Notes: Cover art by the amazing teiubesc8 on Tumblr. Thank you so much for letting me use it, lovey. It's so gorgeous!
Word Count ~ 4600
TENNESSEE
Brendan hits out. He feels the bones of his fist crack and shatter bone in return.
He hops back, shakes himself loose, breathes. Long. Smooth. Blood rising like a swelling orchestra. Veins dilated, pumping, rushing red under his skin, flowing, gushing heat. Frank looks up at him through the blood rolling over his eyelids, face shadowed in the faint lampost light, faint circle it creates around them, around the scattered circle gathered with Brendan and his new friend at the centre.
Sometimes he fights for money but no money has changed hands tonight. Sometimes he fights for fun but there's nothing sporting about what he's doing right now. Sometimes he fights because someone thinks they can take him but tonight it's like he's wearing a sign - do not fuck with - and not one fucker has been cocky enough to beg him for a beating.
Except this one but he hadn't begged. He'd gotten Brendan's attention for a whole other reason.
Tonight he fights to settle the itch that's been tickling, building in his skin for two and a half weeks like a festering disease. Tonight he fights to make a man bleed for him, to feel the heat of his running blood, the break of his bones and crack of his begging voice.
Frank isn't begging yet, though.
"What's the matter?" Frank calls, thick through his clotting nose. "Somethin' pretty caught your eye?"
Brendan's eyes flick, involuntarily, to Steven. He's leaned up against the wall behind the loose crowd, scowl fixed firmly on his face and watching intently. Brendan can sense darkness and real, raw and fucking palpable anger rolling off him in waves.
"I think it was your eye that got caught, mate," Brendan says calmly. "Ain't that why we're here?"
"Maybe when I'm finished up, he'll get a little more than just my eye," Frank spits through a nasty grin.
Frank's fucking huge, got at least three inches on Brendan, broad at the shoulders, thick neck and so much meat on his arms they look like they should be on a butcher's hook. Brendan's glad for every inch. The bigger they are, the more satisfying it is when he puts them down.
"You really don't know when to quit, do you?" Brendan asks.
Frank doesn't like to lose.
Earlier he'd spotted him and his bulky, party-boy type friends. They'd swaggered in like they fucking owned the place, ordered shots and doubles and laughed loud and obnoxious, slammed their glasses down on the table like in the fucking movies. He'd seen Frank's wondering eye catch and pull on Steven where they'd been sat at a tall corner table under the framed Jimmy Reed Live At The Hard Rock Cafe poster even though that isn't where they are, Steven shoving peanuts into Brendan's mouth and guffawing like it was the funniest thing in the world, licking salt of his fingers and then Brendan's lips, smiling and laughing and so fucking gorgeous that Brendan could almost forget what had happened two and a half weeks ago in Franklin.
He'd kept a close eye on Frank, heard the name catcalled loud when he'd gone to the bathroom, Frank, get me a fucking Jaeger would you? and later on Brendan had glanced back over his shoulder, his body leaned down across the pool table, just in time to see him stretching up next to where Steven was leant against the bar. He'd towered over, one arm sliding up behind his back across the wood, and Steven had given him one look, quick and disdainful up and down, and fixed his attention back onto Brendan. Frank hadn't taken the hint, or he had taken the hint but hadn't taken the hint, and he'd leaned in close, said something into Steven's ear that had his eyes darkening, hand inching back into his waistband where Brendan knew his knife was nestled up against his hip.
Brendan had frozen half-way to taking the shot, vision dripping raw red and hot like a blacksmith's forge and seen Frank's hand moving through the air with intent.
Frank had touched him, brushed fingers against his chest, and quick as a pouncing cat, Steven had drawn the blade up against his throat at the exact same time Brendan had cracked his pool cue in half off the side of the table and gripped it tight in one hand like a bat. Hey, he'd said to Steven and Steven had looked at him, tremble through his body, hell-fire in his eyes, and he'd stepped back in time for Brendan to throw all his weight into one smooth strike of the cue against Frank's side.
He'd fallen on the floor, coughing, fucking shocked as hell, and Brendan had hunched down, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close, "you're gonna die for that," and he'd meant it, had planned on cracking Frank's head so hard against the wood floor that his brains had rattled loose, but the bartender had called his own boys down, told them take this shit somewhere else and hustled everyone out into the alley round the back.
No police. Not that kind of place.
"Your boy looks like he might appreciate that," Frank says, spits a gob of blood against the floor.
