A/N: Its hard going, pretty nasty and may be unpalatable for some. Anyone who reads 'me' will find this a bit of a departure so if you don't like violence I'd hit the back button now. Don't ask me where this came from, I just don't know, just note that I did warn you what it was likely to be like!

It all started with a pair of stolen boots....

~~x~~

The boots lay on shelf in the empty closet on their own. No other items were allowed to linger nearby as if some kind of contaminant radiated away from the scuffed leather. The light remained off and the warmth of the nearby radiator kept the leather supple and free from cracks or tarnish. They were much loved once and now cherished in a way the owner never imagined. So precious. So special.

~~x~~

The burglary was the very beginning of what was to come. Nothing else was requested, just the boots. The house was ransacked top to bottom, plants emptied out onto the floor and windows broken just to make the scene as chaotic as possible. When Adam had arrived home from the European tour he walked into the house and saw the state it was in and immediately called the police in to investigate. Although their thorough enquiries included testing for prints and any kind of DNA nothing turned up and seemingly nothing had been taken. According to the detective there had been a spate of such burglaries but valuables had been taken from hidden safes in them all. Adam had informed her that he didn't have one and her conclusion was that he'd been unluckily lucky.

The cleanup had taken days. His PA had arranged for a full deep clean of the carpets and damaged furniture, replacement of all the broken windows and the installation of a new security system. For so long he'd resisted living like he was on lockdown. He knew himself that he was going to need it sooner rather than later, only he didn't know back then just how soon.

After the burglary came the car accident. Driving between shows a car rammed him in the rear almost sending him into the flow of oncoming traffic. If it hadn't been for the fact that he'd slammed his brakes on right at the last minute he knew he'd have been hit by more than just the car that was suddenly behind him. The black Cheyenne that had hit him the first time had gone and a white pick up was all he could see in the rear view mirror as he applied the breaks harshly. Again the police received a call to attend and they put it down to nothing more than a DUI driver who'd absconded rather than get arrested.

The black Cheyenne started to appear more and more frequently as the weeks passed. Outside the arenas when he arrived and still there when he left. Outside his home when he got dropped off there after another exhausting flight. Outside the bars he drank at when he just needed to shift the worry from his mind about who was following him and why.

Letter started to arrive amongst his fan mail. They weren't threatening as such but each contained a quote about revenge, payback, justice, divine intervention; all kinds of dark themes. Each arrived on white linen paper, folded immaculately and postmarked from all corners of the country. All were typed in different fonts, sent with different stamps and bore a different number, counting backwards from the first one which bore the number 13. As the months passed they arrived at random. No pattern to their arrival emerged although Adam had meticulously logged the dates, looking for some clues as to who and why. He'd considered calling the police again but he was pretty sure they were going to start thinking he was the madman.

The last one to arrive was number 2. It read:

"And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe"

Number one hadn't yet arrived. It had been four weeks since the last letter and that was the longest he'd gone without receiving one. He didn't dare kid himself on for one minute that they were over and done with, that it was somehow a sign that it was all finished. The black Cheyenne was still appearing but less often. He wondered nightly when it was all going to end but was grateful that the daily reminders were growing to be fewer and fewer.

Since Adam realised his every movement was being followed and every hour meticulously watched over he had almost come to accept it as normal. Sometimes he would pretend that it was security that he had laid on for himself. That would usually last for around half an hour until he went to furtively peek through the drapes again and realised that the car was still there and that he still had no idea who the occupant was.

He'd slowly and almost unconsciously started to change the way he lived, making excuses to not leave the house unless he had to, asking his housekeeper to do his shopping, seeing friends only if they'd come to his house. Adam knew words were starting to be spoken between his colleagues about how his usual gregarious nature was slowly starting to ebb away and he was becoming increasingly reclusive. He'd overheard a couple of conversations, the contents of which were confirmed and compounded when Chris had tried to speak to him about it all, but Adam couldn't face admitting what was wrong. Nobody would ever believe him and his money was on the fact that it was someone on the roster that was behind it all.

