by L. Michael
“Oh. Wow.” A Date. Jakob wanted to take me on a real date. Smiling, I snuggled closer to him, with my penguin pressed between us. “I'd love to.”
“Great. Now go to sleep, Baby.”
Chapter 7
Jakob
I had planned to make breakfast in bed for Sam, but my phone rang around five and woke me up. Sam was still sound asleep, sucking on his thumb, the penguin clutched to his chest. God, he was so adorable. I wanted to watch him sleep, but my phone started ringing again. I got out of bed and left the bedroom. “Lannister?”
“We have a case,” Matt said without introduction. “A student was found in an alley behind a gay bar. He was beaten up and raped.”
“Shit.”
“I´ll pick you up in ten.”
“Okay.” I ended the call and silently went back to the bedroom. Sam was still sound asleep and didn´t even wake up while I showered and got dressed. I hated to wake him up, but I didn't want him to wake up with me gone either. Gently I sat on his side of the bed and stroked his hair. “Sam? Can you wake up for me?”
“Mhh?” He blinked and closed his eyes again. “Too early.”
“I know, but I have to go.”
“Go? Where?” Sam sat straight up. If it was possible, Sam was even more adorable when he woke up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned before he wrinkled his nose and blinked at me. “You're dressed.”
“Yes. I'm so sorry, but I got a case.”
“Oh. Okay. I'll get dressed and…”
“No. I don't want you to go back to your apartment at this time of the morning.” No way I wanted him wandering around the streets at five in the morning on his own. Especially not after a young gay guy had gotten beaten up. “You go back to sleep. I reset my alarm so it will wake you and you’ll have plenty of time to get ready for work. I want you to have breakfast before you leave, and I'll leave you a spare key so you can lock the door.”
“O-Okay.”
“Good Boy.” I bent down and kissed him on his forehead. “Text me when you get up, leave, and when you arrive at the precinct.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“I´ll see you later, Baby.” My phone pinged. “Matt is here. I have to go.”
“Bye, Daddy.”
◆◆◆
I got a message when Matt and I were in the elevator in the hospital.
Little Sam: *sigh* tried to get back to sleep after you left but couldn't. I had a shower, and now I'm having breakfast.
I smiled and sent a heart Emoji back. Then I remembered something and wrote a text back.
Me: Don't forget to eat some fruit with your breakfast, Baby.
Little Sam: Urgh. Yes, Daddy.
Me: If you have fruit, you can have some dessert after dinner.
Little Sam: I'll eat all the fruits in your fridge! I'll be so good!
Me: You are already the best, Baby. I have to go now. Text me when you leave.
Little Sam: And when I arrive at the precinct. Promise.
Me: That's my good Boy. Catch you later, Baby.
Little Sam: Bye, Daddy. (Damn there is a lot of fruit in your fridge)
“Am I finally going to be Uncle Matt?”
“What?” I looked up from my phone and looked over at Matt. He leaned against the back wall of the elevator and grinned at me.
“You're smiling at your phone.”
“Am I? Maybe I was watching one of those cute kitten videos.”
“Yeah, sure you were.” Matt snorted a laugh, but before he could say anything else, the doors slid open. I sighed and left the elevator, Matt following close behind.
We walked up to the front desk, and I took out my badge. “Detectives Lannister and Reid. We're here to see Dr. Carmichael.”
“Oh, yes. You´re here because of that poor boy.” The nurse sighed and walked around the desk. “Dr. Carmichael is with him. I'll show you the way.”
“Thank you.” I exchanged a look with Matt, and we followed the nurse down the hallway. She stopped in front of one of the rooms and indicated for us to wait outside. After a few moments, she came back out, followed by a man in his forties.
“I'm Dr. Carmichael.” The doctor closed the door behind him and turned to look at us. “You're here to talk to Luke?”
“Luke Lennox, yes. How is he?”
“Physically stable but not in good condition, mentally. Luke suffered a severe beating. He has bruises, a sprained wrist, a concussion, two broken ribs, and severe anal trauma.”