It's half bravado. Steven had held a knife against Frank's neck and he ain't likely to want a repeat of the experience. Still, he's a sore loser, petty and cocky and proud. Not the type to let a humiliation like that go unpunished. Steven's good with weapons but he's still weak from his brush with death, still sore and tender all through his muscles and Frank's got friends here; Brendan just hopes his boy's got an eye out for which ones might be dangerous.
"You're lucky my boydidn't slit your throat." It gets the reaction he wants, flickering uncertainty in Frank's stubborn eyes, question of what exactly he's dealing with right now, what he's gotten himself into. Brendan stretches out his fingers, balls his hands back into a fist, tenses his arm, ready, fucking eager. "But he knows me, y'see, Frankie Boy. Knows that I'd prefer to deal with you myself."
Frank swallows. He's worried but he's not terrified, he still doesn't get it. In his wildest dreams he can't imagine the things a man might kill for.
Brendan takes one last look at Steven. Steven against the wall, clinging navy t-shirt, jeans slung low on his hips, fit him over two weeks ago but boy's lost some weight since then, eyes ever-so-slightly sunken and dark-rimmed, shock of blue even brighter against his bruised skin, painfully beautiful in his fragile vulnerability. His attention catches briefly, singing, thrilling spark cracking out of control between them, pushes energy into him, a surge of power so strong he can feel it in his bones.
He hasn't fucked Steven in over two weeks, too afraid of hurting him, blood and torn skin and stitches too raw in his memory and even Steven begging hadn't broken through that resolve. He hasn't killed anyone in over two weeks, either, too afraid of leaving Steven's side to do much of anything. Tonight he's going to do both those things. This pressure's been building in him like a steam kettle for too long and he's boiling towards an eruption.
He steps forward, jerks left and Frank startles backwards and right. Brendan's quicker than him and he turns and throws all his weight into the spin, behind his fist and it slams into Frank's side, not tensed because that's not where Frank was expecting it to land. He cries out and staggers and Brendan grips his shoulders and buries his knee in Frank's stomach, follows it up by catching his chin with his fist and sending him sprawling backwards. It's so fucking good, slap of skin and muscle under his assault, muffled cries of well-eaned pain.
He fucking touched Steven, he put a hand on him, breathed in his ear, fucking dared to try and take his boy in front of him and two and half weeks ago Brendan had - two and a half weeks ago he'd -
Anger courses and runs and he's swollen with it, bloated and reeling, rarely ever feels like he's losing it like this but he's almost blind with dripping red. He strides forwards with intent to kill and the crowd is jostling, louder, murmurs like a wave around him, and he wants them to watch this son of a bitch die,a fucking lesson, learn it well or get in line. Brendan kicks him, boot colliding with Frank's face, explosion of blood and teeth and spit, Frank's agonised howl, and Brendan breathes like he's running out of oxygen, brings his leg back for another and then something's happening, he can feel it split seconds before it does, feels something in the air turn -
"Brendan!"
Steven's voice -
- and then he's grabbed and stuck, can't move for the hands holding his arms and shoulders, two guys crowding his sides and holding him back, solid like stone, and there's another with a broken bottle materialising over Frank's splayed and bleeding body and Brendan's about to get cut.
It happens so fast he feels winded, tides turned as quick as tides turn, and he feels real fear grip him, shouts at Steven to run and get the fuck away but then he hears it, Steven's voice, low and steady and fucking business, "let him go or I swear to God - "
Every single pair of eyes in the crowd fixes on Brendan's boy, hunched down on the grimy alley floor with Frank pulled up between his spread knees, one hand gripped tight in his hair and bearing his throat to the wicked silver of his knife.
"I will kill him."
Broken bottle boy's eyes go wide as saucers and Steven's judged right, these are Frank's buddies. Everything freezes for long, stretched seconds and then he holds his hands up, doesn't put down the bottle but it's still acquiescence.
Frank's whimpering, gaze still dazed from the beating Brendan just gave him but he knows he's in trouble here. The bite of Steven's blade into his neck is grating, working it's way under his skin and bleeding him ever-so-slightly.
"Hey - kid - this got out of hand, okay? Let's just drop it, no harm done, nobody here has to die," Bottle boy says firmly, knows how to diffuse rough situations.
Steven considers. "Okay. Let him go."
"No way, how do I know you won't just cut Frank?"
"You don't, now let him go."
"Woah, woah - "
And then Frank lets out an almighty screaming, gurgling horror of a fucking sound, desperate and strangled and his fucking blood is bubbling up over Steven's knife and there's chaos like scattering bugs at the stomp of a boot, the crowd vanishing in seconds, just Frank, dying and the two guys still holding Brendan and Bottle-boy frozen and this one other fucker who Brendan sees, suddenly and with the kind of clarity that only comes with adrenaline and fear-sharpened senses, stick his hand into his jeans and reach -
For the second time - or third, or fourth, fucking fifth? what does he know by this point - someone has a gun on Steven and Brendan feels like he's hulking out or something, completely gone, it's fucking over.