Adam was acutely aware that he wasn't everyone's cup of tea. In fact, to a few people he wasn't even their cup of cyanide. He accepted that his manner didn't endear him to all but apart from the bad breakups he'd had there wasn't much he done wrong enough to merit the creepy treatment he was receiving. Or so he thought.

It was a cold and miserable Wednesday morning when he landed back from the Chicago taping. His housekeeper said she had to go and get some things from the store and left him alone, wandering the dull and dark corridors of his home and wondering whether to go and sleep or if he should make a start on the mountain of post and paperwork that had been neatly stacked on the table in his study. Room by room he worked his way around, ensuring that there was nobody in the en-suite bathrooms or the walk in closets.

All the upstairs rooms were clear and he walked slowly back down the stairs, stopping about half way down the first flight when he heard a bump in the distance. His heart began to race as he knew that the noise had not come from upstairs where he knew he'd been truly alone. He sat back on one of the stairs and waited, hoping to hear something or nothing equally, anything to explain the first noise and its cause.

A further loud bang sounded like the main door being slammed shut. Adam stood, his legs wobbling like those of a newborn lamb under the weight of his body. He took a deep breath, desperate to steady himself and once the fight had overcome the insistence of the flight he started down the stairs, determined not to let whoever or whatever it was get the better of him. He made it down the rest of the first flight and then turned onto the small landing before he hit the second set almost running. Before he knew it he was flying down them face first, his feet gone from underneath him having gotten caught in the wire that had been tied between the spindles of the handrails in an 'invisible to the eye' criss cross.

Adam flailed his arms in a last ditch attempt to save himself from the impending impact but all to no avail. He heard the crack of his wrist and almost in stop motion his entire body fell onto it, forcing his arm out to one side. The floor inched closer and closer to his face until the cold hardness impacted against his temple. A searing pain radiated through him and a veil of darkness descended, his crumpled and damaged body screaming with every heartbeat, a familiar pain clarifying that his fragile Achilles was indeed snapped all over again.

He writhed against the floor, unable to feel the arm that was trapped beneath him and unable to take any weight on the arm that had taken the brunt of the fall. Adam screwed his eyes shut and then opened them again and saw nothing but black. A cold trickle ran down and irritated his left open eye causing him to blink and try to shake his head. The movement didn't come but the tiredness did. His eyelids closed almost involuntarily over his unseeing eyes and the darkness was complete and consuming. As he thought about the chances of his housekeeper coming back before he bled out that was it. A sharp pain shot through the right hand side of his ribcage and his body shut down.

~~x~~

On the other side of town the phone was ringing and ringing. It had been another heavy night and the empty bottles were strewn all over the floor of Jeff's darkened bedroom. He stumbled across the floor to retrieve his cellphone from his jeans where they had been dumped last night, his stomping accompanied by the clank and clatter of glass as he shooed the empty vessels aside carelessly.

Searching every pocket and typically finding his phone in the last one, he pulled it out and on the screen flashed a name he'd waited for months to see. He made sure he spoke first, mainly to check that it was the right person using that number.

"Hello?"

"You missed the party? What happened to you?"

"I was...out of town for a few days, at a house show."

"So, you wanna get together today, we'll catch up?"

"Yeah, sounds good. Same time, same place as before. No point in changing the habit of a lifetime right? Pancake house at 1?"

"Sure thing. See you there."

The line went dead and Jeff felt his pulse start to race. The pre-rehearsed conversation was what they'd planned to account for any checking of their phone records. All the plans had been made over the cover of a string of late night poker games at which their presence could be verified by friends and new acquaintances both.

Looking again at his phone it was already 11.15am. He set about getting dressed in the clothes that he'd selected. A pair of black cargo pants, a black t-shirt and the beanie cap that hid his mop of straggly and coloured hair. He slipped the black gloves on and fitted them down firmly between his fingers. That done, the final touch was yet to come.

