by Jack Parker
Kurt laughed slightly as he reloaded. "You'd be dreadful at what I do."
"What? Why?"
"Because you have a heart."
"And you don't?"
"Not a good one."
Emery chewed a lip for a moment. Did he know enough about Kurt to say that wasn't true? Probably not, but he felt deep down that it wasn't. Kurt's heart had been broken by everyone he'd ever loved—it wasn't surprising that he was the way he was. It was a little surprising that he wasn't worse. "You don't give yourself enough credit. You're saving my life."
Kurt met his eyes, but quickly looked away. "For my own benefit. I'm using you as a bargaining chip for blood money. I don't see that nicking me sainthood."
"And yet here you stand, trying to prepare me for my future of destitution," Emery pointed out. "You can't honestly tell me there's no compassion in you."
"Perhaps I'm more selfish than you think," Kurt muttered.
"Explain that."
"Forget it." Kurt rubbed his brow and turned away. "Emery, I'm…listen, I just want you to know that I'm not letting you walk away empty-handed after this. It wouldn't be right. You've got to start somewhere and a couple of million—"
"No," Emery stated loudly, stepping back. He tried to quell a hot flash of anger before it got the better of him. "No…I don't want his money. Not any of it."
"Why not?" Kurt demanded, stepping towards him. "He owes it to you. That and more. He deserves to have everything taken away from him for what he's done."
"And he will. By the end of this he'll have plenty of trouble, plenty less money, and he'll no longer have me."
"Yes, but you've got to look after yourself."
"I'll do it without his help. I don't want to discuss this, Kurt."
Kurt held up his hands, sighing. "Don't misunderstand me. I'm only saying that you've got nothing but the clothes on your back right now. You're part of this, however, and you're doing a job for which you deserve payment, never mind where it comes from."
Emery glared back at him. "Then I suppose you're right. I couldn't do what you do. I mind."
"Well suck it up and stop minding. Or are you just above taking stolen money? It's alright for crooks like me, but you're better than that?"
"That isn't what I'm saying at all," Emery said, terribly offended and turning back towards the house. "It's different for you. You don't know the man; spending his money should be nothing to you. That's not the case for me. I won't do it. I don't want to talk about it."
"You haven't got much longer to put it off, you realize. This business is nearly finished. You've got to start making plans."
"I'll manage."
Kurt huffed. "You'll manage, yes. Without any money, without any skills, without even a name? Think about your future, Emery—don't let your damned pride be the death of you."
"Pride?" Emery whirled around, dam broken and seeing red. "Where the hell do you get off? I haven't got any pride, Kurt! How could I?"
Kurt was evidently taken aback by the outburst. "What do you mean?"
Emery jabbed two fingers into his own chest. "Do you think I'm just so full of myself? That I've got any parts of myself left to be proud of? Well I don't! I let my stepfather have his way with me and I didn't say a word about it because I was a young, horny idiot who convinced himself it was love. I lied to my mother every day until I let her die without ever telling her that I betrayed her. That her own son was a sick, cowardly little bastard who went right on having an affair with her husband while she was too busy dying to notice! Days after she died—days—he made me move into his bedroom. He didn't even care that she…he didn't let me care…" Emery paused, gulping back a sob.
Kurt was staring at him frozen, gun hanging limply at his side.
"Bollocks, you think I can stand to touch his money again?" he furiously wiped the tears out of his eyes with the heels of his palms. "The money he uses to have me followed? To rough up my boyfriends? To pay off potential employers? The money he so very effectively used to completely ruin my life? God how he loved to buy me things. He really thought I wanted it. Cars, clothes, whatever a young man could ever need, and he'd take whatever he pleased as payment—I was his little whore on demand! The—the fifteen year old he lured into his room to watch pornography with him all night, the seventeen year old he slapped in the face for kissing a boy his own age, the eighteen year old he had the nerve to start referring to in private as his husband…Years of gifts. Bribes. Persuasions. I took the money because he quite literally left me with nothing else in this world, but every time I spent a penny of his I was terrified of what part of myself it was costing me in return…I won't live like that anymore. I will not. Who the fuck are you to tell me I should?"
