Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) (19 page)

Crick wrapped his arm around Deacon's waist and rested his sharp chin on Deacon's shoulder, and Deacon smiled gently at his oldest and dearest friend, and then, one at a time, at everyone around the table. “I wanted a name for it,” he said at last. “I wanted a diagnosis. I couldn't just come to you all and say, „Something's wrong—let you know later!' I… you all know how my dad went out.”

Jeff swallowed. Massive fatal coronary—he was dead before he hit the ground. Deacon had been what? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Crick had just turned eighteen. Either way, they had been young and orphaned, a lot like Jeff had felt at that age, and that same monster was out to get them now. Jeff swallowed again and nodded. Yeah. Yeah, of course. They all knew how Parrish had gone out.

“Yeah, Deacon,” Jon said. He seemed to have assumed the role of speaker for the family, and Jeff? Jeff was so stunned, his breath so stopped in his chest, he didn't have any way of claiming that control.

“I didn't want to do that to you, I didn't. I've been taking nitro and pretty much being the doctor's bitch, you know? But until we got a surgery date and a plan, I didn't want to worry you all, either.”

“God, Deacon,” Jon breathed, and Deacon grabbed his best friend by the back of the head and hauled him to his chest.

“I'm going to be okay, you know that, right?” he asked, and then he looked up to where Amy sat, and Crick released his hand and stood with actual grace, kissing Deacon on the temple and getting out of the way. “I swear, Amy, I'm asking for help this time. I'm telling you—isn't that good enough?”

“You asshole,” she muttered, and then she knocked over her chair in an effort to launch herself at him and he held both of them, no tears, no yelling, just quiet, in a bond that Crick seemed to understand, and that was good enough for Jeff.

He looked up as Crick plopped in the seat Collin had left, and Shane scooted over one and Mikhail sat on his lap and Andrew took
his
seat, and since Deacon was otherwise involved, they turned to Crick for answers.

“A month and a half?” was the first thing out of Jeff's mouth, followed by, “How could you not tell me in a month and a half?”
“It was subtle, at first,” Andrew said softly from across the table, and Kimmy leaned in to hear him, Lucas at her side. “He'd just… fade out and then come back, gasping for breath. Or his shoulder would ache, and he couldn't figure out what he'd done to it. The falling off the horse was our first big sign—he just passed out and fell over.”
Jeff's mind went back to that day two weeks ago, that horrible day when he'd gotten the call from Lucas, and he remembered wanting Andrew's help. Of course Andrew couldn't leave Deacon—not when Deacon might keel over at any given time.
“Benny knows?” he found himself asking numbly, and Andrew answered him too. Under the table he felt Crick's hand, fumbling for comfort, and that was one thing Jeff knew how to do.
“Once we got the prognosis, we called her. She was hating being away from the baby anyway—she jumped on the chance to come home and start school from here. But yeah, she knows. She's trying hard not to freak out, you know?”

Jeff squeezed his GBFF's hand. “How could you not tell me, you stupid asshole?” Well, that was comforting, right?
Crick smiled at him weakly. “Well, you've had your own plate— that made it easier, you know? But it wasn't easy.” Crick looked up at the table filled with friends he and Deacon had turned into family and said, “It wasn't easy keeping it from any of you. But Deacon was right. We had to have an answer and a plan, or it would have just been a lot of worry and speculation, and… you know. It sucks.”
“Christ, does it!” Andrew swore fervently, and that seemed to break the tension a little.
“Deacon,” Crick said loudly, “you about done with your little threesome over there? It's time to put the girls in the bathtub, and I want some goddamned pie, you hear?”
The family gathered. They talked softly; they tried to tell jokes to break up the tension. Eventually, Amy went to give the girls a bath and Collin and Martin came back into the kitchen, picking up on the changed vibe curiously.

“Why's everyone so quiet?” Martin asked, and Jeff looked at him, trying to find his footing.

“Deacon's going to have surgery before Christmas—we're a little worried, that's all,” he said, and because Martin was fourteen, that was enough.

“He'll be fine,” he said confidently. “I mean—look at him, he's healthy as a horse!” And before Jeff could contradict him or tell him that sometimes looks could be deceiving or burst his bubble any more, Collin grabbed his arm and hauled him out to the mudroom.

There was a ten-degree temperature drop from the house proper to the laundry room/mud room, and Jeff found he was shivering uncontrollably.

