Notes: I know I said I wouldn't be doing chapter warnings but this chapter in particular is pretty gory, so just a heads up. Also thank you SO much for all your amazing reviews, I'm so thrilled people are reading and enjoying this story! I appreciate the hell every single one of you!
Word Count ~ 4300
KENTUCKY
"Brendan - "
"Shhh, Steven, just - just, shhh - " Brendan dares a brief glance across the bench. Steven's curled up against the door, shivering and pale. Brendan's foot's already to the metal, he can't go any faster. "We'll be there in a few minutes, don't worry. I'm gonna take care of you, okay?" There's no answer and he looks back. "Steven? Answer me."
"Yeah - oh - okay - "
He clenches his fists, white-knuckled, around the steering wheel. Breathes. Tries to stop himself going fucking wild, flinging them off the road into a ditch or something.
"Keep talkin' to me, Steven. Tell me what happened."
"They - they got interested in the car. Two of 'em - two cops - "
He'd left Steven for half a fucking minute. Half a minute to buy a bottle of God-damn water. "Then what?"
"Clocked me. Made me get out, stand against the - against the - "
"Steven!"
" - the door - hands up - I got my gun and got it on the old one - and it was - didn't know what to do - fuckin', no idea what they were doin' - "
"Carry on, Steven. Come on. I wanna know everything," Brendan demands, firm and no room for disagreement. He can keep Steven talking for two more minutes. They're nearly there.
"Youngest was dead twitchy - think he was new. Saw his finger movin' on the tigger an' then that was it - shot me - I shot the old one - "
That's when Brendan had heard the gunfire. Yards away through the dark of the car park and he'd heard two bullets fired and ran, skidded to a halt in front of his worst damn nightmare, two cops, one dead, one fucking terrified and shaking with his gun clumsily trained on his half-slumped and bleeding boy.
Brendan had dealt accordingly.
"Did they have time to radio it in?"
"No - we're good."
That's one weight off. Just one. Right now it seems almost insignificant.
Brendan spots the turning. The car breaks squeal and the tires skid and grind away in the transition from smooth tarmac to loose gravel. He takes them down until he spots the place through the haze of the blurry, silver light from the wide-open sky. It's a picturesque little hunting cabin, alleged once-upon-a-time getaway of John Fox Jr; he'd read about it on a plaque outside the park four days ago, chatted to the guy in green overalls tending to the pretty, red hibiscus bushes.
"It's just outside of town, keep on Ceder Street, past the river. They rent it out for a couple hundred bucks to tourists. Check with Mary over at Paradise Planning on Main Street. She can hook you up with so much history you won't know what's hit you."
He flings open the door, grabs a bag from the trunk and climbs the wooden porch to get a look at the lock; piece of piss for a piece of history but he's fucking relieved, gets out his jackknife, long, slender and hooked steel lockpick on one hinge, steadies his shaking hands, breathes and tells himself the quicker he gets this done the more chance Steven has.
It works, shifts and turns until the mechanism clicks and he can kick open the door and toss the bag inside. He jumps the steps, lands heavy on the solid earth, and skids up the against passenger door. When he opens it he has to get to his knees to catch Steven's body before he tumbles out.
"I got you - got you - "
"Bren - " Steven pushes his face into Brendan's neck, shuffles close, curls the fingers of one hand into the material of Brendan's t-shirt.
He gets one arm secured around his back, pulls his body close, gets his other underneath Steven's knees and hauls him up into his arms as careful as he can. There's a patch of coagulating blood across the leather bench. It's moulded to fit the shape of Steven's slumped form.
Brendan holds him tight against his chest and he's trembling in Brendan's arms. "Gonna take care of you, baby. Don't worry about a thing. You'll be good as new by tomorrow."
He mutters soothing words all the way into the cabin, platitudes with the aim of getting Steven listening and paying attention to him, to get him calm and lower his rapidly climbing heart rate. He lays Steven out across the huge, soft-grey sofa and heads to get the bag and turn on every light he can find.
Brendan's patched up wounds before, stitched up a gash here and there, set a broken finger or two. He's inflicted enough to know plenty about organ damage and internal bleeding and shock and sepsis. The bullet wound is in Steven's abdomen, low and far left, far enough that he hopes it's missed anything major. Steven's still alive, that's gotta count for something.