Kurt floundered. "…Emery, I'm…I shouldn't've—"
"No, you bloody shouldn't have." He turned and marched off back for the house. "Break all the fucking bottles you want. I'm damn well done for the day."
* * *
"Don't you guys," Scott drawled, sitting alone at one end of the table while three of the house's other occupants sat crowded around the opposite side as far from him as possible, "think that this is even a little bit ridiculous?"
"No way, you keep your bird flu to yourself, Vic," Sheridan said, shoving a forkful of takeout into his mouth.
"Bird flu," Scott rolled his eyes, poking at his own food. "Have you never had a damn cold?"
"No."
Scott sniffed loudly and wiped at his nose. "Yeah, I wish you were as full of compassion as you are shit."
Sheridan shook his head, glancing at the others. "Hand to god, never had a cold in my life."
"Uh huh."
"No, seriously!" Sheridan pointed his fork at Sterling. "Al, you ever seen me cough?"
"If you ain't bleedin' I don't pay attention to your 'ealth," Sterling said.
"Okay, but I haven't. I'm immune."
Scott rubbed his head. "Oh my god, your fucking lack of eighth grade knowledge is painful to listen to. You can't be im—will someone come the hell over here? I feel like I'm sitting at the goddamn kiddie table."
Emery looked at the others and wondered why he was even participating in this joke. He stood up, taking his carton of spaghetti and plopping into a chair next to Scott.
"There, thank you. The only person in the room with any sense," Scott punched his shoulder lightly and started eating. "How's tricks, Em?"
"Just wonderful," Emery muttered distractedly as he stared at his dinner. He had been so grateful for his recently regained ability to chew food only to have lost his appetite entirely.
"Where the hell's Gabler?" Sheridan asked, looking around.
"Said 'e wasn't 'ungry round about an hour ago," Sterling said. "Then 'e fucked off somewhere."
"Ah, shit, Scott," Sheridan clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Did you fucking get him sick?"
"Oh yeah, sure, it was while I was sucking his dick last night," Scott spat.
"Al, did he look sick?" Sheridan prodded.
Sterling grumbled and swallowed his food. "The fuck should I know? The man's only got the one expression. Sick, sad, 'igh as a fuckin' kite—who the fuck knows?"
Emery glumly put his fork down. God, he felt awful about how he'd spoken earlier. Now Kurt had been avoiding him all day and it was all he could think about. He'd just been so angry at the time. It wasn't any of Kurt's business what he did after this was over, so what gave him the right to shove advice down his throat? But shortly after, as he sat fuming on his bed, the anger had faded and he knew that Kurt was only trying to look out for him. He understood the gesture, he really did. The idea of taking Hunter's money still made his skin crawl, but Kurt had been well aware that he'd overstepped his bounds and Emery had still stormed off like an ass.
"Well," Sheridan continued, "I was gonna wait for him, but fuck it. I'll tell him the good news later."
"Good news?" Emery repeated.
"Yeah. Pops agreed to pay the last fifty mil in just two more i
nstallments—twenty-five in two days, another in five."
"That's grand," Emery agreed automatically. "I'm sure we'd all like this to be over soon."
"The last fifty mil?" Scott asked.
Sheridan shrugged expectantly. "Yeah. What?"
Scott paused for a long moment and shook his head. "Nothing, it's just the way you said that, it…well Eaton doesn't know it's the last fifty mil, right? I mean he thinks he's paying us two hundred."
Emery hadn't caught that. His hand froze on its way to his water glass and his eyes shot back up to Sheridan.
"That's what I meant," Sheridan said, waving Scott away like a fly. "Jesus, I know what I'm doing."
Now he really felt sick. It had been at the back of his mind that Sheridan might betray him but he very much didn't appreciate it being pulled to the forefront right now. Maybe it was just a simple slip. Or maybe by this time five days from now he'd be back in Hunter's clutches. Emery held back a groan and stood, pushing his food away.
