by Kit Fortier
"Will the eclipse thing be like on Devils Tower?"
"It very well could," Jake replied.
"Do we have to draw blood there?"
Jake nodded regretfully. "I wish I could spare you of that, but it's the only way to bind the energy to you."
Fox nodded. Jake pulled him up.
"You are so fucking beautiful, Fox Foster."
That was unexpected. But thus far, Jake wasn't known for making such statements. Why now?
"Jake?"
Jake only gazed at him, his eyes soft.
"Is it possible that we might… die?"
Jake didn't answer with speech. He answered with welling eyes.
"How is it that I've missed you, Fox? What did I do to deserve you only to possibly lose you here?" Jake turned his head away.
Fox was speechless. The tears spilled the moment he reached out to try to brush them away.
"Jake, look at me baby." Fox took hold of Jake's face, though he couldn't control his eyes. Jake's gaze was somewhere beneath Fox's Adam's apple, and not at his face.
"You and I, Jake. Together. Lovers. Friends. Mates. You will never lose me."
At last, Jake's eyes met his. And with them came longing, understanding. Jake's will to protect, to provide burned through.
Fox took Jake's hand and stepped into the tub, the hot water displacing upward. He held Jake's hand as he stepped in, placing his back against Jake, as they had done in Casper.
Fox and Jake took turns cleaning each other. They shared gentle touches to intimate areas, kisses that lasted minutes. The outside world, with its insane mages, its altered beasts, its brutish thugs... None of that mattered. The two shared much of each other with each other. Between them, the only thing that mattered was the other man. Between them, the only one that counted was the other man.
"Let's finish up in the shower, papa bear," Fox said. Jake nodded, getting out of the water, soap clinging to his pelt in random places. He got out and helped Fox out of the bath, pulled the drain plug, then turned on the water in the shower.
After the touches, the caresses, both looked at each other's arousal and laughed.
"Hair-triggers. The both of us," Fox said.
"Tell me something I don't know," Jake laughed. They enjoyed the silence as they soaped up and shampooed each other. "Foxy."
"Papa bear."
"Will you get tired of me when I'm old and gray?"
"Nope. I will love you even if I have to feed you myself and give you your pills and this magnificent body of yours goes to shit. Of course, I might have to hire a sexy, beefy nurse with thick black hair and an ass like an apple to help me change you-ow!"
Jake growled, his teeth tugging on one of Fox's nipples. Fox laughed.
"Never, Jake. Never."
The two rinsed off. Toweled off.
What about you, baby? Would you ever get tired of my antics? My insecurities?"
Jake put his chin on his hands, like Fox had done many times before.
"No, Fox. I'll never get tired of you call me a bear, or teasing me, or calling me… Well, you know."
Fox laughed.
"I will say though, people tend to want someone like the parent they idolize. Your dad ain't no slouch."
"Are you saying I'm attracted to my Dad, Jacob Barton?"
"Well, you gotta admit we're about as big as each other," Jake offered unhelpfully.
"What can I say. I like big guys with hair on them. Never liked the wispy smooth guys. I need a man I can be rough with, who can be rough with me," Fox retorted. Jake shushed Fox and pressed fingers to his lips. He smiled.
"If love be rough with you," Jake mused.
"Prick love for pricking," Fox winked. "A rose by any other name and all that."
Jake smoothed a hand over Fox's chest, gliding on a nipple. Fox arched his back in response.
"You like Shakespeare," Jake said.
"I just remember the one play. I thought it'd be fun to play Mercutio, but baseball and school won out."
Jake chuckled. "Speaking of any other names, it's Leighton."
"What is?"
"My first name is Leighton. I've been going by Jake for the past seven years. Leighton is a name that sticks out, no matter where you go, especially for a guy that sticks out, like me. Jake doesn't stand out so much."
"And Barton?"
"Mom's maiden name. It's actually Hughes."
"Leighton Hughes. Ben Hughes."
"Yep."
"So… does your Dad play rough with you?" Jake asked with a smirk.