The bag's got codeine and whiskey and needles and thread and he kneels by the sofa, gets out everything, hands two pills to Steven and holds his neck whilst he washes them down with alcohol, fucking stupid but it's all Brendan's got to make this easier and he has to make it easier. He bunches up Steven's soaked-red t-shirt, looks at the centimetres circumference hole, pretty smooth from what he can tell but there's no exit wound and the bullet can't stay in there. There's blood dribbling out of it in spurts to match the pumping of Steven's heart and Brendan chokes on the thick tang of iron, his own stomach aching in response like his body's trying to shoulder some of Steven's pain.
He takes out cotton padding and antiseptic fluid, smell of it so harsh and pungent he could gip on it, so sharp he can feel how it's going to sting. He leans his body over Steven, looks into his glazed, fluttering eyes and he picks up the cross at his chest, brings it, shaking, to his lips and presses a pleading prayer against it. Then he braces one bent arm across Steven's chest before he pours half the bottle across the wound.
Steven screams and screams and then chokes on it, seizes under Brendan's body, turns his face away, breath hitching and sobbing out of him until he gets a handle on it, calms down, pulls in long and heaving, ragged breaths. Brendan holds him down through it, soothes him with soft muttering, you're okay, I got you, until Steven's eyes find his and they're clear, no pain-haze, completely alert. He's lucid, heart pounding powerfully against Brendan's arm, most likely the adrenaline kicking in, making him sharp and aware. He raises his hands and digs his fingers into Brendan's forearm and elbow.
His face is pinched tight with pain, teeth gritted, lips pressed together. He's drip-white and Brendan doesn't know if it's shock or blood loss or both.
"Y'okay?"
"M'a fuck."
Brendan breathes a laugh, fucking relief. "Gonna get the bullet out, okay?"
"Better be jokin' - "
"I'm funnier than that, Steven. Come on." Steven moans, pitiful sound. "It's okay, hey - do you trust me?" He nods but he clearly doesn't want to right now. Even less so when Brendan pulls out the jackknife.
"Whiskey," Steven sighs out, holds out a hand and Brendan touches the bottle back to his lips and helps him drink it down, gulp after gulp.
He strokes his hand through Steven's sweat-damp hair, waits a few minutes for the alcohol and painkillers to kick in properly. He switches the knife across to the longest, thinnest point and climbs across Steven's body to straddle his hips, leans in and kisses Steven's lips softly and whispers, "I'm sorry," before he holds him back down with one arm firm across him and pushes the steel underneath Steven's skin.
He cries out and tries to arch under Brendan's solid weight, scratches at Brendan's forearm, gouges his nails in so sharp Brendan knows he's bleeding now, too, fucking glad of it, wants to bleed with his boy, should have been there, protecting him, should be the one with the fucking hole in him.
Brendan feels the knife touch something hard and he ducks closer to get a better look, moves the tip across where he can feel the bullet and tries to make it catch enough to pull it out. He gets it, some kind of groove or dent or lip, and he feels the thing dislodge from tense muscle. It slides up slow and Steven rides it out, clings to him and sobs through it, fuck and please and Brendan, all unbearable, every word like a leather strap trashing and embedding itself in his skin like punishment and finally Brendan sees the glinting metal and edges it all the way out.
Blood wells over in a gush and he gathers handfuls of padding and presses down tight to soak it up. He was careful, he hasn't hit any arteries, but it's almost never ending. Steven's lungs heave in breath, head rolled back, tiny whimpers tearing out of him and Brendan watches in horror as more colour drains out of his skin with every drop of leeching blood. If he loses too much they're fucked; Brendan doesn't have the equipment to transfuse him.
He talks Steven through the longest, most agonising minutes of his life. He talks until the flood abates, until he can see it turn sticky around the wound and clump in the drenched cotton. He whispers soothing words and aims for distraction - what d'you call a fly with no wings? A walk. What d'you call a man with a spade on his head? Doug - and Steven starts to loosen up, rolls his eyes and gives Brendan shaky smiles and calms, rise and fall of his chest slowing to something like normal.
Brendan sags forwards, shaky with relief, and carefully rests his forehead against Steven's.
"I gotta stitch you up now, I'm so sorry," he says softly.
Steven's eyes flutter shut and he moans, tips his face against Brendan's, nuzzles his nose, presses their lips close, whispers, "it's okay, just do it."
