Page 113 of Natural-Born Cullers

“I swear.” Gray kept his head down, but he didn’t let go of Jack’s wrist. “Jack, I swear back there in the hall, it didn’t register, not what Jan said about Halliday. I didn’t hear it. All I saw was you. In heat like that, Christ, all I ever want to hear is you.”

“Yeah? You touch him?” Jack shook Gray’s hold off his wrist. “Martin? When you were in that heat you say is only yours and mine?”

Gray looked at him sharply, went to say something, then ran a hand through his hair and looked away. Jan glanced down, not seeming surprised or angry, just how he’d maybe seen something coming between them, and Jack….

It stung—not Gray’s look, more how he seemed to struggle to get out what he wanted to, and all he had left was the tug on Jack to keep him sitting next to him. Yeah, something had more than gone on between him and Martin. But just who was he trying to keep a hold on here?

Jack snorted. “Good on him. On you too. You both deserve some peace with each other, because I can see you feel for him, and I know him well enough to know he wouldn’t touch you without a knife if he didn’t feel for you.” But this was different. They’d talked about Gray stepping in with Martin if Martin switched during sex, but whatever they’d done, they’d done it with them both going into it knowing it was no switch, no fuck-up over mixed signals, just them, finding a way in to touch each other instead of… however they played around each other lately. It shouldn’t have mattered. Not in the grand scheme of twisted lives and loves that they’d shared but…. “My head, Gray. My body. My fucking heart still there in the mix of it all. One you couldn’t stomach being around again and wanted locking away in a fucking seclusion room.”

Gray looked over and his world seemed to shatter around him. “Don’t… don’t do this, stunner, please.” He frowned and seemed to struggle against touching him, over adding any more tension that would break them. “This. This is us. The finest fucking hurt….” He looked down at his hands, seemed to study them for so long. “I’ve held you through every moment of your switches, even though Martin fought head, fist, and knife to push me away.” He turned his hands over. “I’ve never walked an hour in your shoes, but no disrespect—you’ve never walked an hour in mine either, not when it comes to holding you through the good and the bloodied skin.”

He shook his head and a tear fell onto his hand. “I’ve been in love with you since we first met in that alleyway, Jack, and that includes all the beauty you don’t see when it comes to you.” A look came Jack’s way. “This morning I was just so damn lucky to get a chance to finally holdallof you. So please, don’t make me feel sick over taking that decision.He’s a part of you, and I… I’d like to love every goddamn part of you, if that’s okay with you, because that’s us, loving through the chaos of the masks we wear.” Gray frowned, so seriously. “And I damn well swear I never meant to make you fear sitting here by me on your own.”

Noise came from around the maze, just soft footfalls on grass, and Jack levelled a look as Light and Andrews came around the corner, hazmat suits in hand.

“Right. You as well.” Jack got to his feet, and Gray reached to tug him back, but Jack again pulled out of it. Leaving him there, Jack went over to Light.

“Ask me.” Jack made sure Andrews took a step back as he went in close to Light. “Ask me why Martin really never let me meet you,” he said so softly, his breath shifting Light’s fringe off his brow.

Light frowned, the smallest offer, but he stayed quiet.

“He knew I’d call you for what you are,” Jack said to him. “And do you wanna know what you are?”

Light’s look hardened, so Jack went nose-to-nose close.

“You’re nothing but one hell of a stupid bastard. And as no one else around here seems to be able to do it, let me break it down for you,” Jack said flatly. “You spent so much time pissing into the wind, shouting you’re different, trying to justify every break of bone, you missed the simple fact—there’s no fucking semantic difference between a culler and a killer. Look them up in a fucking dictionary, if you have to. Stripped to the bones Ray told me you like to play with, they’re the same fucking thing, you cunt, making you a culler the moment you took someone’s life.” Jack stayed in so close. “Andthat’swhy you can’t call Brin’s bloody name. You damn well know the culler that put him in that grave will beexactlythe same one who sits beside it when you do finally grow the balls to see him.”

Now Light looked at him, and yeah… that was Gray’s son there, all the need to poison the bloodstream of anyone standing close enough to hurt.

“Fucking try it,” said Jack. “Because trust me, you and Gray won’teverbe as damn fucking terrifying as my own head. All that intelligence—you never once stepped outside of your own bloody head long enough to see that not being one of them simply meant to not… fucking… kill.”

Light went to say something, but Jack gripped his jaw, shutting him up.

“So when it comes to Martin,” he said so quietly, “myhead,mybody. My fucking heart behind it all, where if I walk, he walks at my side, never any of yours. I never once consented to any of the bullshit you think you were justified in taking.” He pulled him in close. “So when it comes to friend’s lists—remember now that I’llalwaysbe the one holding your fucking hand in the background like I have done with your father all these years, forcing you down to Brin’s grave so he can really see the kind of bastard who put him there. We clear?”

Jack pushed him away in the next breath, not bothered with an answer as he pointed at Andrews and turned away. “Teach him how to bloody hold on to someone, because like his old man, it’s the only way he’ll learn about boundaries outside of his own fucking head.”

“Jack, wait.”

Jack came to a stop.

“For what it’s worth, I never meant to come between you and them.” Light nodded at Gray and Jan as Jack looked back. “I never meant to come between you and Martin….”

“Yeah you did.” Jack looked him up and down. “And this is where I call stop on your bullshit.”

Jack left him there and headed back over to Gray and crouched down. “I don’t have a good history with kids,” he said flatly. “I’m not about to change who I am and start one with yours either, not over the shit he’s pulled. We clear?”

Gray frowned up at him, and Jack got a good look in his eyes. “So from here on in,” Jack said flatly, “this is me, taking responsibility for my disorders.”

Gray looked ready to say something, but Jack went in and roughed a kiss at his lips.

“Jack.” Gray brushed a thumb over his bottom lip as if he wasn’t sure if that was goodbye or—“Please—”

“Don’t,” Jack said through his words. “I need you to listen to me now. This isn’t a BDSM scene here. There’s no softstopsigns to tell you it hurts, no safe words like Mercedes-Benz to call out I’ve had enough. There’s just me. And this is me away from BDSM. This is me away from past screw-ups where I left under heat and fucked all our worlds up. This is me learning to step back, to take time to think and say a simple… no. You don’t get to take the piss out of my disorders and make me feel like shit one moment, then sleep with a part of me the next, fucking with my head. I didn’t know what Martin had done. I would have stopped it if I had, especially when it comes to anyone breathing hurt by you two. You’ve been my life since I’ve known both of you, so it’s pissing me off to the core that you thought, even for one fucking moment, that I would hurt you.”

“Jack—”

“But,” he said again through Gray’s words, “this is also me, stepping back from all the heat, giving you time to talk.” He offered a frown. “Because through all these years, it’s never been about the heat in these walls, just who I’ve been lucky enough to get to hold in the aftermath. So for me, it’s pretty simple—no kid, especially yours, gets to play puppet master over who I hold. But in taking that step back to give you the chance to talk away from all the heat, I need to know you’ll call stop on his bullshit too, that I’m your whole goddamn world like you are mine.”

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