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“Fuck you for dying, Zander!” I shouted at the dark lake. “Fuck you for making me love you! And fuck you for leaving me here with him!” I’d made one promise in my life, and it was in the moment of Zander’s death. Protect my brother. Reluctantly and without grace, I had never broken that promise. Drunk or high. In the north forest. Crying.
I guess that’s how I felt about Cadoc Dire. I didn’t fear him, but the thought of him made my skin crawl, repulsed me, and drove me mad.
I reached under the mattress, pulling the faded receipt from a drug store over two and a half years ago. $7.49 plus tax for a bottle of lube, and on the back, his permission to be rougher with him.
“I hate that you fucked him,” Zade finally said. “I hate that you fucked him so good that he wrote this.”
Zander was my light through all that darkness.
I might have fallen for him that day, but I’d never really known because I wasn’t familiar with what love felt like. I guessed it didn’t much matter now. I’d loved him with all I had eventually, and when he was ripped from my life, he took my heart with him.
“You have pain and grief. Yum. You have hate and rage. Delicious. You have power and promises. Mm.”
“I haven’t swum in this lake since he died. I’m afraid that it’d pull me under and drown me just so I could be with him.” “Liar. You aren’t afraid of that. You’re afraid of wanting that.”
“When you asked me what kind of pain I had to need morphine…it’s the kind of pain that makes me want to forget I’m alive.” “I know,” he said. “I saw you look at the drawer.” Fuck. “I appreciate you remembering you’re alive long enough to help me tonight.”
When Finn’s arm dropped between our bodies and his skin brushed mine, he didn’t move it. Maybe because I’d been so starved for contact for so long, but neither did I.
“You can’t chase pleasure when pain is in your way.”
“I’m angry because I’m breaking, but I never want the pain to stop. If it stops, it means I forget!”
my arms clung to Keiran while my heart clung to Zander.
“You made my cheeks get hot, so I wore the paint to cool them down.”
My heart lol
“You keep peace without feeling peaceful. You do good for bad reasons. You are bad for your own reasons. You are loyal to a lake.” Keiran tensed, groaning at something. “You are Cadoc Dire.” He winced, stiffening on my lap. “The man who craves the temptation of the soot at the bottom of a lake while your head soars with eagles.”
That lab was the only place I ever felt like myself. It was the only place my mind was…mine. That’s…that’s what you just made me feel.”
“Don’t panic, okay?” I said, breathing hard. “It can be washed off.” “I’m…I’m not panicking. I’m…you’re very…I like the way you look and feel when you lose control. I’m…I think I’m addicted to it.”
“He’s not crazy,” I defended, even though he most certainly was crazy. “He’s my stalker.”
I listened. I looked. I felt. I sensed.
“You hunt the hunter on his own grounds?”
“I can be a daymare as much as a nightmare.”
“Do not fear it, Chaos Chaser,” Keiran whispered into my ear. “Without your pain, we would not exist. Without your grief, we could not be. Without your loss, I would not appeal to you.”
“Because he wants to want me as him and I want to have him as him.”
“I hate that you were attracted to him and not me. Makes me feel like something is wrong with me.”
“Don’t die now. I can’t…I can’t live in this fucked up world without hating you.” “So, stop getting fucked up at the lake and trying to drown yourself. I can’t live without hating you either. It’s all I’ve fucking got.”
“But this is my favourite beat.” Our beat.
“I told you I was half of something, and you told me that you were the whole of nothing. You get to be whole, Chaos Chaser.”
“You want me to back off for a bit while you figure it out?” I asked him. “Give you some space to—” “No,” he whisper-shouted. “No.” He wouldn’t look at me, his blue gloves pulling the bandana tight around his nose and mouth. “I can no longer…I do not wish for space.” “Says the germaphobe who always demanded space.” “I want you in my space,” he said, finally looking at me through a pair of safety goggles. “I…I think I need you in my space.”
Swoon
“We’ll figure this out,” I told him. “Together.” I smacked his cheeks. “I fucking pick you too, Zaden. Every goddamn time. I pick you.” I hauled him to his feet and pushed him toward the truck. And I’d continue to pick him for as long as my ratchet-ass heart pumped blood.
“I’m scared of losing you. Of missing you. Of wanting you more than you want me. Of pushing you away when you get tired of my phobias. Of having you and losing you in the same lifetime. I…I don’t think I’d survive it.”
Anger that he feared me. Worry that he didn’t understand my respect for him. Shame that he knew I wasn’t a patient person. Admiration that he could so freely admit his feelings. Lust that he wanted me. Worthiness that he saw me as valuable. Fear that I’d lose him, too. All poking holes in my heart, shining lights through them to highlight my damage. He picked me.