“You look like shit, Jeff—what happened?”

For a moment—just a moment—Jeff wanted to put his head on that broad chest and unload the way he had the week before and simply trust in Collin and what he seemed to be feeling, and to cede control of the world to the gods. And then he remembered that sometimes the gods

hated you, and you never knew when that whole “ceding control” thing was going to work or going to rip your heart out and gnaw, and that was when he wrapped his arms around himself and backed away from Collin like he was a psycho axe-murderer in a horror movie.

“Sparky, I… I can't do this. I can't do this. I… I just can't.”

Deacon was sick, and Jeff's family was at risk, and his heart was at risk, and his mind was black vortex and chaos, and he couldn't seem to find the light… couldn't seem to find the balance… and all he knew, all he could really fathom, was that if Collin touched him, he would fall apart.

And with that, Jeff left the cold mudroom for the freezing outside, walking blindly in the darkness for the barn, because at least there would be an animal warmth in the barn, and right now, it was the only comfort he could think of.

But he couldn't even think of that as he walked. About all he could do was stumble into the place with the big animals and the hay and picture the hurt and frustration on Collin's face as he'd pushed out, one more time, and run away.

Crick: Growing Up

“T
HAT 
went well.”

Crick wrestled one-handedly with the laces on his boots. He knew he was supposed to use the injured hand, but it ached fiercely, and dammit, he was tired of shit that ached, so he just let it sit, awkward and twisted, at his side, while he tried to get undressed.

Deacon came out of the shower wearing only his boxers and still toweling his hair. He moved with unconscious grace, and Crick's heart just leapt up in his throat at such a simple thing. Deacon, getting ready for bed.

“How're Jon and Amy?” Crick asked. Of everyone there that night, Deacon's best friends through school had been the most devastated. Maybe it was because they'd known Deacon's father and remembered that pain, or because they'd nursed Deacon through detox when Crick hadn't been there, or maybe just because they'd all known each other since they were in Kindergarten together, but Jon, especially, had looked like he needed to go home and get drunk and sing old songs until his wife told him to get the fuck over it because she needed him.

“They feel like shit,” Deacon said with a sigh. “I told them that this time I was telling them—you know, asking for help before I was halfdead. They said that was real fucking gentlemanly of me, but it didn't stop them from being pissed anyway.” Deacon sighed. “Jon… Jon took it personally. Not the secret, right, but the sick. He just… he doesn't even want to think about it, you know?”

Crick grunted. Yeah, he knew. But think about it was about all he had been doing for the last two months. He couldn't even watch medical dramas or crime shows on television. It didn't matter if it was a serial killer or a saint being shown in full makeup on the gurney, Crick saw Deacon, and his heart stopped beating. They'd been watching a lot of sitcoms, and Deacon hated them, but he'd read sports autobiographies or something while Crick lay on him and watched, and took a little bit of comfort from escapism and the fact that Deacon couldn't possibly love him any more.

“How's your friend?” Deacon knelt down on one knee, right there in his white cotton boxers and bare chest, and started working the laces himself. Everybody was gone, Parry Angel was down for the night, and Andrew was asleep in the living room on the couch, as he had been since Benny left. He could, theoretically, move back to his little stall apartment in the barn, since the “muckrakers” that Deacon used to hire now came from Promise House, where they had a proper home and supervision, but he was family, and especially since Deacon had fallen off his horse in October, it made everybody feel better to know there was one more person in the house to keep his head and take care of Parry Angel if something went heinously wrong.

“Jeff?” Crick answered. Like there was someone else who had run away into the barn, leaving a frustrated suitor and a puzzled teenager in the house, in the middle of the chaos left by Deacon's announcement.

Deacon grunted, working at the boot. His hair was falling forward across his forehead, and Crick thought about brushing it aside. He didn't, though—that would have distracted Deacon, and sometimes, it was just nice to look at him and know that for the moment, he was whole and well and where he was supposed to be. With Crick. “Yeah, Jeff. How is he?”

“Not good.”
“What'd he say?”
Crick grimaced. Jeff had never struck him as the closed-off type—

not like Deacon. Deacon had really not had a problem, this last month. He'd learned to carry his nitro around, dealt calmly with the doctors, and reassured Crick on a minute-to-minute basis that he felt fine. Of course, with Deacon, unless he'd amputated a limb and was pumping blood, he'd say he felt fine, which was why this whole thing had Crick going not-so-quietly bananas around him.

