Jack&Teague [& Katy] stories 1-5

by Amy Lane

“I’d rather not go through that again,” Jack said reasonably. “How about this time, I go along.”

  “I’m gonna be a grumpy asshole anyway,” Teague sighed, and Jack was pretty sure he knew Jack had won. “There’s no reason for you to catch that in the teeth.”

  “How about because I love you and I choose to. Will that do you? Can we get in the goddamned car now?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  And away they went. Teague cranked the music as soon as they cleared Green’s driveway.

  Jack was prepared for a long, silent run, but there was a big hamper of food next to him and he decided to dive right in. The first thing out was one of the two big thermoses of hot-white-chocolate-with-hazelnut-cream, and while it may have made Jack happy, he knew that once he gave Teague a big-assed mug full of it, Teague would be as pleased as a little kid. Jack found it in himself to let loose of the resentment that Cory had to tell him about this little adventure. She’d done it for him and Teague, and for their little family, and it was hard to stay mad at someone for that.

  “Mmmmm…” Teague all-but-groaned. “Damn, Jacky—it’d be worth becoming a werewolf just to get this in your coffee mug every morning.”

  Jack grunted an agreement, and then found his balls and asked, “So. Where are we going?”

  Teague sighed. “Angel’s Camp. But we have to stop somewhere first.”

  The ‘stop’ was at a liquor store for a bottle of Jose Cuervo gold. Jack was surprised—Teague drank nothing but beer—but as the car drove around the lake and then took the rolling back roads towards Mokolumne Hill, he started to have an inkling of what this was about.

  Mokolumne Hill is one of those places that has become an icon for bad roads and possible vehicular death. The road winds closely along the hill, switchbacks abound, and rails are thin and often falling off the crumbling scrabble of soil. By the time they arrived at the hill, the sun was up, and Jack was supremely grateful. Werewolf or no werewolf, he didn’t want to become a highway statistic, no matter how carefully Teague was driving.

  Near the crown of the hill was a pull-out, where slower traffic could pull over and allow faster traffic to pass, and Teague was no thing if not cautious as he pulled the car into the muddy shoulder and parked. He should be cautious. Not too far from this spot was where his father had gone off the road and died.

  He got out and grabbed the tequila and walked to the front of the car, looking out over the mist shrouded, ice-coated valley in the thin orange sunlight of morning.

  Jack sat, torn. Teague was so good at isolating himself, at creating an impenetrable force- field of space around his body, that it was hard to know if he was being stoic or truly wanted to be left alone. But watching Teague’s shoulders slump as he stood, alone and shivering in the dawn, Jack didn’t think he could stand to watch him be alone for another moment.

  He stepped quietly out into the dawn.

  Teague was muttering—two months ago, Jack wouldn’t have been able to make out real words, but he heard them now.

  I’m more than you ever said I would be, and I’ve got more than you ever said I could have. Nobody beats me, nobody hurts me—just your ghost you ass-ripping motherfucker. I’ve let you eat up most of my life up to now—but I’ll tell you something. This is the last thing you’ll ever get from me, Sean Sullivan. It’s the last drop of Cuervo you’ll ever drink, it’s the last thing your kid is ever gonna do for you.

  It’s more than you deserve you sonofabitch.

  Teague pulled his shoulder back and hurled the Cuervo out into the desolate valley below. It sailed far, far from where they stood before plummeting down, and Jack realized that Teague probably picked this exact spot because there wasn’t a soul in sight for miles on this side of the road.

  The distant tinkle of glass reached them and Jack watched Teague dumbly, feeling useless. Teague turned—making sure his face was averted, and muttered, “We’d best be going, Jacky. We’ve got a party.”

  “Yeah, wait a minute,” Jack said. He didn’t have anything to throw, he thought wretchedly, and he picked up a rock because that’s all he had. If he was going to do a grand gesture a rock would have to do.

  “He’s mine, motherfucker! You can’t hurt him anymore!” He really put his diaphragm into it, shouting loud enough to echo off the valley, to make his throat burn with the anger.

  He turned a defiant face to Teague, realizing that his face was freezing and wet. It was enough for Teague to come and comfort him, squaring that bantam little body protectively in front of him. Jack looked down and framed Teague’s scowling, freckled cheeks in his slender hands.

  “He can’t hurt you anymore, beloved,” Jack told his lover softly. “You’re ours, okay?”

  Teague nodded mutely, and when Jack wrapped long arms around his shoulders, Teague leaned against his chest willingly.

  “You’re ours,” Jack repeated. “Ours.”

  They stood quietly then—if Jack expected Teague to fall apart, he was mistaken. Maybe all of that had been cleansed, purged, in their tumultuous first days at Green’s Hill. Maybe the only place it would ever come out was Green’s Hill—one set of arms alone was not enough to keep Teague safe from the bloody monster of his dreams. But it didn’t matter. Jack was his comfort, his harbor, his beloved, and while the scary dreams might never be gone completely, Jack and Katy would be there to quiet him in the night. It would be enough.