He walked along the long landing past the rooms occupied by his brother and his lover and paused for a moment at the door to their bedroom, resting his hand against it and dipping his head. This was all for Matt and his happiness. It was payback of the sweetest kind for Jeff, for every tear he'd wiped away, every cut he'd bandaged and every scream he'd heard extracted so painfully from his brother's pleading lips.

Jeff moved towards the storeroom at the end of the hallway and entered it silently, heading towards the built-in closet. As he opened the door he closed his eyes, almost unable to bear to look at the boots as they all but taunted him on the shelf. Taking one of them in his gloved hand he held it with somewhere between disdain, disgust and reverence. His fingers were drawn to the toe of the boot where a large patch of the black leather was gone and all that remained was the tan rear of the material which was spattered with stains and marks.

On that boot was the blood, the sweat, the skin and the pain of his brother. Those boots had sailed freely into Matt's midriff until such time as ribs were broken and skin bruised to black. They had stomped down on the inky curls until they were torn free from his scalp as he'd writhed and struggled. They'd been used to stand on his sternum and hold him down while others had all but attacked him, all right under the nose of the person he trusted to care for his wellbeing absolutely. They were the boots of the arch abuser in charge of the most vulnerable person Jeff had ever met who just happened to be his big brother.

He'd already had Adam scared and sent away on a number of occasions. Their own house was now like Fort Knox with every bit the best security system their money could buy. What Matt didn't know was that Adam had come sniffing around again just before they'd gone away to Europe. Jeff knew Adam would know better than to try anything on with Matt while they were on tour. Glenn, Mark and Hunter made sure that was never going to be an issue and Matt clung to them all jointly and separately throughout the two weeks they were away.

By the time of Adam's last uninvited appearance Matt had already taken to staying at Hunter's more than being at home for both convenience and safety. Jeff had ended up in a small scale brawl but Adam was bigger than him and apart from a room full of broken furniture the only thing seriously hurt was Jeff's pride at not being able to do more damage. The threats against his brother had come thick and fast from the spiteful lips. Adam was going to take Matt down and take him from Hunter at the first chance he got. He was going to bust Matt up worse than before and claimed he'd still come back begging for more like the pathetic slut he was. As if his tirade hadn't been enough the final barb was the final straw for Jeff.

Adam had claimed that he would take Matt away and hurt him so badly that he'd be to ashamed to ever come home again. Jeff knew only too well the mental hold that Adam had once had over his brother when even the most outlandish lie would be taken in and accepted as the truth. The scenario that scared him most was exactly the one that was being put forward. He'd often had nightmares about his brother waking somewhere cold, bound and alone, unable to escape and feeling too conscious of his errors to consider coming home even if he could.

That threat, however idle it was unlikely to be, had stirred Jeff into the action that he'd always feared he'd have to resort to taking. As it happened it didn't seem to matter too much to him now that if he got caught he'd be facing a stint in prison as it looked increasingly like he was headed there anyway. He'd distanced himself sufficiently from the actual act, or at least he hoped that was the case. A few favours from some of his shadier friends had been complimented by throwing substantial amounts of cash onto the table as well. Eventually with assistance from Kimo help had been secured.

As he passed back along the way he heard laughter coming from behind the closed bedroom door and hurried past, eager to get down the stairs and away into the open air before he had any second thoughts. In truth though he knew that it was already too late to take back the instructions, to rescind the orders to end this and rid their life of man that had blighted it for so long.

He swung the porch door open and padded quietly out to his truck. He dumped the boots on the passenger seat and started the engine. Jeff took one last look at himself in the rear view mirror and he saw something in his own eyes that disconcerted even him. The cold determination that reflected back at him sent chills down his spine but then it hit him. That was the difference between him and Matt. Those warm, brown puppy eyes didn't have the steel that Jeff's had, didn't share the same single minded independence that ensure what their owner wanted, he got. They also couldn't share the same rationale that if you wanted something that was wrong then as long as it was for the right reasons that made it somehow okay.

