Epilogue
Three months later…
Shane is sick of arguing. They've been round and round in circles. He can't stay and Mac won't leave. So he's come up with a half-arsed solution that might fit. Mac looks at him. "Every two months? Half way?" He shakes his head and thinks. "It's doable if we're careful, have to make sure up front we've got the time, don't want to get there and be on my fucking own." He grips the back of Shane's neck tightly as he says this. Shane merely leans into him in response.
"But you've got to get a fucking phone man." Mac snorts and nods before he leans in and bites Shane's shoulder sucking at the same time. He's been doing it all week making sure Shane goes home covered in his bruises. His carvings are fading; in time they'll be white lines like his own brands. They both wear them with pride. "And we call each other, every week no matter what. If one of us misses that call we do the same time each day until we hear. If we don't hear after a week we come looking. Deal?"
"Deal. No one gets to mess you up but me." Mac is serious. And Shane wouldn't have him any other way. Letting him in had been the easiest decision Shane had ever made in his life. The lines between legal and illegal blurred for him like they did for no other. Shane wasn't furious at life anymore because in being envious of Rick's life and then getting out hand with a prisoner he'd been given a transfer and that had gifted him Mac. He knew they were fucked up, but they were each other's fucked up.
He didn't care what other's thought of them, the only opinion he wanted or cared about these days was that of the sociopath sitting beside him in bed. Shane's mouth watered as he looked at him. Lean, pale skin stretched over his bones. His body was now littered with cuts and burns from him. Each one marking some moment they'd gone just far enough for Mac to find what he called his 'white space' a vacuum Shane guessed it was. A vacuum, absence from his shitty life. But a life he wasn't willing to change. And to be honest if he did he wouldn't be Mac. But Shane worried about one thing.
"I don't care that he's your old man, you need to kill the fucker before he kills you." He'd been saying this for the past month when Walter had stated Devon was bringing his sister home and he was going to stay. They'd be arriving in about six months or so when he finished law school. Shane wanted Mac to move with him, or both of them to move somewhere else altogether. "I don't care what the fuck you did to her, you were off your fucking face, that fuckwit drugged you, you weren't responsible. Let it go." His turn to grab Mac.
Mac leans into Shane, he drags him forward by the hair and pulls him down opening himself for Shane. Shane can't say no, he can never say no to Mac.
Seven months later….
The phone rings out again. This is the seventh day. Shane hangs up and starts to pack a bag. He packs a full weapons bag as well. Something else pulls at him and he finds himself packing a dozen pairs of flex cuffs too. He travels and stops the day in the closest down to Cainville. Then he travels there at dusk. He heads to Mac's first. The place is dark. It is filthy again. The drawing's he'd only see Mac do after a nightmare were all over the house. His father's fucking tattoo. Shane finds his heart knocking against his ribs. He looks for the dog but he is gone although Mac's truck is there. Shane drives up to the Ashton house. He looks around. There is a van there, and there is a smell of death around the house. He picks the lock and can see that people have been there recently but no one is there now. He drives back toward town and parks away from the bar. Then he walks toward it.
He waits, watching Walter. When the bar closes Shane is just about to step to the back door when a cabin door opens and a young man steps out. He is tall, rangy but there is something off about him. Shane realises he reminds him of Walter and he steps back into the shadows. He follows as he heads in through the back door, stopping in the kitchen as he talks to Walter. He mentions Reggie and Walter answers him. No mention of Mac which isn't good. Then they mention having to cook. Shane knew Mac was the cook, he cooked to a recipe only he knew. Walter was saying if they couldn't work it out they'd be in trouble.
Bowing his head Shane let grief wrack his body for several minutes. Then he waited. When Devon had left going back to the cabin, Shane stepped inside. It was easy, easier than he ever thought. He'd tied Walter down and he'd beaten his grief out on him. It was worse somehow as they'd left Mac out there for the animals. Taking his time he got Devon as well and put him in the bar with Walter. He set fire to the bar after making sure that Devon and Walter were alive and low to the ground so they'd feel the heat crawling to them and hear their flesh crackling in the heat before they passed out and died. The girl had been a shock. Drugged to the eyeballs he nearly let her go with them until he realised she'd been taken against her will.
He'd left her out front for the fire or ambulance whichever got there first. Still shaking in grief he drives back toward home. He absently rubs Mac's name on his right side. So far Rick hadn't seen it. Shane no longer cared if he did.
The End