  The drive home was quiet too, at least until Mokolumne Hill was safely in their rearview mirror.

  “We need a ceremony,” Teague said into the blue. “Something… permanent. I know we’re supposed to, like physically bond…”

  “I have,” Jack said, surprised. “So has Katy.”

  Teague’s eyes got big.

  “How do you know?” he asked, surprised.

  Jack shrugged. “Because we were watching a show on T.V. that used to get me hot because the actor looks just like you, but I didn’t get hot until you walked into the room. I said something to Katy and she realized the same thing. Katy and I turn each other on, but otherwise, it’s you and no one else.”

  Teague blushed. “Oh.”

  Uh-oh. “What?” Jack turned to him, surprised. Of all things, he didn’t expect this to be a problem.

  “Uhm… you know that thing that happens when the vampire’s feed?”

  Jack frowned. “Not anymore.”

  “Oh.”

  Jack shook his head, not sure what to say. And then he realized it didn’t matter. “It’s no big deal,” he said, meaning it. Teague had said he was damaged—if this was the extent of the damage, well, so what?

  “Well… it’s another reason for the thing,” Teague muttered. “A big thing—a… ceremony, like what we just did, only not horrible.”

  Jack felt his chest grow tight. “Like, you know, a wedding?”

  Teague nodded. “Yeah. Like… in front of the hill. Like us, and the hill, and… you know.”

  “Like a wedding.”

  Teague grunted. “Whatever.”

  Jack smiled to himself. Like the opposite of what Teague had planned for himself two months ago. Like Jack and Katy, loving him for a very long life. Like announcing ‘forever’ to the world. Like Teague never being alone, ever ever again.

  “Like a wedding,” he repeated, happy with the idea.

  “Forget I said anything,” Teague grumbled. Jack, comfortable that they were on a straightaway, reached over and took Teague’s hand as it rested on the steering wheel and brought it to his lips.

  “Katy and I would be happy to marry you.”

  “That sounds so…”

  “Gay?”

  “Shut up.”

  Jack laughed all the way back to the hill.

  Epilogue

  Green

  Putting The Past To Bed

  “Absolutely,” Cory was saying, “February eleventh would be perfect.”

  Green fought the urge to goggle, and Bracken’s wide eyes met his as they shared th
e same thought. But neither of them put a voice to it, and Cory continued to talk to Teague, animation in every line of her still-healing body. Green thought privately that the next time she decided to run across the yard in her bare feet in December, he’d actually spank her bare pink bottom himself.

  “I thought you hated being in public,” Bracken interrupted. Tact and Bracken were still virtual strangers after all.

  Teague blushed. “You guys… the hill. You got to see all the bad shit. Maybe it’s time for you to see the good shit, you know?”

  Cory nodded at Teague at the same time she rolled her eyes at Bracken. Bracken shrugged, but she soldiered on. “I get it, Teague. I think it’s perfect. The day is great. You guys get an idea of what you want and we’ll do the rest, okay?”

  Teague gave an actual smile, and Cory launched herself at him for the hug. “I’m so glad you came here,” she said softly, and he mumbled thank you before he went to tell his mates that the wedding was a go.

  “February eleventh?” Green asked as soon as he was out of earshot. “Isn’t that the day…”

  “Yeah,” she murmured. “It’s the day I looked up.” Cory and Adrian had possessed, when all was said and done, just a handful of days as lovers. Cory had been so sure that someone as beautiful as Adrian could never love someone as plain as she was, that she hadn’t even looked him in the eyes for their first year of acquaintance. She’d worked her nowhere job in one of Green’s gas stations, and Adrian had come and gone, checking on Green’s people who habited the place, and only at the end had she looked up, met his eyes, allowed herself to fall in love.

  “Beloved,” Green said quietly. They’d been sitting on the couch together—Cory leaning on Bracken and knitting while Green caressed her calf absently while he worked. Now he put the laptop down entirely and held out his arms. She went to him, rubbing her face on his shoulder.

  “I’m tired of bad shit anniversaries, Green.” She said it softly, but Green had no doubt that she meant it sincerely. “I’ve got so few good memories of Adrian. I’m throwing that one—or at least the regret in it—under the bus. Is that okay?”

  “That’s fine,” he told her. He met Bracken’s eyes over her shoulders and Bracken looked stricken for a moment. Anything that threatened Adrian’s memory would hurt him. But after a considering silence, he patted her shoulder and leaned in for the group hug.

  “Adrian would probably you rather forgive yourself for that one,” he said, and she lifted her arm and held Bracken to her chest as Green was holding her.

  “Do you think he’d be with us?” she asked hesitantly. “If he’d stayed with us, do you think… this thing we’ve become, we all would have done it together, right?”

  “I have no doubts, beloved.” And Green didn’t. Not a single one.

  Jack and Teague and Katy were proof of all that a group of people could become if they opened their hearts to love. His beloved, with her enormous heart and her unlimited capacity for bravery? There was nothing she couldn’t be, no family she couldn’t forge. Together, there was nothing they couldn’t become.