After a few minutes he pulled out onto the highway, sensing that the journey back from his destination would take far longer than on the way there. The radio played to itself idly and he didn't register any of the music, just the low hum of the engine and the quiet thrum of his pulse in his ears. His eyes had glazed over and the truck might as well have been on auto pilot. Jeff was gone from this world and focusing on their future life, on the new reality his actions were helping to create.

Pulling onto the dirt track he drove down it for around four miles until he was at the rear of a semi-deserted ranch. There were no more farmers or their livestock in sight and all the life he could see was the three parked vehicles. At the side of them stood a mixture of familiar and strange faces and on the ground was a figure, hands bound behind his back with what looked like cotton sheeting. Pulling his car alongside the others Jeff slid on his shades and hopped out of the drivers seat. Kimo approached him first, advising that the job had been done. Jeff could do nothing more than nod and reach over into the seat beside him to get the boots. As Kimo watched on Jeff kicked off his sneakers into the footwell and dropped the boots on the the dusty floor, sliding his socked feet into them.

He didn't bother to lace them as he had no plans on wearing them for too long. Under his breath he asked Kimo to get them all back into their cars while he did what he had gone there to do. After relaying the message there was soon just Jeff and Kimo stood over Adam's bound and lifeless body. Taking a short stunted run Jeff pitched a hard kick into the exposed gut and felt the resistance against his foot, against the boots.

There were no pained sounds, no forced exhalation, no movement other than that which the force of his punt had caused. The adrenaline surged Jeff's system like no hit he'd taken before. Rocking back on his standing foot he kicked forward again, this time making sure that the toe of the boots made full contact. Still nothing. He turned his body slightly and aimed for the bloodied and bruised face, noting the congealed blood that marked Adam's face just above his eyebrow. The skin had split and all but peeled itself back, the dried blood seeming to have sealed at least one of his eyes shut.

He drew his leg back and pitched a kick squarely at the nose that already bore scrapes and looked slightly misaligned. On connection he felt the now familiar stiffness of the rigor mortis that had set in. He heard the perversely sweet sound of the cartilage grinding which only served to make him keener, more anxious to avenge.

Jeff's kicks flew until there was little or nothing left of the once prominent nose. Satisfied with his efforts he poked at the mess with the toe of the boots, as he saw it granting Adam one last indignity. Those boots had not made him cry out. There was no pulling of hair, no grunted begs. He hadn't given Adam the chance to beg for his mercy as he'd dreamt of so many times. That was because when it came to his brother and the pain he'd been through there wasn't a scrap of mercy in his body for the man who caused it.

He resisted the urge to spit on the broken body and once he'd uttered his last few insults under his breath, Jeff stepped back and slid his feet out of the boots, feeling the rocks pressing through the thin material of his socks. He moved slowly towards a stunned looking Kimo who had been well informed of the plan but seemed shocked to see someone as mild mannered as Jeff go through with the final stage of his plan. Kimo reached his arm out and pulled Jeff close to his chest.

"It's over now bro. You did the right thing man. You had to."

Jeff pulled away and smiled fondly at the man who had stood beside him unwaveringly though every previous attempt to empty all their lives of Adam. He knew that he could ask him for help in absolute trust and the plans would be taken care of. It was now down to Kimo and his associates to deal with the clean up. He had every expectation that he would be asked about the sudden disappearance but he'd made sure to be seen in none of the right places at the time the siege on Adam's house had been taking place. He'd had nothing else to do with the body and would not do from here on in.