But Jeff had surprised him. Jeff's whole week had come tumbling out, and it had been pretty fucking traumatic—a whole shitload of pain that Jeff hadn't shared and Crick hadn't known about, and Crick had felt almost exactly like he'd felt for the entire last month.

Pretty fucking useless.
“He's got some serious shit going on, Deacon. His mom and going home and Kevin and Collin and….” Crick shuddered, that conversation in the barn replaying in his head.
“Hey, Jeffy, how're they hanging?”
Jeff hated the barn—everyone knew it. It was dirty and dusty, and his spiffy black shoes and impeccable clothes would get fucked up in the hay and the horseshit. But he'd taken off, and Collin had come in from the mudroom looking angry and miserable, and Deacon was fielding questions. Crick was the most likely candidate to go out and find out what was up.
“They're shriveled and hiding,” Jeff said, his voice sounding small. Crick hit the light switch, and the series of fluorescent circles in the ceiling lit up in sequence. Jeff was sitting on a hay bale backed up against Lucy Star's stall, his knees up at his chest. “Wanna feel?”
Crick grimaced. “No, thanks. Deacon's got enough strain on his heart as it is.”
“I'm sorry,” Jeff said, his eyes focused on the stall in front of him. Bruiser, a horse Deacon was breaking for one of the Renaissance Faire riders, was in there. He was a monster-sized black gelding, but he had the disposition of a panda bear and was currently asleep on his feet.
“For cracking a bad joke? That's where we live, Jeff, don't tell me we can't go there now!” Crick was tired—he was limping. It felt good to just collapse in long-limbed laxness on the bale next to Jeff.
“For Deacon. For what's going on. You must be so scared.”
Crick closed his eyes. Deacon said it every night when they climbed into bed. “Don't be scared, baby. It'll be okay.” Fucking useless promise. Meant nothing. But Crick let Deacon soothe him because they didn't have any other choice. Crick needed to function, and Deacon needed Crick sane. End of story. So Crick let that angel's voice wash over him in the dark and reminded himself that it was enough that Deacon wanted it to be okay. He wanted to be there for Crick and Parry and Benny and the whole family. Deacon
—
who put his own welfare dead last—had, for once, made his health a priority, to do everything he possibly could to keep that promise.
“Yeah. I'm scared. I'm not brave like you, Jeff. I don't think I could survive what you did. It would break me.”
Jeff's laughter in the quiet barn had been brittle and demented. “Is that what you think? That I'm strong? That I'm not broken? God, you're stupid.”
Crick looked at him in surprise. “I know I'm stupid, Jeffy, but you're so strong. Man, you just hold people together, prop 'em up when they're down. You're one of the strongest people I know.”
Jeff had abruptly wiped his cheeks on his sleeve and snorted. He was congested from sudden tears, and it wasn't a pretty sound. What followed then was incoherent, and Crick had needed to wrap his arm around his friend's shoulder and just sit and listen for a little bit, and by the time Jeff was done, even Crick was a little bit speechless.
“Wow. Jeff… Jesus, I'm sorry.”
“Why? You're not the one who disowned me!”
“Never will,” Crick said. He'd always known why it was so damned important to the guy to be invited to Sunday dinner—and welcome all the days in between—but for the first time, he was really able to look beyond Crick, and even beyond Deacon, into someone else's misery. It was a revelation.
“Thank you,” Jeff sniffled. “What am I going to do with him?”
“With Collin? Keep him. He's a stand-up guy!”
The silence next was not encouraging.
“I can't do it, Crick,” Jeff said after a flat silence. “You… looking at your face today… I remembered why I can't do this. Why I never even tried. I… I can't do that to this kid, you know? He… God. He still believes in ever after. I just want to be able to laugh a little before my meter runs out.”
“Shut up,” Crick snapped. “You're fine. Your white count is good—you told me yourself, because I actually bought a fucking calendar so I could keep track of when you go in and make you tell me.”
Jeff patted his knee languidly. “Lookit you, Carrick. Quite the little nursemaid, aren't you?”
“I take Deacon's blood pressure four times a day,” Crick said tightly. He did too. And he made Deacon nap when it was too high, and they no longer drank anything with caffeine in it, and he timed Deacon's runs to make sure he didn't stay out too long, and…. Crick shuddered. It was all about control. That was something he'd learned from the military and then from Deacon himself—you controlled the things you could, and then the chaos of the world outside didn't feel quite so overwhelming.