Kissing Finnegan was like tasting control.
“When and if you’re ready, Finnegan, I want you in every way I can have you.” He moaned, but there was a tension to the tone of it. “Every fucking way. Okay? If you only ever want to kiss me again, I want it. If you’ll let me suck your cock, I want to do it. If you want to hold hands or just sit in silence, I want that, too.” I lifted my hips, our cocks grinding together. “And if you want to fuck, I want you in whatever position makes you want me back. I’ll fuck you. You fuck me. All the goddamn ways, Finnegan. I just want you. Don’t disappear on me.”
“Do you regret it?” “Chasing you?” he asked; I nodded. “No. Took me a long time to catch you, but you’re worth the trouble.” “What makes me worth the trouble?” “Your taste. I’ve licked.” He leaned into me this time, his tongue running from the base of my throat up to the corner of my mouth. I shivered. Hard. “Favourite flavour.”
“You’re my favourite flavour, too.” “Describe.” I’d try. “You taste like a broken heart and a nightmare.”
“You psycho, Kei?” Cadoc asked. “For you,” Keiran answered Cadoc. “But not for this.”
It dawned on me what Keiran had been doing all this time. Kei wasn’t trying to squash Cadoc’s love for Zander, he was seeking Zander out, asking his permission to care for the lost soul that Cadoc had turned into. Instead of burying Cadoc’s grief, Keiran consumed it, channelling it on Cadoc’s behalf by turning it into something useful.
“What if it kills me?” “I’ll resuscitate you.” “And bring me back as a sane man?” “Yes, just so I can turn you crazy,”
“Why me, Kei? Why are you helping me?” “Because when my lights turn off, your face keeps me here.”
“So, you want me because I’m chaotic and full of fear?” “I want you because you’re you. The chaos and the fear are only attractive because of the monster they belong to.
“Are you going to bite me, Keiran?” I asked, my fingers grazing the tattoos on his right leg, the numbers Zade already knew about. “And make hell freeze over?” “Yes,” he said, taking my wrists and pinning them to the dock. “And when my venom infects your blood and turns it black, I will throw you into your lover’s arms so he can save you.”
He is yours and you are mine.”
“Do you see that we are not the same? That life can move in different lanes and still get to the same place? That baggage can be heavy, but it strengthens us to carry it? That light and dark are but shades of grey. You, Cadoc, are our shade of grey.”
“I’m thinking that you are the gift, not this room. I’m thinking that I’ve never felt anything like this, and that I trust what you said about wanting whatever I’ll give you. I’m thinking that the relief I felt after knowing that has switched to…something like anger, because I want you to want all of me, not just the little bits I willingly give you.”
“Trust me, Finnegan. I want every fucking last bit of you. Your weird habits, the way you blush, the cleaning, and the goddamn stick up your ass. I want it all. I want…I want you to pick me like I pick you. I…” Never one for words but also not one to stutter, my throat closed up with a monumental truth that was afraid to come out. “I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours.” I wrapped my hand around his and the bottle of lube. “In here.” I tapped his head. “In here.” I tapped his heart. “And in here.” I ran my hand over his stiff dick. “All of you.”
“Don’t let me go,” he begged gently. His voice caught and his breathing stuttered. “Don’t let me go.” “Look at me,” I demanded, staring him straight in the eyes. “You’re mine, okay? And even though you have to go somewhere right now, you’re still mine. Wherever you go, I’ll find you. I pick you, Finnegan. I pick you.”
“I pick you, Zaden. Now and every day. Just you.”
“How’d you find me here?” I asked. Keiran put a cigarette between my lips and lit it with the Zippo that went missing from my pocket days ago. “I’ll always find you. You chase all sorts of things, but I chase you.” “I chase you, too, remember?” His smile split his paint and morphed his bleeding nose. “It’s what makes you insane,”
“What do you hope for, Keiran?” I asked as he painted black on all the nails of my left hand. “To haunt the darkness of the night with you. To no longer be enslaved to freedom but freed by my slaver. To scare you nightly by threatening death, but to kill you slowly by providing you cigarettes. To carry your baggage, but to never actually do it because you need it to build strength. To be an actor but never act with you. To chase endlessness with the greatest riddle of my life.” His light shined right in my face, probably reflecting the wet surfaces of my eyes. I didn’t know exactly when I’d
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Be still my heart
“What do I smell like?” “Mine. My path, my purpose, my tether to this body.”