Never before had Jake seen a fox roar, but his man certainly did. The red-head attacked his face and tried to take control of the situation. Jake pulled a fast one on him, picked him up like before, stepped back into the shower. He turned the dial to the coldest setting and used Fox's body to try and shield himself from the blast.
"Holy shit fuck balls!" Fox cried. Jake laughed, but he was just as wet, and laughed through chattering teeth.
Jake let Fox down gently, and the two pressed foreheads together as they hugged. They were content to cool down under the shower.
"Sorry not sorry," Jake said through a grin. He turned the water off.
Fox laughed. He hugged Jake close.
"I love you, Leighton Jacob Hughes."
A sob bubbled inside Jake. It rolled up and burst from him, his eyes welling up, a smile on his face.
Jake pulled his face away. "You okay?"
"You're the first person in my life who ever said, 'I love you' to my full name."
"Jake." A look of regret came on Fox's face, as if he were sorry for something.
"Don't you apologize, Fox. You have been collecting my first times. Don't apologize for making me happy."
*** Fox
The light of day filtered through the curtains. It stretched across the bed and draped itself across Fox's form on Jake's. Fox cracked an eye open, squinted, then closed it again. Rather than rise, he chose to burrow against Jake, breathing him in.
"Sorry, foxy. We gotta get going."
"Don't wanna." Fox played up the petulant child act, hoping to bait Jake into some morning fun.
"Come on, baby. The day's a big one."
"Nope. Gonna stay right here."
"But baby, how are you going to save me?"
Fox furrowed his brows, sat up, and saw a gasping, wide-eyed Jake. His man was gushing precious blood from a gaping neck wound and reaching out to him.
*** Jake
Jake pinned Fox to the mattress. His man was having a vicious nightmare, and it tore Jake's heart to hear his cries of no no not like this please.
"Fox, Fox sweetheart, wake up. Come on, baby! Damnit!" Jake felt like he was at a rodeo with an insane stallion bucking beneath him. He reached over for the cup of water on the nightstand. With a swift flick of his wrist, he let the water fly in Fox's face--causing him to sit up, gasping and sputtering. Jake was in-his-face with him, hoping his face would calm the man down.
"Fox, honey, can you hear me? Can you see me?" Jake didn't have to wait long for Fox's response. He nodded and flung his arms around Jake.
"Shhh, baby, shhh. You had a nightmare, that's all."
A gasping sob tore from Fox. Jake continued to hold him. The moon had yet begun to rise.
Jake pulled back and assessed Fox's condition. He pulled back Fox's sweaty hair and pressed the back of his hand to Fox's head, his neck. He paused, wondering what prompted him to do that. Then it occurred to him that that was exactly what he did when Ben woke up from a nightmare.
"s--s--scared, Jake," Fox sputtered haltingly.
"Of what, baby?" Jake asked, holding Fox's hand in one hand and his face in the other.
"s--s--so real…"
Jake shushed Fox and held him close.
"What's so real, baby?"
"t--th-this." A sudden brutal pain snapped and tore through the center of Jake's chest. He pulled away, and Fox's place was a werewolf, snarling and growling. It pulled its claw from Jake's che
st, holding his heart in its hand.
*** Fox
Both men jolted awake at the same time. Sunlight shone bright into the room, both looking at each other and panting. Jake looked around and the realization hit him: He hadn't secured the room.
"My, you boys sure are a hot couple," A woman's voice said. Both of them scrambled off the bed to see who was speaking.
Fox stumbled back at the sight of the woman before him.
Sitting in the inn's big seat was a woman in a purple business dress. She looked more suited to a board room in one of New York's many glass buildings than she would out in the middle of nowhere. Jake looked at Fox and looked the woman.
"What are you… what are you doing here, mom?"
*** Jake
"I've come with a proposal for you. It's meant for Jakey here." The woman leered at Jake. "Ooh, you are stunning! But I suppose," Meredith Foster drawled the last word, "you'll go along for the ride, Fox. Always were a little sleeve tugger."
