Hard Bitten

by M. K. York

  The door swung open, Mark smirking. “Too tired to work a key?”

  “Ugh. Don’t judge me.” Lukas dropped his gear by the TV.

  “I don’t know what you were thinking, doing back-to-back stakeouts.”

  “I was thinking, gee whiz, money is nice.”

  “So is not having a stroke at thirty because you haven’t slept in days.”

  “Look, isn’t this supposed to be a sanctuary or something?” Lukas sat down heavily on the couch and leaned back, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I can’t feel my face.”

  He felt the couch dip with Mark’s weight. “Yeah, well, lucky for you, I thought you might feel like shit. So I’m prepared to make a deal.”

  “Great,” Lukas said without enthusiasm.

  “No, come on, hear me out! You go take a quick shower. Nice and hot. Your muscles have to hurt after, what, twenty hours?”

  “Twenty-two.” With exactly an hour in between the first job and the second. He’d snatched a quick nap and grabbed a sandwich.

  “Yeah, see, that sucks. Anyway, you give your muscles a fighting chance with a hot shower, then there are clean sheets on the bed, a steamed milk, and you pass out to the dulcet tones of David Attenborough telling us about wildlife. Sound good?”

  The hell of it was, that did sound very pleasant, and Lukas wasn’t about to ruin a good thing. “... Yeah.”

  “All right. Up you go.” Mark patted his leg briskly, and with an enormous groan, Lukas heaved himself up off the couch.

  The shower felt like heaven. Mark had been, as he had an unfortunate habit of being, absolutely right. Lukas could feel the tension in his back easing.

  And by the time he got back to bed, there was a piping-hot mug of steamed milk—Mark had somehow figured out in just a few weeks that Lukas had a soft spot for them, and Mark’s absurdly nice espresso maker meant Mark could bribe Lukas with them with impunity, especially since Lukas still couldn’t figure out the menu on the damn thing.

  He took a long drink off it and crawled between the sheets, sighing heavily, and Mark hit play on the documentary he had up on his laptop.

  “Here we see...”

  He was out before he could even find out what animals they were going to show.

  *

  The morning came too early. He woke up to Mark’s alarm, chirping insistently. He opened his eyes to a ceiling just barely washed with light.

  “God,” he said out loud, without even thinking about it.

  Mark was turning off the alarm. “Yeah, God, I know, babe.”

  “Do we really have to be awake this early?”

  “If you still want to go.”

  Lukas sighed bitterly, sitting up. “I do.”

  “I figured.” Mark headed for the bathroom, and the door clicked shut behind him. Lukas was left contemplating the morning; he could not regard the prospect sanguinely.

  On their way out of the apartment, Mark glanced over at him. “It’s okay if you change your mind,” he said quietly.

  Lukas didn’t trust himself to talk. He just shook his head. If he changed his mind, when if anyone had a right to, it would be Mark.

  They took the light rail. It was as good a day for it as any—the first day in a while where it was dawning blue instead of gray, the sky still the thin pale blue of spring, and morning commuters hustling underneath it. They both had to stand for the quick ride, hanging on to the straps, Lukas staring at the back of Mark’s head. He’d done his hair like he always did for court. Dark waves that looked nothing like they would after Lukas ran his fingers through them, messed them up beyond salvage, left Mark in tears of laughter when he saw himself in the mirror. There was the little nick in the hairline at the nape where the stylist’s hand had slipped last time Mark got a trim. His neck, with the starched white collar, his black suit jacket, smelling of familiar laundry soap.

  Lukas hadn’t been able to stand Mark’s favorite cologne since the shooting. Mark hadn’t picked one to replace it yet.

  They got off at Westlake, with most of the commuters. It was just a few minutes’ walk to the federal courthouse.

  Lukas could feel sweat beading on his forehead as they went through security. Mark was in the line with the rest of the nonlawyers this time, smiling and making a couple of inane comments to the security guards about the weather, and it helped to have him there, murmuring a reminder to take off his belt, put his wallet in the bin.

  Mark said, looking around, “I don’t try cases here, so I don’t know it as well—oh, okay, we’re headed that direction.”

  “How do you know?”

