Burned & Bound (Love Doesn’t Cure All)

by A. Winchester

I could take a hit. I just kept reminding myself that. A few hits and he’d be done. He always got bored with me.

Mickey was right about one thing: I wasn’t fine. I hadn’t been in seventeen years.

“I’m puttin’ myself between you and him so you don’t fuckin’ break what’s already broken, you hear me?” he told me, his voice deadly quiet. “I like you, Jackson. You’re family. But he needs someone. Don’t put me in a fuckin’ way here.”

Too broken to fight back and too fucking tired to try.

“Harrison did this to him?”

“Why?”

“Because West told him that he loved you.” He what? My gaze snapped up to meet hers. “We knew that Harrison wasn’t treating that boy right for years, but we never imagined… we never imagined Harrison would try to kill him.”

“Or you could’ve just told me,” I said as I pushed to my feet “I could’ve walked off the ranch at any point and found him. He could’ve had the chance at a real life instead of the one he got. He didn’t deserve any of what the three of you put him through. If you’d done a single fucking thing to protect him, he wouldn’t have gone through any of that.”

You know, they marked him. One cut for every man that…”

The nine scars on his side. Bile

“No, y’all decided to bury your fucking heads in the sand, and for what?”

“For some fucking land? For fucking cows? You failed him—all of you—when you decided his worth wasn’t more than this stupid fucking business. Than a stupid fucking job!”

“Now, it ain’t li...

“It is like that!” I interrupted. How could none of them understand that? I was sure my dad probably thought the same shit. That keeping West busy here and there was enough. It wasn’t. “I would’ve burned the whole fucking place ...

“I need you to give Carter a call and get him out to the ranch. Tell him I have a…”

“controlled burn I need his help on.”

“What the hell are you setting ...

“The McNamara...

“Tell him I slipped while carrying… what?”

“Call it twelve gallons of gasoline while smoking a lit cigarette.”

“I ain’t saying you have to. I’m saying we were robbed of a chance to find out, and if you ever wanted to find out… that door is open on my end.”

“I’m so fucking broken, Jackson. Nothing has worked since…”

“I ain’t worth it.”

“I ain’t talking about sex here.”

“I know I’m all wrapped up in the bad memories so the likelihood you’d ever want anything to do with me is slim to none. That makes me real fucking aware of how goddamn stupid I sound right now, and you know I’m not one to do shit that makes me look like a fool.”

If keeping him close meant pissing him off in the process, I’d fucking do it.

“My dick is pierced,”

“I have six barbells,”

“You know, in case you were going to ask.”

“I wasn’t,” I said tightly. Nope, I definitely was not. Could not. Would not. I refused to think about what the h...

“I could’ve done e...

With my heart doing something wildly uncomfortable in my chest, I made my way down the hall to the guest bedroom. Grey walls, black bedding, and an old framed painting of horses hanging on the wall. It was a completely different room. He’d gotten rid of all the yellow. That singular thought stuttered around my brain, breaking off little pieces of me in a way I couldn’t describe. No one had ever done anything like this for me. I sank down to the bed, unsure of what to do about everything he’d done. And why? It made no sense.

“Why do you care so damn much about what happens to me?”

“I’d rather go through hell with you, West, than watch it destroy you.”

Jackson mattered. His hands cradled my head as he stepped closer. My body stiffened in reaction. Why was this so fucking difficult? I kissed him again and again in an attempt to silence the demons in my head telling me this was all wrong.

“I’m not worth it,”

“You just let me keep believing that for t...

“Just… stop if I ask you to stop.”

“You don’t ask, you hear me?”

“You just tell me, okay? That ain’t the kind of thing you ask for. Just tell me to stop, West, and I’ll stop.”

“I don’t let people touch me… I’ve never let people touch me. Not since…”

Not since they broke me.

“I don’t know...

“Tell me how to help, baby,”

“I don’t know,”

“It’s okay,”

“We’ll figure it out. ...

“Hand in my hair, West,” he ordered. I brushed my fingers through his hair as he instructed. “Faster, slower, deeper… you’re in control, got it. Whatever the fuck makes you feel good.”

“Don’t…” he began quietly, “don’t… don’t give me the power to break your heart. I’m not fucking worth that.”

“It’s too late for that,”