Jake winced as he heard the barb land on Fox. Fire boiled his heart at how she threatened to decimate his man with just a few words. Fox simply sat down on the bed across from them with his head in his hands, seemingly resigned to whatever was about to happen.
"What the fuck do you want?"
"Nothing much, honeypie. Just your help with some cosmetic stuff, long life. You know."
"And what do you plan to give me?" Jake growled.
"Ooh sweetie, you shouldn't do that. It's bad for the voice!" Meredith tittered as she stood up and crossed to the television. With a touch of her purple gloved hand, the flat screen lit up, and a camera pointed at a sofa flared into view. Less than a moment later, two people, a man and a woman, were thrust bound and gagged into their seats.
"It took me longer to find your son, I'll admit. It was a loss, that little black bird who saw you and tipped you off told me a lot, but not enough."
Jake watched in horror as the Samuelses plead with muffled cries and tears. Two more figures, faces hidden from view, came up behind them. They violently yanked back their captives' heads by their hair. The sounds of snarls and snapping and popping and screaming filled the air on the other side of the screen.
"Don't!"
Too late.
A splash of blood followed by sickening gurgling sounds hissed through the feed.
Jake turned his attention to the witch in front of him.
"Offer your service to me, and I let your son live," Meredith smiled.
"What makes you think I won't slam you into the earth, twist your head off and bury you where you stand?"
"Oh honey. That's not how this works! See, you can either give me what I want, or I can erase your mind, make you my puppet, and take it anyway. I'm happy to go with what you choose, sweetness." The woman leaned in conspiratorially. "Really, though, I'd love to go the puppet route. I could show you what a waste that boy is on you."
That boy. Fox. The one who held out hope for his mom--until there was no more hope to be had. Jake clenched his teeth and his fists. Jake crossed to put himself between his man and the woman who bore him.
The ground trembled hard beneath them. Meredith laughed.
"Hoo you are so much fun! I can't wait to wipe your brain and fuck you silly," the woman giggled.
But the giggling ended abruptly. A squelching noise of something hard punching through flesh halted all conversation. A massive spike of glass pierced through Meredith's chest. Fox stood up behind Jake and walked to his mother's side.
She turned her head, giggling and gasping, to face her son.
"Sorry mom," Fox said. "He's taken."
The woman coughed, laughed, and died. The flat screen went dead. Upon her death, curious threads of silver spread like capillaries through her skin. Fox touched the glass spike and it withdrew, reshaping into the shower door it once was. For the grisly scene the glass had been a part of, not a single drop of blood or gore stuck to the door.
Jake went over pulled the knife from Fox's pack. He took Meredith by her strawberry blond hair and began the grisly work of cutting her head off. There was no blood flow. Instead, what came out was a chalky black substance. It dribbled out a little when her stump fell back to the floor. The substance disintegrated before it even touched the ground. Jake finished, then looked at Fox. He tossed him one of the complimentary robes and donned the other one himself.
"Bring the body," he said.
*** Fox
Fox hefted the body, following Jake around the corner and behind the building.
"Put it there," Jake said, indicating a wide berth of dirt. Fox did so. With a thought, a round hole the size of the body opened up. Fox looked in and saw it at the bottom of a pit that could have been a hundred feet deep. It filled in with a rush, sending a plume of dust into the sky.
Jake was still focused on where the body was when Fox reached out to him.
"Give it to me, please," Fox asked, indicating the severed head.
Fox took his dead mother's face by the hands.
"You ruined so many lives, mom. Mine. My dad's. The pastor's--so many people in the church. You probably did more damage when you got to your new home. But that ends now. I won't let you ruin mine again. I can't."
Fox thought of the most basic elements in the human body. How they play a role in the formation of a woman or man.
He thought of oxygen, calcium, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen. He thought of the makeup of those elements in conjunction with each other.
He thought of all those conjunctions fracturing and dissolving. Millions and millions of cells deflated, fizzling out of existence. The bonds holding their elements together broke apart at last.
Soon, he was holding nothing but air and particles of dust floating away.