"Where ya goin'?" Sheridan asked with disappointment as he noticed. "Come on, sit down, kid. Tell us another joke."
Emery rubbed his chest and felt faint. "No, I…I'm afraid I'm not feeling well."
Sheridan turned a look on Scott. "Look at that. Two down, two to go, huh? Did you plan this?"
"Yeah, and you're next. I coughed all over your goddamn linguini. If you're really 'immune to colds' let's see you eat it."
The ensuing banter didn't quite make it to Emery's ears as he plodded down the hall and back up the stairway to his designated bedroom. He turned on the light and shut the door, lying down on his bed with his arms wrapped around his middle. Stolen money, new careers, restarted lives…what did it matter? Who was he kidding? At the end of the day, he was still just someone's powerless captive. As it had always been, so it would always be.
CHAPTER 16
A major advantage to the new hideout was that its heater worked. It wasn't spectacular but it kept ice from forming inside, even if it was rather cold upstairs in most of the bedrooms. Kurt didn't feel it, though. He was too lost in thought. He lay on his back even though he had no intention of sleeping, still shirtless from the shower he had taken hours ago. Ever since meeting Emery there had begun a strange, involuntary period of Kurt's life in which he was reviving lost parts of his humanity day by day. His sense of humor there. His morality here. The pinpricks of sympathy and the haziness of affection. Today, he had rediscovered how to hate himself.
The images that Emery's words had conjured were like waking nightmares in Kurt's head. Hearing about Hunter Eaton made him absolutely, impotently furious and he felt immense guilt that he had so carelessly dredged those thoughts up and thrown them in Emery's face. What had he been thinking? Emery's night terrors, his avoidance of the subject, his fully serious vow to kill that man…it was obviously too sore a subject to broach. The things Emery had said about himself had stunned Kurt to the core. Before he had pictured the man as an angry victim, which he undoubtedly was, but not all of that venom was for Hunter. Emery blamed himself.
Kurt wiped his hands over his face idly and closed his eyes. He would give Emery some time to cool off, then he'd try a proper apology. It was the only half useful advice that his father had ever given him: apologies are wasted on the angry. Of course this had been his stock response to end all discussion any time Kurt expressed anger, but it was true enough. Better than his famous "never trust a woman", which Kurt found irrelevant. Trusting men never suited him any better.
His head turned, lifting slightly as his door opened. Emery stood there for a moment before closing the door behind him and coming to Kurt's bed, sitting on the edge. There was a long moment of silence between them while Emery looked down at Kurt with an enigmatic expression. "Can you ever forgive me?" Kurt asked.
Emery sighed. "I'm the one who's sorry, Kurt, I shouldn't've gone off on you like that. You can't have known."
Kurt lay his head back down. "I was overly presumptuous. It wasn't my intention to push you."
Emery looked away, absently rubbing his arms in the cold. "I know. It's alright…it's just…"
Kurt sat up. "Just what?"
"It's just that…a lot of people make comments to me. I'm used to it. How lucky I am, how grateful I must be, how nice it must be to have money and I…"
Kurt waited patiently, seeing Emery's drained, restless eyes in the faint moonlight.
"…You're the only person I've ever told the truth. The only one on earth who knows. So obviously I've never talked about it before and…apparently I don't really know how." He smiled weakly, but it was fast fading.
Kurt reached forward and drew Emery into his arms, resting his chin on his head. "It's not your fault. Speak about it however you like. Or don't. I'll shut up next time I'm asked to, I promise."
He could feel Emery pulse slightly in his grasp with what was either a chuckle or a shiver, a cold hand splaying over Kurt's chest as he shifted. "You know Kurt…I don't see that there's anything wrong with your heart."
Kurt tightened his embrace, staring out the window for a long while in contemplation before responding. "Perhaps there isn't."