He lashes out, stagger the two men, and he's on the guy with the gun before he's even gotten it out of his waistband. He thinks he's called Steven's name, a warning, just fucking deal with this shit, please, and he sees Steven ducking Bottle-boy's broken bottle with his heart in his mouth. Brendan wrestles the gun in the guys hand, one shot ricocheting off the grimy, green metal dumpster somewhere off to the left, means trouble if someone's heard it, and he throws his head forward, cracks the bridge of the guy's nose and he goes down.
Brendan swipes the gun, turns and gets it on the biggest of his two touchy-feely-bodyguard buddies although he needn't have bothered, they're slack faced and struck dumb, all meat and nobody's really home. They ain't the brains of the operation.
"Steven - " he calls out, risks a glance over.
Steven's circling Bottle-boy, arm bent across his front and blade angled outwards, and Brendan looks in time to see the guy lurch forwards, Steven dodging him easily and using his opened up posture to slide up real close and sink his knife right up into Bottle-boy's heart. He spits and chokes and breathes ragged, hitching, shallow air and Steven stays close until he drops to his knees, looks him right in the eye as he bleeds him through his blood-pumping organ.
Sirens ring out over the sound of Bottle-boy dying and Brendan calls, Steven, again. Shit. The ricocheting bullet didn't go unnoticed. He plugs the three live ones in the head quickly, wipes the gun off and stuffs it into one of the guy's hands, hopes it might buy them some time. Steven's t-shirt is dark but there's blood on his hand and arms and Brendan grips him hard, drags him close and tries to wipe him down with the already damp material.
"You okay?" Steven asks him softly, all liquid, concerned eyes and gentle voiced like Brendan's the one who didn't run, that Brendan's the one who nearly got shot again, fucking reckless, fucking -
Calm down.
"Fine, come on."
He takes Steven's wrist and pulls him down the alley and onto the dingy back street it opens out onto, grey and grime and smell of rotting food, wash of pale streetlamps shining off the heavy, surrounding stone. They walk, not too fast, not too slow, to one end and Brendan peers out onto the main street but it's no use, whoever called the cops must have seen whatever went down and he can hear the sirens from every direction.
There's a metal fire escape behind, ladder raised, and he jumps up and grabs the bottom rung, drags it down with his weight. He gestures, Steven first, always Steven first, and Steven climbs and Brendan follows. They're at the third landing before he notices the strain Steven's under, pinched and pale with pain from his stomach muscles, and he doesn't so much as whimper and it makes Brendan angry, building and building the slower Steven climbs.
They haul themselves over the top and onto the roof and Brendan goes to one edge and looks out across downtown Nashville. There's police cars skidding to a stop below and Brendan's heart pounds fiercely. Steven's curling in on himself ever-so-slightly, breathing laboured, and Brendan wants to embed his fist in a brick wall.
There's no gaps between the rooftops, just the step-like up and down of different levels like he's in a fucking Mario game. He crowds close to Steven, cups his face with finely trembling hands, strain of what he'd actually like to do, grip him tight and fucking scream at him for being so - for not fucking running -
"I'm okay," Steven says before Brendan can make his voice work past his swollen throat.
He wants to rail and rage, fucking break things, everything in the entire world that's not his Steven.
"Come on."
He grips Steven's hand and makes his way across the rooftop, small climb up to the next building and he gets up first, pulls Steven up after him. The next is lower by about five feet, quite a jump, and Brendan takes it and drops into a roll, force of it rattling up through his body. He stands under the brick while Steven sits at the edge, holds his arms out which makes Steven actually smile and make a crack that Brendan is not in the mood for, don't drop me, will you, and Brendan gives him a look, daren't speak. Steven narrows his eyes, sighs, gets it.
Brendan catches and supports his drop but Steven still groans, low sound punched out of him, and Brendan clings for long seconds they can't afford, holds him close and feels the shake of his body, the heaving breaths.
There's one more building and then an alley and they take it, climb down to the next fire escape and luckily it's stairs this time but they fucking rattle like a hot oven under their haste to get down them.
Brendan parked the car half a mile away, a few blocks west of the centre, quieter part of town and they walk it in silence, sharp lookout for any trouble. They don't waste time getting in and Brendan pulls them out of there quickly, road screeching under his tires. He drives them to their motel, tells Steven in a clipped voice to wait in the car while he packs up their stuff, haven't really had any time to get settled yet, only got here earlier tonight, and he shoves it in the trunk, gets back in and drives until he can't anymore, until the warring, rolling emotions in his stomach make his hands shake beyond his ability to keep hold of the wheel.
