Antidote (Don't) (18 page)

“—Fuck.”

“Hey—no-no-no.” I caught hold of Gray’s fist, coming between him and Jack, and nearly spinning Gray a 180 before his fist even hit its target. We’d been here before, last time with me on the receiving end. “Back off,” I said as calmly as possible, but Gray was looking past me to Jack.

“No head games, no tests,” he said coldly. “Just us, Jack; just an offer to step forward into definite Dom/sub territory. It turned out to be the wrong time to ask, nothing more. It always turns out to be the wrong time to—” He bit that last clause back, tensing his jaw.

“The wrong time to ask?” Jack finished for him, but paperwork had been knocked off the desk and picking one up, he stood looking down at a letter, this deep frown to his face as he read. “Oh right,” he mumbled quietly. “A step forward into normal Dom/sub territory, hmmm?” He half offered the letter over. “Because you look and smell like Cutter wanting to fuck someone over when he didn’t get his way, to me.” Letting the letter land back on the desk, he looked at Gray, me, then left.

Gray gave this snarl, pulled out of my grip, and went after Jack like a bulldog having already tasted blood. It was a twisted re-play of a month or so ago, when Jack had wound Gray up over his karate moves, dancing behind him, then getting caught out. Only now there was no trace of laughter as I went over to the desk.

Turning the letter around to face me, Jack’s invite for the Christmas party was there and open on full display. Giving a frown, I left it there.

Again I caught up with them out by the pool, only rain had been exchanged for a heavy fall of snow that should have given Gray’s pool area such a gorgeous night setting. Gray cut over the loungers and took Jack down, sending them both into the snow without an ounce of friendliness as he pinned Jack down.

“
You put me on his fucking level again—you little fucking prick
?”

Giving a cry, Jack pushed him off, got up, looking just as pissed as Gray pushed back to his feet.

“
My mail
?” said Jack as I caught up to them. “Why hide the MC’s fucking invite? What right have you got to open it in the first place—
it’s against the fucking law
.” Gray caught hold of his arm but Jack pulled away, making Gray nearly stumble. “What is it? You and your mates from work got together over the last few weeks for a little Saturday-night movie session, all to watch that shit, and you got some ribbing? Some flak for homing Cutter’s cutting slag—you get a sudden case of embarrassments and feel the need to put me in a box and hide me under your bed?
Because you know how fucked up that is, right
?”

“Easy,” I said, trying to back Jack off, my hands on his chest. “For god’s sake, please. Ease down.”

Jack didn’t seem to hear and pushed my hands off. “Fuck me,” he laughed, “I mean, as far as art goes, I know I don’t exactly communicate on the same level as you and Jan, which fucking pisses me off because I’ve never rammed my MA down your throat, how I can run circles around you both where mechanics is concerned.”

“
What
?” I said.

“But I know I’m the best at what I do, both with the MCs and my garage,” said Jack, again purely focused on Gray. “I train people so they don’t fuck up and hurt someone.”

“
You role-play,
” snarled Gray. “This... nothing is serious to you. Mechanic one minute, pretend sub the next, boyfriend another.
This isn’t a role-play scenario to me, Jack, this is my fucking life.
And I... I need you to explain why you keep failing to hear that from me.”

“
Hear you?
” cried Jack. “Jesus
Christ
, Gray—I live my whole fucking life
by
you. But I fuck up. My head, it completely bypasses sense and who I want to spend the rest of my life with gets fucked up in the process. You’ve
seen
it, you fuck.” Jack pushed him back. “It took meeting you to stop me blacking out and waking up in someone else’s bed, fuck beating the shit out of guys and wrecking a few hotels, and you stand there shouting deaf role-player? No matter how much I’d give my fucking life to be collared by you full time, it won’t stop the fact I’ll always be more screw-up than man when it comes to being anyone’s anything. So, yeah, I shift and switch roles, I turn this way and that, because it fucking scares the life out of me when it comes to standing still and risk losing how I hold you. That’s what I’m scared of:
fucking losing you!”

“Jack.”
I had to stop this some way, but again Jack pushed me aside.