Jeff nodded against his chest. “See. Here you are, taking care of everyone—you know what you could lose. You're afraid of losing it. So am I. But… you're in deep already. I don't have to be.”
“God, you're full of it,” Crick snapped. Caring about Jeff was easier than worrying about Deacon, but not by much. “Just stop pretending, okay? You can lie to me, and I think you've lied enough to Collin already, but you're going to have to tell yourself the truth eventually.”
“Yeah, what's that? You've got all this newfound maturity and wisdom, go ahead, enlighten me!”
God. Like Jeff didn't already know. “You already care about him. Look at you—you can't hardly say his name, you're so afraid he'll hear you and show up, and you'll have to lean on him to make it better.”
There was that emotionally flat silence again, and when Jeff spoke, Crick had to resist the urge to smack his head against the wall. “Well, Crick, the best lies are the ones you want to believe.”
“Christ. It's like Mikhail all over again, you know that, don't you? Remember last year? You wouldn't shut up about how brain-damaged that „little Rusky diva-bitch' was and how he needed to just „get over his sorry self and give our poor cop a blow job and live happily ever after'— you remember that?”
“I can't believe you carried that, verbatim, around in your pointy little head.”
“I can't believe after all that bullshit about Mikhail being dumber than a box of diapers, you're going to use Deacon as an excuse to make us do this with you all over again.”
Jeff pulled away from him and stood up stiffly, stretching a little and shivering with the absence of Crick's body heat. He scrubbed his face with his hands and wiped his eyes again, making himself as presentable as he could in a barn, and then leaned over and kissed Crick's forehead.
“We all know that's not going to happen, Crick, because, unfortunately, this family has something better to do with its time right now, doesn't it? Call me if there's any change with Deacon. Martin and I will be wandering by for dinner on Tuesday—I'll bring it, so don't bother cooking.”
“Jeff, don't do this.”
“Could you do me a favor and go tell Martin to meet me out by the car? It will be easier for everyone, right?”
“Jesus, Jeff! Don't make me do this!”
And Jeff's newly composed face wrestled with itself for a moment. “Please, Crick. Man, I know you're my friend and you want what's best for me. Right now, could you just stick with what I want instead of what you think I need?”
“Because tonight sucked so bad? Yeah. Tonight I'll let you off the hook. But because I'm your best friend, I'm on Collin's side on this, okay? He's a really good guy. You think you could give it a chance?”
“'Night, Crick. Give Martin a good half hour of family before you send him out to the car, okay?”
“Jeff….”
But he was already outside, moving with a long-legged, purposeful stride that didn't look like it belonged on his angular, expressive body.
Only Crick knew that he was going to his car to have himself a good cry and pull his shit together to face what amounted to instant parenthood. And Crick wasn't the guy who got to go make it all better.
“Fuck,” Deacon said quietly. He'd taken off Crick's shoes and picked up Crick's fucking useless left hand and kissed it softly as the conversation had been related.
“Yeah.” Crick's sigh was so loud it echoed, and Crick felt Deacon's body shake a little. “Don't laugh at me.”
“I know, I know. It's just that when you were growing up, you used to sigh like that, like you had the world on your shoulders. Now that you really do, you'd think that sound would have changed.”
Crick was forced to laugh a little too. And then all those fears that he'd kept so carefully masked at dinner, and during his conversation with Jeff, and over the last month as Deacon had been so hell-bent on pretending it was all okay, and there wasn't any real danger, and his father
hadn't
dropped dead out of the blue before he was fifty—all those fears possessed him at once, and he had to hold down hard on himself not to completely lose it. He moved his hand from Deacon's grasp and wrapped both arms around his shoulders and pulled his lover, his partner, his
everything
into his chest and tried to shelter that skinny body with his own wide-shouldered mass.
“You can't leave me,” he whispered. “It's just that simple. No Deacon, no Crick. I'm not strong like Jeff. I can't just keep going for years and make everybody laugh and not take anything good for myself. I need you.”
Deacon pulled back, and for the first time in a while, he looked angry. “This family needs you,” he said sternly. “No bullshit, Carrick— it's not just us anymore. It hasn't been for a while. Start with Parry Angel and work your way out, and you'll find a shitload of people who need
you
,
here
at The Pulpit, to carry on if bad shit happens.”
“Deacon, I'm not you—”
“No. You're better than I am. You
are