* * *
In a few days' time, Emery felt calmer. This was odd, because things were rapidly coming to an end and in just three more days he would allegedly be his own man. He hadn't even seriously thought about where he would go. He had no friends, no family, and no connections outside of Hunter and his dead parents. It was a frightening prospect, but it was also exhilarating. He looked at the clock on the wall as he drank his tea. Sheridan, Scott, and Sterling had been gone for three hours now picking up their second to last installment of Hunter's money. In another three, they would back, drinking and arguing and laughing the night away. The thought was strangely comforting. In some ways he'd gotten rather keen on their presence. A side effect of being denied healthy friendships all of his adult life, he supposed.
Not that he could call what he had with any of them friendship. Not even with Kurt. He didn't know what to call that, but ever since he'd woken up that morning, all he could think about was the possibility that the two of them might never see each other again after this and it was an unexpectedly painful thought. Kurt had a life to get back to. Emery had his own to restart. Surely their paths would have no reason to cross after that…And maybe he'd be found out. Maybe Hunter would get his claws back into him. Just the thought of having to go back to that world of lies and sickness with the new knowledge of what it was like to really care for someone that way…there couldn't possibly be a worse hell than that.
Emery stood up, deciding that he should make the most of this one last occasion of he and Kurt being left to their own devices. The man had been asleep for the past few hours—that was becoming a little odd. Lately Kurt had been sleeping a lot during the day. Emery had to wonder what he got up to at night, because he noted how weary he always looked in the mornings these past few days and how he never seemed to turn in before anyone else. Either way he'd slept enough now.
Sure enough, Kurt was still in bed when Emery found his way into his room. He lay on his back clad in nothing but gray boxer briefs, tranquil and dead to the world and looking so very sweet like that Emery almost opted to leave him be, but he couldn't fight the fear that it might be the last chance he got to do this…so he was going to do everything in his power to make a lasting impression. He stepped over to the bed and straddled Kurt's hips, leaning down to shower slow kisses over his face and neck.
Kurt stirred beneath him, eyes opening drowsily and his body shifting in confusion under the weight holding him down. He eventually registered the kisses for what they were, however, and his hands clumsily slid up to rest on Emery's upper thighs. Emery didn't bother to say anything. This was what he liked best. He could take Kurt at any time and expect to be taken right back on a whim, day or night, asleep or awake. This relationship didn't necessitate warnings. He placed a hand on Kurt's face and turned his head towards his own to seal their lips together.
Kurt began to really wake up and was suddenly ravenous for it. His hips rolled up against Emery's groin and his hands roamed, alternately squeezing and stroking whatever lithe muscle they came across. Once Kurt's hands slipped to his waistband, however, Emery reached down and stopped them, breaking their kiss and gently biting down on Kurt's lower lip. "Ah, ah, no you don't…" he said.
Kurt gazed up at him innocently.
"See, I've caught you," Emery explained deviously. "Turned the tides, if you will. This is a hostile takeover."
Kurt watched with a clear spike of interest as Emery reached over to the nightstand where Kurt's standard handcuffs hung out of a partially opened drawer. He looked back up at Emery, his face calm and daring as he obediently raised his arms above his head. "Go on then…if you think you can get away with it."
Emery leaned forward and smoothed his hand up the underside of one of Kurt's muscular arms before locking a cuff around his wrist. He dragged the chain around two bars of the bedframe and secured the other cuff around his remaining wrist. At that, Kurt was his to torment. He lay relaxed despite his arms being fully restrained, eyes lustful as he watched Emery grin down at him. Fuck that's perfect, Emery thought longingly. When he kissed Kurt again, there was a slight metallic clink from his arms instinctively trying to move.
Kurt was being beautifully pliant as Emery moved from his lips down to his chest, leaving a series of nips and licks as he went. This was going to be a slow death, he decided. They had all the time in the world. By the time he reached Kurt's shorts and began pulling them down, the man underneath him was twisting and squirming, teeth set together as he stared up at the ceiling.
"I bet you think I'm going to suck your pretty cock," Emery teased, darting his tongue out against Kurt's shaft. He watched with glee as Kurt's chest sank in a silent breath. "And I could. I could make it very, very good…I could make it so good it leaves a scar in your brain that gets you hard as steel every time some passing thought so much as grazes by it."