“So, he was raped?” I asked while Matt took notes. “Do we have a rape kit?”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, confused, but the Doctor only sighed.
“We can't get any sperm samples from a beer bottle.”
“A… beer bottle?” I asked, shocked. “You can't be serious.”
“I am. Luke was beaten up and then raped with a beer bottle.” The doctor paled and swallowed before he continued. “You're not dealing with a rape case, Detective. You have a hate crime on your hands. And to make things worse, Luke doesn't want to press charges. He doesn't even want to talk to you.”
“What?” Matt gasped, while I asked, “Why?”
“Why? Do I need to spell it out for you? OK. Luke is from a small town in Georgia. He believes that the good old boys will laugh at him. He doesn't trust the police to take this matter seriously. He believes that the police won't care, because he is a gay boy who got what he deserved.”
“I understand why he thinks that. I can assure you we take every case very seriously. No matter who the victim is. Sexual orientation has no bearing.” Matt tried to assure the Doctor, but he still looked skeptical.
“Let me talk to him.” Both of them turned to look at me. “I'm gay. If someone can convince him to press charges, I think I can.”
Doctor Carmichael looked at me for a moment before he sighed. “I hope you are right. But I insist that I be in there with you. He's stable physically, but not emotionally. If I tell you to stop, you'll stop.”
“No problem.” I nodded towards Matt, then followed the Doctor into the room. Luke Lennox was a young man in his early twenties, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. He looked so small and helpless in the big bed that had my Little radar pinging. The poor boy had a bandage wrapped around his head, but it didn´t cover his dark hair entirely. He had brown eyes and long lashes. “Luke?” I waited till the boy focused his gaze on me before I continued. “Hi. I'm Jakob Lannister. I´m a Detective with the NYPD and…”
“N-No. G-Go away. I don't- I don't want to…”
“Shh, it's okay, Luke.” Doctor Carmichael stepped up to the bed and gently stroked his arm. “Jakob is here to help you.”
“He's… he's a cop.”
“Yes. I am. But I'm also gay, Luke. I just want to help you.” There was a chair close to the door. I took it and placed it beside the bed. Close enough so we could talk, but far away enough for Luke to feel safe. Luke stared at me, and I struggled for a way to get him to open up to me. Then a thought struck me. Maybe, it wasn't the most professional way to get him to talk, but I needed him to open up, and I was sure that Sam would agree with me.
“I know that you don't trust me right now, and that's okay. But let me tell you something, and after that, you can decide if you at least want to believe me, okay?”
Luke glanced at the Doctor who nodded, then he sighed and looked back at me. “O-Okay.”
“I met someone recently. We're still getting to know each other, but I like him, and I hope that he's going to be my boyfriend. During his last job, he was bullied because he is gay. He gathered all his courage, and he reported it.”
“They didn't care, did they?” Luke asked in a small voice.
“No, they did care. They cared so much that the bullies got suspended. But a couple of days later, the bullies cornered him in an alley and beat him up.”
“Because he reported them?”
“That and because he's gay.” I looked at Luke and saw a flicker of hope in his eyes. “They called him
names, assaulted him physically and verbally. I would do everything to bring them to justice. But that already happened. They paid for what they did to him. And the people who did this to you? They need to pay, too. And I will do everything I can to make that happen. I won't promise you that it's going to be easy. But I can promise you that I'll be there for you.”
“Y-You mean that.”
“I do, yes. I'll do my best to find the men responsible, and they'll be held accountable. I want to get you justice. They'll pay for what they did.”
Luke only stared at me. Then the first tear slipped down his cheek. “I… I just… I wanted to have some fun. I'd never been to a gay bar before. I just turned twenty-one. I…”
“It's okay, Luke. Take your time.” I took my notepad out and started to take notes while Luke cried and told me what happened. He spoke for more than ten minutes about what happened. When he was through, I put my notepad back into my pocket and smiled at him. “You did great, Luke. I’m very proud of you.” There was a spark on interest in Luke’s eyes after I said that. Hmm. “I promise we'll do everything we can to find them.”