  Mark turned his head to grin humorlessly at Lukas, sidelong. “I just saw John Dauer going that way.”

  “He’s here for—?”

  “What else would he be here for?” Mark’s knuckles brushed Lukas’s arm. Lukas took a deep breath and followed Mark into the courtroom.

  Mark settled on a bench next to John Dauer, who, indeed, had taken up a seat near the front of the gallery. “Fancy meeting you here, sir.”

  “Counselor.” Dauer nodded at him pleasantly enough.

  “Did you ever get around to building that tree house?”

  Lukas frowned in confusion, but Dauer seemed to know what Mark was talking about. “I have the lumber for it! They’re going to provide some unpaid child labor.” Dauer leaned forward and reached out to shake Lukas’s hand. “Mr. Nystrom. Good to see you again.”

  “You as well,” said Lukas, unsure whether to call him sir or leave well enough alone.

  Mark and Dauer made small talk for a few minutes, both resolutely avoiding the event that had them both sitting in the gallery together.

  “Is Lena coming?” Dauer asked, the closest he’d come to addressing it.

  Mark shook his head. “She’s got a preliminary hearing today.”

  “Oh, that’s right. A woman’s work is never done, especially if that woman is a public defender, am I right?”

  “I imagine you are.”

  Finally there was the rustling stir in the gallery—where press had also begun to congregate—that presaged the main event.

  Judge Kline was brought into the courtroom. He looked a decade older than he had the last time Lukas saw him. There was a ripple of whispers. The federal judge brought the court to order, and the sentencing hearing began.

  The United States Attorney described the plea deal. The words didn’t mean much to Lukas, and he was having trouble following them, but he felt Mark stiffen next to him, and when he darted a glance at Dauer, Dauer’s mouth had flattened into a straight line.

  The federal judge frowned down at Judge Kline, who looked deathly pale.

  “Do you wish to change your plea?”

  “I do, Your Honor.”

  “Do you understand that, by doing so, you are waiving the following rights?” The judge went through what seemed like an exhaustive list of them—Lukas wished they’d hurry up.

  “I do.”

  “How do you plead?”

  “Guilty, Your Honor.”

  “Very well.” The judge leaned back and steepled his fingers. “Mr. Kline. You have been removed from the bench. You have pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy and racketeering. You have abused your office for personal gain. You have perverted justice. You bear some responsibility for at least two shootings and one murder. This plea deal, in the court’s opinion, does not go far enough in establishing your culpability in these crimes. The recommendations of the U.S. Attorney are noted. However, it is the judgment of this court that you serve a term of no less than ten years in federal prison, not to exceed twenty years.”

  Kline’s face was like melting wax, twisting with grief and fear and rage. Watching him, Lukas felt a surge of something triumphant and vicious in his blood—he could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

  “Good,” whispered Dauer. “Good.”

  “Got that son of a bitch,” Mark murmured to Lukas.

  When it was all over, they left the courtro
om, and Dauer turned to Mark. “Can I buy you lunch, Counselor?”

  “Better not, sir,” said Mark, smiling. “You’d hate to be accused of lunching with the enemy.”

  Dauer laughed. “As you say! Well, congratulations on seeing Kline locked up.”

  “For a good long minimum too. That’s satisfying.” There were a few reporters outside trying to talk to them. “No comment!” Mark called to them brightly and waved them off, strong-arming past the one who still tried to get in their way.

  Dauer huffed. “I was going to shit a brick if they went with that plea deal. Five years! For how many charges?”

  “It was ludicrous!”

  “Damn right it was.” As they got to the bottom of the steps, Dauer motioned toward the municipal courthouse. “Well, I’d better get back to work.”

  “The city would be lost without you.”

  “Save the kiss-ass for Lena!” Dauer called over his shoulder, and the two of them were left alone together on the pavement.

  Mark turned back to Lukas. “You want lunch?” he asked softly.

  Lukas shook his head. His stomach was still churning. Somehow, of the two of them, Mark had regained his footing with ease. His stitches were long out, his side healed, but every time Lukas’s hands stuttered over the raised scars in bed, he kept seeing Mark’s blood in the streetlights, hearing the interminable wail of the ambulance sirens.

