Dangerous Savior

by Wulff, Carson

  “Oh,” Ethan’s heart shouldn’t speed at Tom’s attempt to continue the conversation. But Tom has been so withdrawn so far—every word that Ethan’s managed to get out of him feels strained, ripped out like loose teeth that aren’t quite ready yet. “Uh—”

  Tom untangles his hand from Ethan’s hair. Waits for an answer.

  “Well, not really. It’s kinda hard to get comfortable with… the chains and the table and…” Ethan jerks his head towards Jed in explanation. “But it was okay.”

  Nothing about being held captive and forced to sleep in chains next to a man who beat him is okay. But. A little dishonesty is fine. Polite, even. Yeah. He’s just being polite. Not… not manipulating Tom. Not like he’d initially planned.

  He’s not—he can’t… he can’t think about why it bothers him to register that eventually Tom might realize Ethan’s been lying to him. Small lies. Sprinkled throughout their interactions. All he knows is that he’s not frightened that Tom will be angry or violent when he realizes—no, he’s afraid that Tom will be hurt. And that terrifies him.

  What is wrong with him?

  “Bed’s not comfortable either,” Tom says, and it’s a long enough sentence that for the first time Ethan can actually get a good sense of the sound of his voice—deep and toneless. “But better than this.” Tom gestures at the table beneath Ethan.

  Ethan laughs. “Yeah, I would have rather been in bed with you.” The words are out before he can stop them—and the only thing that quells his embarrassment at having let that particular sentiment slip through is the realization that this is exactly the kind of thing he should be saying if he’s following his own plan.

  Tom’s response is his usual predatory stare that reveals no inkling of what’s going on in his head.

  “But judging by the size of the mattress I saw, I doubt I’d fit,” Ethan adds, glad his nerves don’t bleed too much into his voice.

  Tom snorts. “Could probably fit,” he says, thoughtful, as close to amusement as Ethan’s ever heard him.

  “Do you… uh,” Ethan starts, licking his lips. “Do you want to see if I fit? If—uh, we fit… together?”

  Shit.

  That veiled proposition is even more awkward than the ones he attempted last night.

  “Still tired?” Tom asks. There’s no sign of teasing. Did the implication really go over his head, or has he just been messing with Ethan this whole time?

  Maybe the innocent sheltered hick act is all a lie.

  Maybe Tom is manipulating him.

  No—Ethan really doesn’t think so. Tom’s had plenty of opportunity to take advantage of Ethan, if that’s what he wanted. Deception would be pointless.

  Ethan tilts his head. Studies Tom. Faintly, if Ethan looks close enough, he thinks he sees traces of nervousness in the man’s stony face.

  And somehow—Ethan understands.

  Tom isn’t as clueless as he’s making himself out to be. Not at all. But he needs these excuses. Needs justifications. Needs to pretend what’s happening between them is anything but what it is.

  Why?

  Is he afraid to admit to himself that he wants this?

  Why does that scare Tom? Because his budding fondness for Ethan complicates the fact that Ethan’s supposed to end up dead and stored in his freezer? Or is it just the fact that he’s attracted to another man? It could be anything. It could be that Tom’s afraid of what his family will do to him if they find out what he’s been getting up to with their captive.

  It’s probably bad, really bad, that Ethan can’t think of a single sinister reason why Tom is so hesitant about Ethan’s flirtations.

  Why can’t he manage to paint Tom in a bad light? It should be easy.

  Ethan smiles softly, a fragile, budding garden of feelings sprouting vulnerably and uninvited inside him for this man.

  “Yeah,” Ethan answers finally. “I could use a nap.”

  That’s all Ethan needs to say. Tom manages to untie him without waking Jed. Ethan’s pretty sure Jed has a concussion, with the way he passes out cold and unresponsive. The man probably needs a hospital. Ethan hates himself more for worrying about Jed than he does for sympathizing with Tom. He doesn’t know what that says about him.

  Tom offers Ethan a hand and helps him hop down from the table. The concrete floor is frigid on his bare feet, making Ethan long for the sweltering heat outside—what he wouldn’t give to curl up in the field beyond the farmhouse and let the sun warm his limbs.