“I think that's enough for now.” Doctor Carmichael said quietly. “Luke, need his rest.”
“Of course.” I took one of my cards out and placed it on his side table. “If you need anything, call me.”
“Th-Thank you.”
“Anytime.” I smiled at him and nodded. “It's going to be okay, Luke.”
“D-Detective?” Luke asked when I was about to open the door.
“Jakob. Please, call me Jakob.”
“Jakob.” Luke sighed. “The guy you are seeing is he okay?”
Good question. Was he? I thought about his reaction when we met at the Rainbow Room. I thought about his tears when he investigated a possible child pornography case. And I thought about him being Little with me. “He's going to be okay. And so, will you.”
I walked out into the hall more determined than I have ever been. I wanted to make sure those jerks paid for what they did to Luke.
“What do we have?” Matt asked as soon as we walked back to the elevator.
“Three perps. They attacked Luke outside of the gay bar. They verbally attacked him, then shoved him into the alley where they started to beat him. When he was on the ground, one of them shoved his pants down. They told him that if he wanted something up his ass, they were going to give it to him. Then they used the beer bottle.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” I waited for the elevator, stepped in, and leaned against the wall. Closing my eyes, I tried to calm my emotions. These kinds of cases always got to me. But now even more than before because I could easily imagine Sam in this hospital bed, beaten, broken, suffering. The way Luke had looked up at me with the bandages and the tears. His broken voice.
“Are you okay?”
“No. No, I'm not okay.”
“We´re going to do everything we can to find them, Jakob.”
“Yeah, I know. But…” I sighed, opened my eyes, and looked at my partner. “He just turned twenty-one, Matt. For the first time in his life, he wanted to explore his gay side and went to this bar. And what happened? He got beaten up and assaulted with a beer bottle.”
“Okay, I get that. But are you upset because you're gay or because Luke pushes your Daddy buttons?”
I opened my mouth to deny it but closed it again. Matt was right. I had a soft spot for victims like Luke because I was a Daddy. Sighing, I shook my head. “He's just so vulnerable and hurting.”
“Yes, but it's not your place to take care of him.” We left the elevator and walked through the entrance of the hospital. “You have a boy to take care of.”
“Maybe that's my problem. My Boy went through something similar, and when I looked at Luke, I could see him in this hospital bed.”
“Aha! So, you do have a boy. I knew it.” Shit. I rolled my eyes at Matt. I walked right into that one, and I should have seen that coming.
“When can I meet him? Can he call me, Uncle Matt?”
“You've already met him.”
“Wait… what?” Matt stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me. I could see the wheels in his head spinning. I gave him three seconds to figure it out. Three. Two. “Oh shit, wait. It's the new tech guy, isn’t it?”
“His name is Samuel.”
“That's why he has all that stuff on his desk. Because he's a Little.”
“He just needs to see something happy while he works.” I remembered his tears when he´d gone through the darknet the other day. “If you spent all your workday looking at all the sickness and depravity in the world, you´d want to look at some cute animals yourself.”
“True.” Matt frowned, then his face lit up. “Hey, there's a gift shop. Let's buy Sam something for his desk.”
“What?”
“You said yourself he needs something happy to look at.” Matt grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the gift shop. “And you need something to distract you from the case. We'll browse through stuffed animals, coloring books, and forget about homophobic assholes for a minute.”
“I'm sure Luke would love to hear that.” That had Matt stopping again.
“You know what else he'd love to hear?” Matt imitated my sarcastic tone. “That the bastards who did this to him get to walk because you crossed a line during your investigation. Or worse, you commit a crime by punishing them yourself, because you are too involved.”
Matt was right. I needed to take a step back and get a hold on my emotions, or I would ruin this case before it even got close to a courtroom. “Okay, you win, let's find something cute for Sam.”
