He held Oliver’s hand with both of his own, and Oliver hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, but he felt the welcome touch. It helped calm Oliver and reassure him like nothing else could.
Something in Rune had changed. Something in Oliver had also changed.
Even though he understood now that Rune hadn’t been shot, Oliver still carried the echo of devastation in his heart. It made just having Rune there, nearby, touching him, the greatest joy Oliver had known.
From Rune—the steadiness of his haunted eyes, the persistence of his ass remaining in the chair right by Oliver’s bed no matter what the hospital staff said about it—Oliver understood a lot.
He understood that Rune wasn’t going to take off after some thugs anymore, like he’d been doing. Oliver had him now. No question about it. But Oliver’s weird delusional fear was equally matched by the guilt he saw in Rune’s expression. As time slipped by, Rune’s guilt began to outpace it.
And Oliver didn’t know what to do about that.
He didn’t care he’d been shot trying to save Rune. Not if it helped distract those fuckers long enough to spare Rune’s life.
The physical pain was an annoyance he had no time for. He paid it no mind.
There was a big problem now, though. Oliver’s arm was unusable, and his best means of communicating with Rune was via sign language or typing, both of which required use of his arm. They were using the voice-to-text feature in the meantime, but with mixed results. And it hurt Oliver to feel a space between them. The communication barrier had never been so maddening.
Oliver lay in that hospital bed, knowing he was going home soon, trying to let go of his certainty of what would have been, holding on to Rune and settling into a fevered sort of gratitude.
Peering at Rune’s handsome face through barely-opened eyes, Oliver drank in his seriousness and the alert, furious air swirling around him. With his fair skin scrawled with ink, his dark hair hiding soulful eyes, his slim body hinting at none of the history he’d endured, he was quite a picture. Even without Adam’s artist’s eye, Oliver knew as much.
“God, I really do love you, you know,” he mumbled.
Rune sat forward, trying to track Oliver’s lips. Rune frowned a little in confusion, letting go with just one hand to pull up the voice-to-text app. He held the phone out by Oliver’s lips to capture his words with the purest kind of desperation. Oliver’s heart ached to see it, like the sweetness of Rune might kill him since the bullet had failed.
Sitting right on the edge of his chair, Rune kept holding out the phone, hoping Oliver would say it again, his eyes so focused on Oliver’s mouth, his lip bitten with worry.
Oliver’s vision blurred and he rolled his eyes at himself before lowering his gaze.
The phone fell to the bed and Rune’s hand caressed Oliver’s cheek. Rune’s fingers brushed away a pair of tears and he kissed Oliver’s lips over and over, as light as the brush of butterfly wings.
“I love you so much,” Oliver told him.
Rune pulled back just to peek at the phone’s screen, but Oliver never dared look away.
Rune’s bloodshot eyes filled with shine and he moved even closer to press a kiss to the side of Oliver’s neck, laying his head there and breathing him in. Oliver heard Rune’s breath hitch. Letting go reluctantly of Rune’s hand, Oliver instead brushed his fingers through Rune’s soft, black hair and gave him the tenderness he so deeply deserved.
Oliver had always seen himself as a man who could have it all. Any lover. More money than he could spend. The lifestyle of his dreams. Power. Envy.
But, God, he’d give it all in a heartbeat just to stay there a little longer with Rune.
And he savored the new reality he’d landed in, where he had no power at all; where blind, arrogant confidence had been traded for faith and trust; and where he didn’t really need anything, other than the beautiful man oh-so-carefully measuring each of Oliver’s breaths and taking far too much blame for the cruel twists of fate.