  Tom’s hand squeezes around his when he stumbles slightly, his legs haven’t been steady since the beating, his muscles sore like they are after a brutal hike. Tom’s hand is warm and so, so much bigger than Ethan’s. The pads of his fingers are rough, calloused from manual labor in a way Ethan’s have never been.

  Ethan’s disappointed when Tom lets go of his hand and nods towards the curtain. Obediently, Ethan pads through the basement and past the curtain, into Tom’s tiny, desolate bedroom.

  The first thing Ethan notices is his luggage. Tom moved it into this part of the basement. Why? The zippers are torn open, the contents rummaged through. Ethan tears his eyes away from it, not wanting to give any indication that the sight might bother him.

  Does it? He’s not sure.

  One red T-shirt that is unmistakably Ethan’s is lying crumpled on Tom’s bed.

  Ethan stares outright.

  Tom says nothing.

  What does that mean? It strikes Ethan as an embarrassingly innocent thing, his T-shirt in Tom’s bed. A symbol of comfort, a reminder.

  They scarcely know each other. And yet, there’s already a spark of obsession hiding in the details.

  Ethan’s heart races as quick as his thoughts.

  Elation.

  That’s what he feels.

  Relief.

  Because—because, he’s been obsessed with Tom, too. He’s not alone in the illicit, forbidden obsession. He’s not the only one who is fucked up in that particular department.

  Fuck.

  The whole situation is fucked. Every single thing about it.

  “Can I?” Ethan asks, nodding towards the bed.

  “Yes,” Tom says, and Ethan thinks it’s a good sign that he’s giving most of his answers verbally now, even if he’s still only managing a few words at a time.

  Ethan takes the invitation, crawling onto the worn mattress and curling up to one side. At least if he tucks his legs up his feet don’t hang off the end—he doubts Tom can manage the same.

  He looks up at Tom, who is hovering across the room. “Am I keeping you from something?”

  “No,” Tom answers, too quickly. He’s staring at the way Ethan’s rubbing the rope burn on his wrists. “Wrists hurt?”

  “A little,” Ethan admits. “But I understand why you have to tie me up.”

  Tom’s eyes harden a little. There it is, the lack of trust. The blatant doubt of Ethan’s sincerity.

  It’s almost funny that Tom has an easier time believing Ethan’s flirtation.

  “I’m a stranger,” Ethan says. “You and your family can’t trust me.”

  Tom’s doubt falters in the slight softening of his expression. He shifts uncomfortably.

  “You can tie me to the bed if you want,” Ethan jokes, stretching and yawning—his shirt hiking up his stomach in the process. He doesn’t miss Tom’s shift of interest.

  “Not worried,” Tom says dismissively. “Stronger than you.”

  “I noticed,” Ethan grins, and then laughs at Tom’s rapid blink of surprise. “So, what, you just plan on watching me sleep then?”

  Tom shrugs. Looks away.

  “You can come over here with me,” Ethan says, oddly bolstered. It’s a rush, being able to lead a man like Tom by the reins. It’s an illusion of control. Maybe it’s actual control.

  Tom hesitates and then moves to stand at the edge of the bed. Plants himself there like a child curling his toes around the edge of the deep end of a swimming pool. He stares down at Ethan, as if at the depths o
f what getting into bed with him means.

  Ethan reaches out, beckons him forward, a silent promise to catch him, keep him afloat. An invitation that promises that everything will be okay.

  Tom allows Ethan to grab him by the arm, tug him down until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Lie down with me,” Ethan prompts, exhilaration pounding through his thickly beating pulse. Tom is disgruntled and compliant—he has all the vulnerability of a weathered statue, strong lines chiseled out of stronger material, but worn down by the persistence of time.

  A lack of intimacy has weighed on Tom for a long time. Ethan can see it in his reluctance. Like a dog holding itself back from a bone, beaten too many times to trust its own urge to lunge forward.

  Ethan’s been lonely, too, inexperienced as he is with romantic intimacy. But unlike Tom, Ethan’s had platonic intimacy in his life. Friends and family. If Ethan’s suspicions are correct, Tom is completely isolated out here on his family’s farm. Verbally and physically abused by the only human connections he has.