stronger. You
will
keep going. And you'll do a damned fine job of it. I just….” And for the first time since that fall off the horse, Deacon actually looked a little afraid. “I just hope you don't have to, that's all.” His mouth—pouty lips, firm chin and all—started to quiver, and Crick held him tighter until he'd mastered himself.
“I was really looking forward to a long life with you, Carrick. I just was. I… I'd really like to see that through.”
They were both shaking. Both of them. And Crick needed… he just needed.
He wasn't sure which one of them initiated the kiss, but it started soft and then went sweet and then went tender and then went tinder, and
then
went to out-of-control blaze.
And Crick wanted to be in control. Deacon, the oldest, the one everyone had come to depend on, the leader, the quiet center of their world—
he
usually led, but not tonight. Tonight Crick needed to be in charge, to control something about his lover, something about his
world
, even if it was only which tab went into which slot and the expression on Deacon's face as Crick oiled, stretched, penetrated him.
Deacon's head was tilted back, his back bowed to make it easier for Crick to enter, and his eyes were closed, his full lips slightly parted, and his hands were at his sides, digging into the comforter. Crick watched every moment as he slid inside that tight body until they were flush, and then waited until Deacon's breath came shorter and his hands started to pound at his sides on the bed.
“Shh… don't worry. I'll take care of you.” Crick reached out to Deacon's hand and placed it on his cock. Together they wrapped fingers around it, tight and large, and started stroking, even as Deacon squirmed, impaled on Crick's flesh, and started to make little begging sounds for everything Crick had to offer.
“Carrick….” It was as close to whining as Deacon got.
“What?”
“You said you'd… you know?” Deacon's hand was shaking on his own cock, and Crick took a bead of pre-come from the tip with his thumb and raised it to his lips.
“What?”
“Take care of me?”
Crick pulled his hips back and slammed them forward. “Always.”
“Auuughhhh….”
“Always!” Crick snarled, thrusting again. “Say it, Deacon!”
“Always!”
“Always!” Crick would
always
be there, he would
always
love Deacon, he would
always
take care of him.
They lost words then, and Crick slammed forward again and again and again, truly at home in Deacon's body for the first time, truly surrounded by this man who had promised to love him even further than death.
Crick's orgasm began to tighten his body, a purely physical thing. His balls grew heavy and tight, his spine began to tingle, his nipples, his cock, everything was bursting with the beautiful agony of climax, and he had to close his eyes, had to trust that Deacon was still stroking that magnificent body, trust that when he pulled back and slammed home—
Gaaaaawwwwddd—
that final time, that Deacon would be there, hot, tight, ready to receive him as he spilled everything, not just his come, into Deacon's receptive haven.
He collapsed, sweating, hot, shaking, on top of Deacon, forgetting for a moment that Deacon was sick and simply taking his open arms at face value. Deacon's stomach was slick with his own come, and Crick didn't care. Their skin would stick together, and it would be messy and probably pull the hair on his lower abdomen like mad, but he didn't care, because he was in Deacon's arms and he could always shower, but this moment, this moment here, when his lover was making shushing noises in his ear, that wasn't always guaranteed, now was it?
“Carrick James,” Deacon murmured, and Crick took a deep breath, shuddering unstoppably, and tried to find his center.
“What?” Crick's voice was clogged. How did that happen?
Deacon took his face in both hands and pulled back against the pillow so they could look at each other. A hot droplet shuddered from Crick's chin to Deacon's cheek, and Crick closed his eyes. Oh shit. Oh shit, when had that happened? When had he gone from forceful lover to weeping willow? It was a good thing Deacon loved him, because he'd read the literature—this was supposed to be some sort of death sentence for a lover, wasn't it? Crying in bed made you a limp-dicked disaster. It was gospels of truth.
“Even if I leave you, I won't leave you, okay? Even if you carry the casket and have to say goodbye and find someone else to love, I'll still be with you, okay? I meant it. Always. You hear?”
Crick nodded. His cock softened, slid out of Deacon's body, and he missed the feeling of flesh merged with flesh. But the feeling of Deacon's muscle and bone underneath him, at the hips, at the chest—that remained. Deacon's green eyes were sober and wide, the dark fringe of lash around them casting a faint shadow against Deacon's cheek.
“Always,” Crick echoed. “Always.”
It was the one truth he knew.