He pulls them up in the middle of nowhere, never-ending remote road, lined on each side by thick forest, no streetlights out here, just the blue moon up ahead washing the tarmac in cold white, shimmering light. It feels like a spot from a horror film, Brendan half expects the howling of werewolves off in the distance, might even welcome them at this point.
They sit in tense quiet and Brendan breathes through his nose, tries to get enough oxygen in him to stop feeling dizzy. He needs -
"Brendan - "
"Don't," he says sharply. He needs Steven not to speak. "Get out of the car."
In his peripheral he sees Steven's expression, concern and understanding and pale and tight with how he aches and fuck Brendan's losing it again. Steven opens the door and climbs out, shuts it and walks around to the front like he knows.
That's all he can take, every single one of his nerves screaming at him for something. He flings the driver door open, strides around and meets Steven halfway, meets his calm concern with untempered fury.
"Brendan - "
"Why didn't you run?" he grinds out, voice like scraping road-burn. "Why didn't you run!?"
"He was gonna bottle you!"
"They had a gun and they fucking - he pulled a gun on you - again - d'you know how close I came to - "
"Hey - "
Steven reaches out, tries to touch his jaw, but he can't cope with it. He slaps Steven's hand away, spins him and throws him down across the car bonnet, his palms splaying flat against the gleaming black, the reflecting moonlight. He plasters himself up Steven's back, voice a growl in his ear, can't look at him when he says, "fucking reckless as fuck, gonna get yourself killed and then what?" He pushes one hand against the denim at Steven's crotch, rubs his palm, creates a friction that makes Steven tip his head back against Brendan's shoulder and moan. He's hard in seconds, Brendan hasn't touched him in weeks, and he's already jerking against the pressure. "You don't get to die - "
He chokes on the words and gives up on them.
Brendan rags at Steven's button and fly, drags his jeans and boxers down until they fall to his knees, slicks up his fingers with spit and works them roughly into Steven's body, pushes and twists and scissors until he's stretched out and keening, pushing back, fucking himself on Brendan's fingers and begging, fuck, Brendan, please, fuck me. Brendan's wound up so tight he could scream, dick pushing against his own jeans like torture, and he grinds himself against Steven's arse as he fingers him open until he can't take it anymore.
He flicks his button, takes himself and slicks up his cock with spit, messy and sloppy and fucking amazing, angles himself against Steven's hole and pushes home. They both breath through the slide and he isn't careful, Steven's ragged pleading, the desperate need of them both just singing through his veins and he just can't be, can't control how much he needs to expel this energy, this twisting, clawing pressure trying to tear its way out of his body.
Brendan fucks him, punishingly hard because that's almost what this is, punishment and he doesn't know who's or for what but that's what it feels like, and Steven cries out, clenches around him, yeah and God, right there, Brendan, don't stop, please, and Brendan can't control his voice, the high, whimpering cries that keep spilling from his throat. He needs more contact, more affirmation of Steven, alive and perfect and his, and he tangles his fingers through Steven's own on the bonnet, spreads his arms up and out until he's bent forward, head hanging between his shoulders with Brendan's weight against his back, couldn't get much closer together than they are in this moment.
He feels Steven's orgasm curl up through his body, through his tensing thighs and the shudder up his spine and the goosebumps under his lips across the back of Steven's neck and Brendan lets go, fucks Steven until they both come, explosion behind his eyes and sound like rolling thunder in his ears, Steven's voice like a broken, ravaged thing torn from his lungs. Brendan's helpless to the wave after wave of release, like every string of tension in his body is shrieking out of him, and he clings onto Steven like they're drowning, keeping each afloat and alive.
He breathes in the following silence, wraps his arms tight around Steven's middle and melts like warm honey against his back. The muscles against him tremble and he knows Steven's feeling the ache of his injury through the hazy aftershocks of his orgasm and Brendan pulls him back against his body to take his weight, wrangles him back into his fallen jeans, slides his fingers under Steven's blood-caked t-shirt and trails them up and down his skin, soft and slow, soothing.
"I can't lose you," he murmurs into the side of Steven's neck, calming pulse under his words.
Steven turns into him, eyes closed, sweet and intimate. "He was gonna bottle you, might 'ave killed you."
"Shoulda left me."
"Are you kiddin' me? Are you actually - " Steven shuffles out of his embrace, turns to look at him, close and fucking furious. "Who's job d'you think it is to keep you safe?"