  “Tom,” Ethan tries again, patting the other half of the mattress.

  Tom relents, lowers himself down on the mattress next to Ethan, facing him. His large body consumes what little space is left on the mattress, leaving only centimeters between his face and Ethan’s. Their legs touch. Tom’s arm is caught between the bed and Ethan’s stomach. Ethan’s sure Tom’s legs are hanging off the edge of the bed.

  But they fit. Somehow.

  He’s so close to Tom. Without permission, memories of the first time Ethan saw Tom flash through his mind: A chainsaw’s roar and the color red. Tom looming behind the mangled, dying biker. Tom’s strong arms dripping with the blood of another man. Tom’s blank expression as he moved to bring the chainsaw down on Ethan, too.

  It would be so easy for Tom to kill Ethan right now. To abuse him. To take whatever he wanted and then dispose of Ethan like spoiled meat.

  Ethan’s breath quickens. From the fear or the proximity, he doesn’t know.

  What he does know is that a pulsing thread of excitement lingers behind the apprehension.

  It’s quiet, apart from their breath. Quiet in the house above them. None of the usual periodic footsteps indicative of the family living upstairs.

  Ethan swears he can feel the heat coming off of Tom’s body. Tom’s shirt is buttoned today, a disappointment that is also a blessing because Ethan doesn’t know if he’d be able to resist touching the man’s chest right now if it wasn’t. And goodness only knows how unstable Tom’s reaction might be to that.

  Ethan searches Tom’s face. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay.”

  It’s not exactly a yes but it will do. “Have you always lived out here? In this house?”

  Tom nods. “On this property.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tom frowns. Takes a breath before answering. “Used to sleep in the barn, with the sheep,” he pauses, then adds, “Liked the sheep. Still do. Don’t have them anymore.”

  “How old were you when you slept in the barn?”

  Tom’s eyebrows knit slightly, like he’s not sure why Ethan’s asking. “Small. Like Daisy.”

  Small like the little girl who can’t be more than eight years old? Small like the little girl whose family instructed her to kill a man like it was nothing?

  They made Tom sleep out in the barn with the farm animals when he was that young?

  Ethan suspected long-term abuse, how could he not have? But the confirmation still makes his stomach drop.

  “Why?” Ethan asks, the same disgust and sadness pooling in his chest that he felt when he begged Tom’s family not to let Daisy witness the murder of the biker, much less make the child kill him.

  “Deserved it,” Tom answers blankly.

  Ethan can’t keep his eyes from burning hot with the beginnings of tears. “How could a child have ever deserved to be kept in the barn like an animal?”

  Tom stares at him as if he doesn’t understand the question.

  “Tom, no child deserves that kind of treatment.” For once, Ethan doesn’t feel guilty for his sympathy for the other man. Tom’s past absolutely doesn’t excuse the violence and murder he commits in his adulthood, but it doesn’t mean Tom’s past abuse was ever warranted, either.

  Tom’s expression is blanker than ever. He’s never experienced any sort of sympathy for what he’s gone through in his life, has he? He has no basis for comparison to know that his life is far from typical.

  How can Ethan possibly reach someone like that?

  “That must have been lonely,” Ethan says, finally. It doesn’t feel like enough. He can’t think of anything to say that would. The tears he’s been holding back blur his vision now, pooling on the edges of his eyelids. When he blinks, they fall sideways down his face. Before Ethan can wipe them away, Tom does.

  Tom’s expression twists in confused concern now, the pad of his thumb brushing across the trails of Ethan’s tears.

  More tears come.

  Because—because… damn it, why is Tom’s face so concerned right now at the sight of Ethan’s pain, when the only emotion Tom seems to harbor for his own pain is stoic acceptance?

  It isn’t right. It isn’t right.

  Ethan manages a few deep breaths, staunching his tears with his palms pressed into his closed eyes. He gathers himself, because this is ridiculous. He’s being ridiculous. He can’t let his sympathy for his perpetrator overwhelm him like this. He’s barely been able to cope with his own feelings in the last twenty-four hours. He’s in no shape to try to bear the weight of someone else’s pain.