Whilst all those present knew the victim and potentially Jeff himself, he wasn't worried. These weren't rent-a-henchmen from the local biker bar. These were professionals that made people disappear when debts didn't get paid, people got ratted out and those further up the food chain were disrespected. He also knew that if there was any chance of his collar being felt that they'd almost certainly offer up one of their own at a price to save him from any convictions. The money it had cost so far was elementary and easily hidden in billing for his defence costs on his other trial.

Getting back into his truck he slipped his sneakers back on, turned up the radio and would the window down. The four previously bumpy miles somehow seemed that bit flatter. The journey back home that bit less heavy on his heart as the route there. Jeff tried to access his feelings about what he'd arranged and what he'd just done to deal with them before he hit home but all that filled his mind was sweet relief. No regrets.

~~x~~

Eventually he pulled up outside their house and eyed it carefully for signs of life. Once satisfied that Matt wasn't around or at least watching from any of the windows he got out and retrieved a garbage bag from the trunk of the car. Jeff walked around the outside of the house towards the fire pit they'd dug in the ground together so long ago. Standing beside it he stripped off and threw his simple clothes, hat, sneakers and gloves into the bottom of the pit. From the garbage bag he pulled a full fresh set and a spray can. First Jeff sprayed himself head to toe with the mist of harsh smelling disinfectant which made all kinds of promises on the can as to what it could cleanse any surface of. By the time anyone realised Adam was gone he'd have showered enough to cleanse himself of any trace of evidence but that piece of advice was straight from the pros. Balling up the garbage bag he threw them both into the pit, the can landing on top of the clothes. Jeff re-dressed himself in the fresh clothes slowly, the feel of the cool, pure white beater against his skin feeling like a complete contradiction to his actions of the day so far.

As ever he threw a liberal amount of lighter fluid into the pit followed by three lit matches one after another. Through the haze of the slowly smouldering cotton Jeff saw the fire take hold properly and he hung around just long enough to see the metal of the spray can expanding. He turned his back to the pit and headed towards the house just as the loud bang came. The back door swung open when he was only feet from it himself and a dripping wet Matt appeared with a similarly damp Hunter following only inches behind, both of them quite the sight still half soaped and sporting nothing more than loin-cloth sized towels.

"Jeff...are you ok? Man, I heard that bang and I thought someone was putting the windows through or another damn world war had started...."

Matt's voice was panicky and his breath barely making it into his lungs before his rapid-fire words forced it back out.

"Matty, I was just having a little fire? Can't a pyromaniac do what he wants in the privacy of his own home? And besides, looking at you two, its a little bit more privacy that you need right now too...."

Jeff raised his part-shaved eyebrow and he saw the colour rise in his brother's cheeks. He knew that would be enough to send him packing long enough for the fire to burn down. As the two figures retreated and promised to come back and sort the slippery floor out Jeff waved them away and made for the fridge from which he pulled a beer. Capping it off he drank half the bottle in one go and then took what felt like his first proper breath since his phone rang earlier.

Three weeks later he stood at the graveside long after all the mourners had gone. He didn't come through remorse or care, he just wanted to make sure that it was all over. His false platitudes about how sorry he was had been made on the flowers he'd sent to be laid at the site of the house fire. The house that had razed to the ground leaving nothing but charred remains that matched the dental records of both Adam and his housekeeper. Jeff didn't know what they'd done or how they'd done it. All he did know was that for now it was a closed case, a done deal, tragic accident that had claimed a promising young life.

Only Jeff knew different. Maybe one day he would tell his story.

Just for kicks.

A/N: Soooooo, don't usually do death. Don't usually do anything like this, but infrequent visitor Jeff!muse decided to come and see me and poked the hell out of me until I did this. I think he's had enough o_0

Also I'm gonna warn that I was so desperate to get this out of my brain and pubbed so I don't have to think about it anymore that there may be typos/minor errors. I've not done my usual 45 re-reads so I apologise now!

And letter number 1 is intentionally not there, I didn't forget for anyone wondering XD

All reads and reviews appreciated as always :)