Brendan nods against him, kisses him, gentle and clinging. He clenches his fists tightly, tries to wring out the tremor that's set into his very bones, and bends the needle between his fingers until it curves and then threads it with cotton. He cringes through Steven's flinch when he pulls the bloodied cotton away from the bullet hole, holds him down again whilst he rinses him out with more disinfectant fluid and tries to push aside the the way his subconscious catalogues every one of Stevens cries. He soaks everything in antiseptic, pours it over his own hands and dries himself and the slippery needle on sterile gauze.
There's no good way to start so he just does. He pushes and pops the needle underneath the skin at the bottom of the hole and pulls, feels the cotton grating through Steven's flesh, feels Steven's muscles tensing under the palm he has flat against his ribcage, point of contact and comfort as well as a way for Brendan to monitor the fluttering beat of his erratic heart.
Steven whimpers, tiny, desperate sounds, and squeezes his eyes shut and Brendan only hears and sees these things in his peripheral, his focus narrowed and fixed on the task in front of him. Stitch him up. Make him whole. No more blood is getting out of his boy tonight. He's not losing one more gram of him, one more drop of his life.
It doesn't take long, the hole is small, but by the time he's finished, Steven's shivering and half conscious. Brendan gives him one last splash of disinfectant, wipes away the red and sticky stain setting into Steven's skin, all across his stomach, around his side, until he's as clean as Brendan's gonna get him, and covers the wound with a square bandage.
"Steven, hey - " He cups Steven's neck with both his hands, leans over him but keeps his body weight off his stomach, strokes his thumbs across Steven's cheekbones.
Steven drags open his eyes, takes a good five seconds to focus in on Brendan and his delayed awareness frightens him. His skin's cool against Brendan's hands and he's pale as Brendan's ever seen him, white as paper, looks like a ghost, fading out like he's disappearing before Brendan's very eyes. If he goes into shock -
Brendan thinks he might be close already.
There's not a lot he can do. He climbs down the sofa, it's fucking huge, wide and long and L shaped, and pulls Steven out of his jeans. They're too tight and they'll cut off circulation of whatever blood he's got left. His t-shirt is soaked in blood and Brendan hates the idea of him uncomfortable so pulls him out of that, too, Steven completely and terrifyingly pliant in his arms. He roots in the bag and pulls out one of his own t-shirts, soft and grey and loose, and holds Steven whilst he weakly pushes his arms into the sleeves.
"It's okay, Steven. You're gonna be alright. Gonna let you rest now, okay?" Steven nods blearily and Brendan kisses him once. "I'm gonna be here but I need to go find somethin' to keep you warm. I'm right here, okay?"
He hurls himself up the pale, pine-wood stairs behind the sofa. They lead up onto a balcony that overlooks the living room, three doors lining the back wall and the first he goes in is a double bedroom. He rips the duvet off the bed and throws it over the railings, grabs a bunch of pillows and tosses them, too, and then tears back down to grab the lot. He puts a pillow under Steven's head carefully, puts two more under his legs to elevate them.
Finally, he throws the duvet over Steven's shivering body and wraps it tight, presses it into the sofa with his forearms at either side of Steven's shoulders.
Steven gazes up at him, slack and slow but basically lucid, scant inches of space between them that feels like a mile because any space right now is too much. He takes a deep, laboured breath and whispers, "think I'll live?" It hits Brendan low like a sucker punch to his gut and he exhales roughly, head falling against Steven's shoulder because he's suddenly gone weak, body overtaken with lethargy as adrenaline leeches out of him all of a sudden like his plugs been pulled, life-support flicked off at the switch. "Bren - it's okay. I'm okay."
He rolls his too-heavy body onto the sofa, curls on his side against Steven, wraps one arm across his covered chest and Steven makes room for him on the pillow, turns his head so their noses touch, so Brendan can breathe his air.
"I thought - " he eventually manages to choke out.
"Brendan, shhh," Steven hushes him, voice hoarse and barely-there. He kisses the tip of Brendan's nose softly. "Look at me. I'm fine."
"I can't lose you."
"You won't."
"How d'you know that?"
"Because," he breathes, exhaustion taking hold of him now, eyes fluttering slowly shut. "Because if you're alive, I'm alive. 'Til death, remember?"