It's like he can't comprehend the question, just sees flashes of scenes in his head like a flip book, Steven with a knife against Frank's throat, let him go. Steven in Brendan's kitchen back home, back in Chester, blood dripping from his hands and body, calm focus on his face, absolute rock-steady certainty. Brendan's father sprawled in a pool of his own blood, torn apart by the knife Steven would carry with him ever since. He'd looked Brendan in the eye, said "you're mine, Brendan. He'll never 'ave you, never hurt you again," and Brendan had gone to him like he'd been drawn by an invisible force, sheer inexorable tug of connection. He'd cupped Steven's face and kissed him, tang of blood thick in the air, cloying and metallic and heady, pushed Steven back against the dining room table and fucked him 'til he'd screamed, feet away from Seamus' mangled, red-splashed body. He'd sobbed out his relief into Steven's throat, overwhelmed by the most powerful, mind-blowing sense of freedom, first time in his life he'd ever experienced something like real absolution.
Steven had held him close and tight and rocked him, stroked his hair, whispered promises into his skin, I'll never leave you, I love you, kill anyone who tries to take you away from me, never.
"You think I could lose you? I'd throw myself off the nearest bridge, Brendan."
Brendan pulls him close, arms around him again, feels Steven's warmth seep into him, restore him. "No, you wouldn't - " he says and sees Steven already ready to protest, fucking can't keep his mouth shut and let Brendan finish, ever. "Ah - " he scolds, pokes Steven's side until he squirms. "Let me finish, would you? You wouldn't 'cause it's not flashy enough. I think you're more of a walking into a police station with a loaded shotgun and killing as many fuckers as you could before getting shot type of guy, myself."
Steven goes loose in his grip, chuffs a breathy laugh and slides his arms around Brendan's neck. "Alright, I'd do that. Tell me to run away when you're in danger again and I might do it anyway just out of annoyance."
"You wouldn't bloody listen to me, anyway. Stubborn as fuck."
"Umm, pot, kettle?"
He kisses Steven, cling of lips, croons, "no way, I ain't nearly as bad as you."
"The other day I 'ad to literally roll you out of bed and onto the floor so you'd go turn the light out."
"I was tired - "
"I 'ad to emotionally blackmail you into goin' to fetch me a cup of coffee."
"It was two blocks and you're obsessed with those fucking Starbucks cappuccinos, they take about five hours to make - "
"How long has it taken you to fuck me since the shooting?"
Brendan rolls his eyes to distract from the rolling in his stomach at that word but he probably has to concede that one. "Yeah, okay - smart-arse."
Steven grins, pleased as punch, and Brendan put a solid arm at his back for support and lays him down across the car bonnet, leans over him with his elbows on the metal. The moonlight shines off Steven's skin, off the gleaming black of the car, off the tarmac around them and the green of the forest and the windscreen above Steven's head. He's surrounded in white glow, swallowed up and washed into peace with it, warm night and warm bodies under him, warm Steven and warm car engine. He dips low, kisses Steven open and slick, slip-slide of tongues, lazy and almost-content.
He can feel things changing, feel the stakes getting higher, feel the stringing tension thickening in the air every time he takes a breath. Day by day they're heading for a climax, some huge and destructive future, death or captivity an ever-present, looming shadow. It's there in his peripheral, sharpening into something solid and real.
For now, though, it can't touch him. He and Steven in the haze of moonlight, this bubble of tranquillity.
For now they're okay.
*/*/*
"A massacre, that's the only way I can describe it."
Brendan's got his foot heavy on the pedal, scenery of the I90 flashing past too quick to make out thing.
"What exactly did you see?"
"I heard the gun go off and took a look outside and called the cops. There was two of them - they just stabbed and shot five men like they had Satan in them!"
"That's astonishing, Mrs Beatty. You must have been terrified."
"Oh, I was! I prayed to Jesus that they wouldn't see me lookin'."
It's early, night on the knife-edge of day, sun rising and weak light blurring over the trees and stretching landscape, steep, burnt-orange cliffs looming up over the horizon as they pass from Tennessee to Alabama, miles and miles of dusty wasteland, sparse, yellow-turning, dry grass.
"The two man have been linked to a trail of bloody crimes all through America, now officially an FBI investigation."
Steven sleeps in the passenger side, curled up against the door, soft and peaceful.
"Unnamed as of yet, if anyone spots two men of their descriptions don't hesitate to get far away and call the authorities."
He eats up the road, fast and smooth. It winds around the hills up ahead, disappears and fades from view and he follows it, lets go and puts his trust in their freedom, lets it take him wherever it leads.