  “Okay.” Mark put his hand on the back of Lukas’s neck, brought their foreheads close together. “Do you just want to go home?”

  Lukas nodded wordlessly. He’d thought he’d feel free, once the last of those bastards was in custody, but knowing that some of the drug runners were probably still out, that Frank might have told them about him, that he could still be at risk, Mark could still—it all felt too real.

  “Okay, babe. Yeah. We’ll go home.”

  On the train back, Lukas concentrated on his breathing. Mark was close. Whole and unharmed.

  By the time they got back to Broadway, he was feeling hungry, so they stopped at Julia’s Restaurant for a bite. There were enough other well-dressed young men in the neighborhood that they didn’t raise any eyebrows. At the next table a flamboyant man with brilliant pink hair and glasses that matched was excitedly recounting his recent adventure with meeting a cute dog to his companion, an older man who kept smiling at him fondly.

  Mark nudged Lukas’s foot under the table. “Hey. You okay?”

  Lukas nodded. “Yeah.”

  And after a BLT, he did feel more like himself. Ron Williams, Frank, and now Mr. Kline were all in prison. A handful of the drug dealers were off the streets. Some had flipped on Williams. No one else, as far as he knew, had any reason to come after him personally. Mark had taken the whole day off, and Lukas didn’t have any other jobs scheduled until the next afternoon. They had time to breathe.

  They walked slowly back to the apartment. The sunlight made Capitol Hill feel washed clean, brand-new.

  When they got back, Mark peeled off his suit jacket and hung it up. “You just want to take a nap?”

  “God, yes,” said Lukas gratefully.

  “I’m going to try and get through a few chapters in the book I’m working on.” Mark always had something to hand that he was reading. On a good day, it was a book. On a bad day, he’d brought home case files to work on.

  So Lukas, in T-shirt and boxers, climbed into bed, and Mark pulled the curtains and settled next to him, back propped against the headboard and ankles crossed. Lukas fell asleep to the soft noise of Mark turning pages.

  *

  Mark was halfway through the book by the time Lukas surfaced again. He glanced down as Lukas turned, snuffling against the pillow, and then blinked slowly, blue eyes catching the light from Mark’s lamp.

  Mark watched him wake up. He still hadn’t gotten over how blue Lukas’s eyes were, how expressive they were, like sea-glass in the light. He could remember thinking that Lukas seemed cold, but that felt like a lifetime ago. He was picking up fluency in Lukas’s expressions. Ever since the shooting, Lukas had been tense. He’d hoped Kline’s sentencing hearing would help. Maybe it would.

  Lukas yawned hugely and reached out for him, putting one hand on Mark’s thigh. “Time is it?”

  Mark glanced at the clock. “Almost seven.”

  “Not bad.”

  “No, you might feel a little more human now.”

  “I do.” Lukas got out of bed and padded off to the bathroom. Mark went back to reading, listening with one ear as Lukas rattled around, getting a glass of water, the refrigerator opening and closing.

  Lukas came back and sat on the edge of the bed, peeling a banana. Mark looked at it and found himself smiling.

  “No jokes,” said Lukas, pointing the banana at him. Mark burst out laughing.

  “Aw, come on. Banana? It’s just so easy.”

  “So hold out for a challenge.”

  “Thought I did.” Mark gave him a lopsided grin. “Don’t think you can claim you were easy.”

  Lukas had to laugh too. “I think you made it more complicated than it had to be!”

  “No argument there, Counselor.” Mark waved one hand by his head loosely, going back to his book.

  Lukas finished his banana and got up to toss the peel in the kitchen. He stopped for a long moment by the living room windows on his way back, staring out. It wasn’t much of a view—just the alley, the Dumpsters, the brick wall of the building behind them—but Capitol Hill had a charm all its own, ruthlessly reminding him that he lived in a neighborhood now where men walked hand in hand, walked their dogs together, without pausing to think about the ramifications first.

  Mark padded out from the bedroom. “Got thirsty,” he said, and Lukas listened with one ear as Mark got a drink and came to stand by him. “Enjoying the view?”

  Lukas turned before Mark could stop him and scooped him onto the couch, leaving Mark laughing helplessly, half-tangled in the throw blanket. “What!”