“And if it comes down to it,” he nodded angrily at Gray, “Yeah. I think that’s your problem too—you’re scared of what my head does. That’s why you never let me go top, why you let me switch with everybody else but not do the basics of just topping you, why you let me role play. It’s fucking safer for you to let me hide in roles.” Jack threw his hands out, laughed, then sobered pretty quickly. “You know what—fuck you very much, Gray. You don’t particularly like me or my disorders after watching that shit in there. After what we’ve been through all these years, you could have just told me to fuck off and not come back.” He lost some of his fire a touch. “I’m long past needing you to kick the shit out of me to get your point across.”

Gray had stopped talking, but his fists were clenched at his side. Jack nodded down at them, then seemed to lose all fight as he looked up at Gray. “Out of everything else, I didn’t want you to see the collaring, Gray. And... and...” He frowned. “I’m sorry, all right. For what I said in there, here. You’re nothing like Cutter.” He paled, looking a little sick. “When you’re watching that, trying to find out who sent that shit... just please remember I’m sorry, that I love the fucking bones off you.” His face screwed. “I wasn’t his collared sub, not by any standard that the Master Circle recognises.” He stared at his own hands. “He wasn’t a Dom, not by any standard I recognise when I see you.” His face creased slightly. “And I’m sorry. I missed it; it felt so fucking wrong wearing his collar, but yours... I just forgot to say how fucking good it felt...”

Jack looked away, back to the line of trees, and seemed to shiver. “We’re all right, aren’t we?” He was back with Gray. “You and me. Us?” He shrugged, maybe defeat, maybe just an unwillingness to push Gray to a distance even though he was hurting. “We can deal with all this shit?”

Gray glanced at Jack’s throat and for the first time he let all of his defences down, that look seeming to evaluate how many more years it would take, or even if he had any right asking seeing how it tore Jack apart. Then he looked away. “Maybe you should go home for a while. Allow me time to find the uploader to these links. I’m not a good person to be around at the moment. I should have seen that. It’s my fault, Jack, not yours.”

“Right. Back to the formal MC shit, are we now?” Jack nodded, then glanced down. “Okay,” he said quietly, wiping a hand over his face before finding me. “Jan, call me tomorrow, yeah? I’m gonna go clear my mess up in there; then I’m heading home for awhile.”

“Jack—”

He came over and I got a kiss to my cheek before he paused briefly, resting his head against mine. “’S alright,” he said quietly. “I didn’t, I really didn’t want you to see that shit in there—he had no right
showing
you that shit in there—and I’m sorry, so fucking sorry.” Then he was gone, heading for the house.

Gray took my attention. I was shivering against the snow, but if Gray was cold, he hid it bloody well. “Answer me something,” I said to him quietly, now going over, our shoulders almost touching. “What happens to you when it comes to him, hmmm? Those links have been sent to people whom Jack cares the world for. You’re more than smart enough to know why, and yet you still fall for it and play their head games with him.”

Gray looked at me. “Who are you to tell me anything about Dom/sub relations, Jan?”

“He loves you,” I said quietly. “If someone outside of your world has to tell you that, Gray, then screw your formal Dom/sub relations: you’re missing what it is just to be in a normal Dom/sub relationship. When he’s stripped bare, when you’ve taken everything he has to give, when he has no mouth, no complications over his disorders, just quiet—he’s been under your touch, he’s lying next to you. And that’s Jack when there’s no roles, no playing, just him, just you—just us. If you see that bare honesty as pretence where you’re concerned, Gray, then you’re right to call for a time out, but not for Jack’s sake—yours.”

I left him there and headed back into the lounge. Jack was crouched next to Ed, picking up the broken monitor as I went and crouched by him. “Jack.” He pulled his arm out of my reach and snarled, “Need to clean. My mess.”

“I’ll do this, you—”

“Fine.” He threw some bits back on the floor, pushed to his feet and headed for the lounge door, forced to stop when he bumped into Gray. For a moment I thought Gray would snap out of it, say something to Jack, but he didn’t, forcing Jack to nod, confirm whatever was running through his mind; then he turned away.

“Jack, for god’s sake.” I pushed up and went after him, glaring at Gray. “It’s gone ten at night; the snow’s too thick out there,” I said following him through to the main reception hall.

No shirt, just half-soaked suit trousers, Jack rested against the door and slipped some trainers on. A long coat came on next as he took it from the cupboard.

“Don’t drive in this,” I said going to him.
Not with how you’re feeling, baby.

“He stays until morning, Jan,” said Gray, coming into the hall and leaning against a showcase. “He’s not wrapping his Merc around a tree and having it look like MC Doms are stupid enough to drive in this, and he’s certainly not dragging Ed out at this hour.”