Steven's chest steadies out into even sleep underneath his arm and Brendan doesn't dare shut his eyes, doesn't dare look away from Steven's face, his lips and nose and the charcoal smudge of his eyelashes fanning against his cheek. Steven's out like a light and Brendan finally feels the rush of almost-grief crash against his crumbling walls, tide almost too powerful to hold back but he does, can hold for a little while longer. There's moisture on his face and the uncontrollable tremble of his mouth and he catalogues it, sorts through it like he's doing filing and pushes it down and back and bottles it.
He'll uncork it soon enough.
He gives himself enough time to soak up energy from Steven's living, solid and breathing presence, to make sure he's deep enough asleep that he won't wake up when Brendan's not there, and then gets up carefully. The stairs creak under his feet and he finds the bathroom, third door on the left. He's a sight in the mirror, hollow and haunted look about him like he's some shell-shocked war veteran just staggering home from his first tour of duty. Steven's blood covers him, caked into his jeans and shirt and fucking skin and he runs the tap until it's scalding hot, takes soap and scrubs at his hands and arms until he's pink and sore.
He strips off his clothes and kicks them into the corner, wants them as far away from him as possible and there's patches of red like wine stains spotted across his entire fucking chest and stomach. His hands shake and he has to fight to stop from scratching his nails into his skin and tearing strips out himself.
Hold on to it. Breathe through it. Reign it in and fucking use it.
His control holds fucking steady as stone, just a bit longer, and Brendan goes back to Steven's side, still resting, still warm and safe and perfect, and he shuffles through the bag to find something he doesn't mind ruining, ripped pair of jeans and plain black t-shirt. There's the ones in the bathroom upstairs but he won't wear Steven's blood for this. The taint he's about to cover himself in doesn't deserve to touch any part of Steven's life, not again.
He slips out into the night, cloying, warm evening air like a heavy, woollen blanket over his body. The air buzzes and writhes with the sound of crickets and cicadas, seems to move with specks of dancing light, biting, flying insects in rolling synergy across the landscape.
There's a dull and muffled thudding coming from the car and Brendan stalks over to it. Against the heat of the night he feels like metal. He feels cold and impregnable, a walking, breathing weapon of steel. His mind is carefully blank. He can't afford to lose himself too quickly.
He pops the trunk and stares down at the bound and gagged man. He peers up at Brendan with wide, watering eyes and a strangled shriek around the material bundled into his mouth. Brendan watches him blink and squirm and groan. He soaks it in and lets it drive him like force, lets it drip through his calm veneer and catch and spark and fuel the fire of his anger. It comes like a slow boil, bubbles and expands and burns bright and hot.
"Can't hear you there, mate. What was that?" he asks softly and the man's throat clicks, sounds painful, around the gag.
" - orry - I in't - et me go - ease"
Brendan nods, head jerking, muscles tense and twitchy, now. "Ah - right. Okay." He tries out a smile, feels it turn up one corner of his mouth, aches on his face; not happening. "I'm gonna say, no."
He reaches down and grabs the cops tied hands, hauls him out of the boot and onto the dusty ground where he rolls, coughs and splutters where he lands, curled up on his side. Brendan pulls out Steven's gun, handle smooth ivory against his rough palm, and angles it into his face.
"I should kill you with this. Only seems right you should die by his weapon." The cop screams around the cloth and it sounds like ripping paper. Brendan hunches down, rests his elbows against his knees, considers him, inhales his fear. Then he pulls out the jackknife and cuts the bonds holding the guy's legs. "Get up, no sudden moves." Cop struggles upright, chest heaving, eyes weeping a steady stream of tears. Brendan grips his shoulder and spins him, pushes the barrel into his spine and growls, "walk."
They pick a path through the low, tangled up shrubs and then into the forest proper. Brendan guides him by the light from the Milky Way, shimmering white glow almost enough to illuminate the entire area, moon as bright as the damn day sun out here, until they get to some kind of clearing, far enough away that he can't see the lights from the cabin anymore. He's away from Steven and it adds to his itch, adds to his agitation, every roiling emotion curling together carefully like one of his chemical mixtures until he figures out which combination he needs to make this moment just right.
He needs rage and hatred. He needs fear and love and devotion. He needs to feel the full force of the forever he almost lost, that yawning edge at the brink of a future filled with suffocating darkness.
Brendan throws Cop to the ground again, feels the first thrill of satisfaction at how his knees crack against the solid earth. It's not enough, though. It's just the start. He kicks up dirt as he strides around to the guy's front, widens his stance and taps his foot and looks into his terrified, confused and wet-streaked face. He's wearing a badge that Brendan hadn't paid much attention to before but now he squints at it, makes out the name.