Jake stared at him, mouth ajar.
25. Let's Build a Fort
*** Jake
Jake slammed the door and went for his pack. He retrieved the silver and salt combination he so often used. The sound of Fox in the bathroom washing his hands hissed as Jake sealed the front door. He did the same for the window up front, and the window in the kitchen. Then he put the pack away and reached for his tablet, opening a video-chat app he used when he reached out to check up on Ben.
Fox sat down next to him, waiting while the app connected. The app's view-screen popped up, and a scruffy, buzz-cut wearing, blond man about Jake's age appeared.
"Heya, buddy! How 'ya doing? Ben's--"
Jake sighed. "Taylor man, where's Ben?"
"Well, I was going to say he's upstairs with his gang, going to town on his PlayStation four or whatever. He bought it himself with his job money." Taylor looked particularly proud of that.
"Good, good. How's Sarah?"
"Great, we're both great. We miss you, man. Are you gonna come back soon?"
"I hope so," Jake said, his voice shaky. "Yeah. Hey, look, do me a favor, okay? Take Ben and Sarah and go camping or something. Get him away from the house for a while. Try to do it as soon as possible."
"Sure, big guy. We were gonna check out Salt Lake City for a few days then drive down to the Grand Canyon for a week."
"I know it's a bit out of the way-but check out the south rim. You guys will love it."
"Yeah? That's what I heard. More to do down there. We'll set out a couple days after tomorrow. It's his graduation."
"I think… I think I might be able to meet you guys down there," Jake said. "Graduation. Wow. He's on to the next phase of his life, huh?" Jake said, his throat clogged with emotion. "I gotta go. Give Ben my love, Tay."
Taylor looked a little sad. "Will try, Leigh. Can't make any promises. Come home soon, okay?"
"Will do. Maybe tonight," Jake said.
"Tonight?"
Jake ended the call.
"They're alright?"
"Seems so. Your mother used a glamour on us. A few, if I'm not mistaken."
"The TV and…"
"Did you have a nightmare?"
Fox stilled. He nodded.
"So did I."
"Fuck. She was in our heads?"
"I think she only put the dream there. She can't actually read our minds or anything-at least, I don't think-but she can make us see things. That's the key aspect of glamours."
Fox nodded. "Let's get going. She was only one half of that team, so the other one is still out there."
Jake threw together his belongings and replaced the knife in Fox's pack. He tied up his robe, then moved to tie Fox's closed.
"Shouldn't we get dressed?" Fox asked, indicating the robes. Jake shook his head.
"We're only going to end up taking them off anyway. This will be easier."
Fox nodded. The two carried their packs out of the room and stepped out to the truck, only to stop and take in what happened.
Someone slashed through the truck's tires. Without a doubt, it was an ill-conceived idea of the woman buried deep behind a motel in the middle of nowhere.
Fox stepped forward. He went to each tire, filling them up through alchemy, and sealing them. Nothing would stop them.
They threw the packs into the back seat and hopped in, Jake tearing off.
"Shit, I've never driven barefoot before," he said, frustrated at the spacing.
"You get used to it," Fox said.
"You drive barefoot?"
"Whenever I go from the campsite at Keyhole back home," Fox said.
"Why's that--oh. Because you're a sexy, filthy, boy-scout, nudist-exhibitionist," Jake grinned.
Fox laughed and said nothing.
They were there within moments.
There being a slight bend in the road, with nothing but a small town to the north and a ghost town to the south of them. The sun was reaching its apex, and the heat of day began to rise in earnest.
Jake walked out to a boulder, and as before, it fell apart before him. He kicked at the dirt and found his marker.
"Come over here. Leave your robe in the truck," he said. Fox disrobed and trotted over to the circle. Jake ran back to the truck, pulling the silver-salt mix from his pack. He removed his robe, then closed and alchemically locked the doors. and trotted back to Fox, running a big circle around them and sealing it in the ground.
When he came back to the center, Jake made a motion, and a wall of packed stones and boulders rose in a circle around them. It looked like a well some twenty feet high.