I stared, completely dumbstruck by Gray. “What did you just say?”

Rooting for car keys, Jack found them in his pocket, showed them to Gray, then hurled them down into the hall. “Lest I bring the MC down with my shit anymore, eh, Gray?” He smiled thinly at me, but there was a lot of hurt on display in his eyes. “I’ll get Sam to pick the car up in the morning. Can you see he gets the keys and my things?”

“I said blackout period, nothing more, Jack,” Gray called over.

Jack laughed. “Yeah, your way or throwaway, right? Well you, you go right ahead and sort your business shit out all calm and collected, like, there, Gray. In the mean time, for showing Jan that shit in there—” He flipped the finger. “Fuck you.”

“Jack, plea—” I tried to get his attention, but he was already back with Gray now.

“For what it’s worth, I learned ‘fucking peachy’ off my old man as I sat watching him work on engine parts in our kitchen. I was five years old the first time I heard him say it. My old lady went apeshit. But then,” he gave a shrug, “it’s also a phrase that’s pretty common. Cutter just liked to copy style, take what was yours and keep it for himself. I wasn’t going to let him keep anything of my old man’s.” He looked at his hands. “Christ knows he had enough chunks out of me.” He was back with Gray, barely. “Things slip by me at the best of times, but some things don’t go away, not how I feel about you, about Jan. If you’d have asked, told me it was screwing with your head, I’d have told you and stopped Cutter’s head fuck. But all that bullshit over trust and respect just gets locked behind MC doors when I clock out of a night. Party tricks, right?”

And with that, he pulled the door open and walked out.

“You....” I looked from the door, to Gray, to the door, back to Gray. “That’s an hour and a half’s walk,” I said, unable to understand just what the hell had happened here tonight.

Gray walked past me, going for the door. After picking Jack’s keys up and putting them on the mail table, he shut the manor down.

“No way.” I went for the door but Gray’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“I told him to wait until morning, he didn’t listen,” he said flatly. “It’s his decision to leave, not yours.”

I pulled away, my laugh sounding a little hysterical. “Fuck you, Gray. He wanted to know you were all right with him, that it was okay for him to be here.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Why the hell didn’t you say it was?”

Movement back in the hall saw us both look back to see Ed pulling on his coat.

“Where do you think you’re going?” snapped Gray.

“Jack is inappropriately dressed, as usual. I—”

“You care, when you won’t even tell him who you are?” Gray snorted. “Just clean his shit up, that’s all we ever do around here. I’ll talk to him in a few days when we’re both ready for it. I’ve got enough shit on my plate,” said Gray, heading over for the stairs. “And he’s a Mr. now. More than capable of finding his own way home in the dark and moving on from a Master.”

Yeah, right. I undid the locks and ignored the anger that came off Gray as he added, “You don’t fucking follow him.”

“Screw you, Gray. You’ve seriously fucked-up and you know it,” I said back to him, seeing that he’d paused on the stairs. “I’m not your staff and I’m certainly not here as a BDSM tool for you to tease and torture Jack with. You want to force him into self-black, that’s your problem. Me... I’m going to find my boyfriend and let him know that shit belongs in his past, where he wanted it kept.”

I grabbed my coat and didn’t bother shutting the door as I turned my collar up and ducked into the falling snow.

Outside in the snow, it took two attempts to press the button on the key ring for the Mercedes to unlock, then I was in, slipping behind the wheel and shivering away the night as I shut the door and started the engine. After a look back at the manor to see the front door slam shut, I reversed down the long drive and pulled out onto the main road. Left would take me further into the countryside, and I doubted even Jack and his ability to walk for miles would choose that tonight. So instead I opted for right, helped by the night guards pointing the way. Jack had been gone about ten minutes, and hopefully he would have kept to the main road. Snow fell thick and heavy, forcing me to a crawl and to switch my wipers and lights to full beam.

Just five minutes into the drive, I wondered how far Jack could have gotten, certainly a hell of a lot farther and, from how I hadn’t seen him yet, a hell of a lot quicker than me. I came to a crossroad, a little fingerpost helping to show the way, just. A bench was covered with snow, at least a foot now, the trees and branches heaving and glistening in the frost-bitten air. Picture-card gorgeous in the moonlight, but bloody bitter on the balls when all you had on were thin trousers and a jacket. Even the heating didn’t seem to take off the bite.