  The laughter stopped abruptly as Lukas dropped to his knees.

  “Oh. Oh,” said Mark, inhaling sharply, as Lukas pushed the fly of his boxers open and swallowed his cock, soft at first but hardening in his mouth.

  It was good, but it wasn’t enough. Lukas drew off and tugged Mark’s boxers down and off. Mark gasped and let his legs fall open.

  Lukas fumbled in the pocket of his sweats—yeah, he’d left a packet of lube there. He went back down on Mark as he tore the packet open, and Mark sighed luxuriously as Lukas pressed his fingers in. Lukas breathed in deeply, loving the smell, the way Mark’s cock jumped at the flicker of his tongue.

  Mark loved it like this, Lukas knew, Lukas’s fingers crooked in him, moving in time with his mouth. Lukas knew because Mark had told him, would tell him anything at the drop of a hat. And Mark told him again, now: “Oh, Christ, yeah, just like—mmm, yeah, like that.” Mark kept up the running commentary of babbled encouragement until he went silent for a few seconds and then arched his back up off the couch, coming in long pulses down Lukas’s throat.

  Lukas looked up at Mark’s face, sheened with sweat, eyes drifting shut in bliss.

  Mark blinked his eyes open and focused on Lukas. “You want to fuck me?” he asked, hopefully.

  “I—yeah. Hell, yeah.”

  He climbed onto the sofa, pushing his sweats down, and Mark straddled him easily, so that Lukas could put his face between Mark’s shoulder blades as Mark sank onto him and started to move, exquisitely, agonizingly slowly.

  And Lukas loved it like this: loved the solid weight of Mark’s body pinning him against the couch, the enveloping heat, the view of the muscles in Mark’s back working. Mark dropped his head forward, sighing. Lukas had never been able to get over how quickly Mark could be in the mood again, how satisfied Mark seemed to be even if he didn’t, couldn’t come again. Mark just loved getting fucked.

  But this time was one of the lucky ones. They fucked for what felt like hours. As Lukas started to get close, taking Mark’s hip
s and tilting him to get the angle just right, Mark gasped and tensed, grabbing his own cock, and started to clench around him, a few spurts of semen escaping. It was enough to push Lukas into coming too, deep inside Mark. He shouted hoarsely, and Mark spasmed again.

  After, Mark slumped back against him, and he kissed the side of Mark’s head, his ear, the nape of his neck.

  “God, I love you,” he muttered, and then heard himself and froze.

  “Me too, babe.” Mark put his hand over Lukas’s, where Lukas had slung his arm around Mark’s body. “God. Me too.”

  Lukas found himself smiling, breathing into Mark’s hair, in the beautiful stillness of the evening.

  Epilogue

  “Hey!” Alex pounded Lukas on the back. “Good to see you, motherfucker!”

  “You too, asshole.” Lukas half lifted Alex into a bear hug.

  “Nice couch,” Nick observed, sidling in behind Alex. “That looks new. Nicer than any of your old shit.”

  “You fucking know it. Top-grain leather.”

  Alex grinned slyly. “Guess I should have bagged myself a fancy lawyer.”

  “Like you could pull me!” Mark yelled, head in the refrigerator. “Babe! Are we out of that pumpkin beer?”

  Nick gave Lukas a shit-eating grin and mouthed, Babe. In response, Lukas mimed strangling Nick with his bare hands.

  “So how’s Consuela?” Mark asked, turning around with hands full of the non-pumpkin beer. The summer heat had finally broken, and the fall rains were just starting, the pavement outside blooming with wet patches.

  “Oh, she’s good. Mimi’s doing great in daycare.”

  “That’s good, man.”

  “Yeah, she keeps catching colds but I guess that’s normal.” Nick rubbed at his nose with the back of one hand. “I keep catching them too. I feel like we’re always sick.”

  “Well, that sucks.”

  “Okay, okay.” Lukas took the beer out of Mark’s hands. “Go sit.”

  Mark rolled his eyes at Nick over Lukas’s shoulder. “Pushy.”

  “We could have told you that.”

  “Come on, guys, sit down. The game’s going to start any minute.”