“We'll find those bastards. But you need to focus on your work, Jakob.” Matt clapped my shoulder before he grinned. “Now, let's see what Uncle Matt can buy your boy.”
“He already has an uncle. Des already claimed that position.”
“So? He can have more than one uncle.”
Despite my earlier mood, I laughed. And it wasn’t the first time I was happy that Matt was my partner. He always had my back. Before we stepped into the gift shop, I held him back.
“Matt? Thanks.” He knew that I was not talking about buying a Sam gift.
“You'd do the same for me.”
“Always.”
Chapter 8
Samuel
A knock on the door pulled my eyes from my computer, and I smiled when I saw Jakob coming in. “Hi, Daddy.” Jakob closed the door behind him and walked over to where I sat behind my desk. The kiss on my forehead made my smile more prominent, and I leaned into his touch. “I missed you this morning.”
“I missed you too, and I´m sorry that I wasn´t there to make you breakfast.”
“I had some eggs and toast. Oh, and I cleaned up after myself.”
“Did you eat some fruit?”
“A kiwi and some cherries.” I wrinkled my nose at the memory. I would have preferred the kiwi in one of the fruit pouches I loved so much. “Have you ever thought about what kiwis look like?”
“Not really, no. I just eat them.”
“They look like hairy balls.” For a second, Jakob just stared at me, and then he burst out laughing. “What? They do!”
Jakob gasped for a breath. “No, you are right. They do. So, kiwis look like hairy balls, cauliflower look like little brains, and broccoli looks like little trees. Anything else I need to know?”
“Well…there are peaches. They look mostly like bums. Oh, and bananas. They look like cocks. Or eggplants according to the emoji dictionary.”
“What about artichokes?”
“Dragon eggs.”
“Dragon eggs?”
“Yeah! With scales and…” I stopped when Jakob started to laugh again. When he laughed about the kiwis, I thought he found it funny. Now I am not sure if he was making fun of me. I know that I am weird when it comes to food, but I can’t help it. I looked at them and compared them to something else. That´s why I loved my fruit pouches so much. I never had to worry about
eating hairy balls or bums.
“I’m not laughing at you, Sweet Boy. I love how your mind works. How about this? When I take you out for dinner tonight, we'll have lasagna and salad and tiramisu for dessert? Nothing weird about those foods, right?”
“We're still going on a date?”
“Of course. Just because you have a unique way of looking at food doesn't mean I don't want to go on a date with you anymore.” I smiled up at Jakob, and he bent down and kissed my forehead again. “I'll pick you up at eight, ok?”
“Yes. Ok.”
“Perfect. Oh, before I forget it. You have a new Uncle.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Matt figured out that we're dating, and now he wants to spoil you as Uncle Matt.”
“Oh.” I could feel my face heating up as I blushed. Jakob had told his partner about us? And he was okay with Matt knowing that he was my Daddy? I wasn't sure how I felt about it, though. The last time people found out about me being a Baby Boy, I ended up in a hospital.
“Matt has known for years that I'm a Daddy, Sam. He doesn't mind, and he's okay with it. He’s happy for us.” Jakob said as if he read my mind. “And he wants to be Uncle Matt, remember? He bought you something.”
Jakob handed me a gift bag, and when I peeked into it, I squealed. “Mini penguin!” It was a little figurine. It was so cute! I placed it on my desk, close to the screen. I looked at it for a second before I looked back at Jakob. “You… You don’t mind? I mean, people knowing about us?”
“No, no, I don't mind, Little Boy. And if someone has a problem with it, they can go fuck themselves.”
“Daddy!”
“Sorry, Baby.” Jakob grinned and ruffled my hair. “Don´t worry about anyone but us, okay? What other people think is not important. I don’t care if people know about us and what we do behind closed doors is for us alone. Okay, Peanut?”
“Okay. Thank you, Daddy.”
“You're welcome, Baby.”
“Will you tell Uncle Matt, thank you for the penguin?”
“Of course.” Jakob sighed and stepped back. “I have to go, but I'm looking forward to our date tonight.”