"Really?" he drawls, eyebrow raised. "Okay, then. Hey - Buddy." Buddy pulls in breath through his nose, sniffles and makes these choked off little noises, music to Brendan's ears. "You shot my boy, Buddy. Now we got a problem."
Buddy shakes his head furiously, tries to shout around the cloth, " - ought he 'as 'onna 'ill me - "
Brendan holds up a finger and shushes him. "Buddy, please. It's rude to talk with your mouth full; you're making me uncomfortable. Where was I? Right - like I said, shot my boy. He nearly died, tonight. Now I ain't a monster, Buddy, so I'm gonna enlighten you, gonna tell you that you're lucky that my boy didn't die tonight. Wanna know why?" Buddy stares up at him, fucking blank like a gormless kid with a difficult question and Brendan whispers, "this is the part where you nod, by the way."
"Mmmmhhh - " Buddy muffles, nods shakily.
"If Steven had died tonight then there wouldn't of been a cop in this country able to stop me hunting down every last member of your family, and I mean every last one, we're talkin' great Auntie Irene thrice removed on your cousin's side and her grandkid's dog, and ripping their hearts out," Brendan tells him, a low warning, bleeding hot and rough with his barely reigned back fury, feels it crack through and begin to deliver. He can't keep at bay much longer; his fingers twitch with his muscles trying to override his control. Buddy's in a panic again and Brendan's almost done with this pathetic display, wants to give Buddy something to really fucking panic about. "Shut up for fucks sake. Steven's alive. Like I said - you're a lucky boy. There's still a debt to be paid, though. Eye for an eye. Maybe blood for blood's more apt."
He presses the sole of his boot against Buddy's chest and kicks him backwards, topples him sprawling onto his back with his bound hands under him awkwardly. He aims Steven's gun low and pulls the trigger and Buddy screams, sound ripping out of him, wounded and shredded like it's forcing out through a cheese grater, and pulls his shattered knee up against his body like it might ease the pain, like he might be able to protect it if it's close. His body's natural reaction. Movement probably hurts like a mother fucker but it's all instinct, ingrained muscle reflexes.
Brendan tosses the gun to the side, far enough away from grabbing hands, and bends over, bats Buddy's broken leg away impatiently and plants both knees into the ground, bracketing his hips. He pushes one hand firm against Buddy's chest, slips his other into his pocket and around his knife, and bends close, lets Buddy get a good focus on his face before he says, "like I said - only fit you should die by Steven's weapon."
He drags out the knife and holds it clear in front of him, right where Buddy can get a good look at it. Brendan's going to tear chunks out of him until every one of Steven's screams, every single tear he's sobbed, every single damaged nerve and drop of blood and torn skin cell he's endured tonight, has been accounted for. A debt paid in full.
"Not the gun, though, Buddy," he breathes, growls, feels the rage and cruelty swell and take hold like a rising wave. "Me."
*/*/*
"You've been ages. I was gettin' worried. Come 'ere."
Brendan drops a bag on the kitchen table and does as he's told. He leans over Steven's sprawled body, plants both hands on the sofa arm, and slides his tongue into Steven's warm and waiting mouth.
"Sorry," he murmurs against Steven's lips. "Mary wouldn't shut the fuck up. Good news though - " He pulls Steven up and throws himself down onto the sofa, and pulls Steven's head back into his lap."Nobody's booked to rent this place for another three weeks. Thought we could stay until you're strong enough for a long drive."
"What if someone comes sniffin' round?"
Brendan cards his fingers into Steven's hair, scrapes his nails against Steven's scalp and pulls on the strands softly. "I'll deal with them."
"Sounds like a plan."
"Don't it? Although - I hear it's gettin' a bit dangerous round here at the moment. You'll never guess what Mary told me."
"Ooh, don't leave me hanging. What?"
"Well - two nights ago a cop got shot outside Dollar General."
Steven gasps around a wry grin. "You don't say!"
"Yep. Police are in a right state over it. They're blaming on gangs, for now."
"Gangs of Franklin, Kentucky?"
"That's not the weirdest part. His partner? Just up and vanished into thin air."
"Oh, 'eck. Reckon summat really gruesome's 'appened to him?"
Brendan bends to press a smiling kiss against his boy's warm and living skin. "I'd put money on it, Steven."