  But of course, Tom isn’t asking him to. It’s like Tom doesn’t even know that he should be pained by what he’s gone through with his family’s abuse. The few details Ethan’s managed to gather or witness for himself are enough to cause lifelong trauma, but Tom almost seems to roll it off his shoulders.

  He hasn’t, though, has he? The trauma is there, affecting him in ways he’s unlikely to connect directly to the abuse.

  Ethan’s seen that trauma in Tom’s odd hesitance, in how long it took him to open up to Ethan enough to do more than grunt or nod a response. He’s seen it in the anger, when Ethan asked to take care of his erection after his own orgasm. There’s a resistance to intimacy, a craving, like he wants it so bad but is sure he’ll get hurt for even thinking he could have it.

  “What, uh, what happened to the sheep?” Ethan asks, pulling his hands away from his damp eyes and trying to smile, to lighten the mood, change the subject, anything that’ll keep him from crying again.

  Tom hesitates, then answers, “Got sick. Died. One after the other.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ethan says quietly. “You said you liked them?”

  Tom shrugs. Nods. “Took care of them.”

  The conversation is simple, but Tom seems enraptured, content just lying here and answering Ethan’s questions. There’s an eerie normalcy to it that almost makes Ethan forget where he is, what kind of man he’s talking to. The power that man has over him.

  Right now, lying face to face in bed together and talking in hushed voices, Ethan feels like an equal.

  “So you like animals?” Ethan asks. It’s a good sign, he thinks, that Tom seems to have cared about the sheep on his farm.

  Tom grunts, surprised by the question. Eventually he nods. “They like me.”

  “What other sorts of things do you like?”

  “I like you,” Tom says, straightforward and matter-of-fact. No trace of embarrassment.

  Ethan’s face heats. “No, I mean, like, what kind of interests do you have?”

  Tom’s gaze drops in thought. It’s several moments before he answers. “Building things. Fixing things. Caring for the animals we still got.” He gestures vaguely over his shoulder with a tilt of his head, towards the wall adorned with his collection of knives. “The knives, too. Like those a lot.”

  Ethan wants to ask him further about the collection of knives mo
unted to the wall. The question sticks on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it. He shouldn’t touch that topic with a ten-foot pole.

  “What about you?” Tom asks.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Things you like.”

  Something about the question—Tom’s desire to know—feels more intimate than masturbating in front of the man in the shower.

  “Uh. I like people. I like talking to them. I was—er, am, going to college for psychology.”

  Tom grunts in acknowledgement. Ethan isn’t sure if a sheltered person like Tom would really know what psychology or even college is.

  Ethan adds, “I like spending time outdoors. Hiking. Traveling to rural areas. That’s what I was doing before you—when, uh, we met. I was traveling around to enjoy seeing places I’ve never been before.”

  Tom hums thoughtfully this time, as if that makes more sense to him.

  It’s then Ethan realizes he didn’t mirror Tom’s answer about liking him. The afterthought startles him. He should be doing all he can to endear Tom to him, there’s no reason not to include Tom in the list of things he likes.

  Except… Ethan finds the words difficult to say. It’s the honesty of it, he thinks, that’s catching the words in his throat.

  He does like Tom.

  He shouldn’t, but he does.

  And the honesty makes the words difficult.

  “And,” Ethan says, scarcely above a whisper, “I like you, too.”

  There’s a flash of something unreadable in Tom’s eyes. It’s magnetic. Tom is magnetic. Ethan’s been mesmerized by him since the moment he first saw him. Chainsaw and all.

  Ethan leans forward as if drawn by gravity, the dangerous pull of desire and impulse. He brushes his nose against Tom’s, nuzzling. Impossibly, he manages to stop long enough to ask, “Can I kiss you?”

  Tom makes a low, rough noise in the back of his throat. He nods.

  “Say it,” Ethan whispers. “Say yes.”

  “Yes,” Tom says, rough and sure.

  The certainty there, the swiftness with which Tom obeyed Ethan’s demand for verbal consent—it sends a rush of exhilaration through Ethan’s body. He bucks forward automatically, body pressing into Tom.

  “Can I touch you?” Ethan asks, breathless and too late, because his hand is already fisting in Tom’s shirt, legs pressing insistently until they’re tangled with Tom’s legs.