Whatever the Cost (49 page)

“You wanna touch yourself?” Jacen asks roughly. Adding a moment later, “Should I let you?”

The answer flashes like a spark behind Liam’s green eyes, so Jacen bears down, releasing his nipples and holding his lover’s wrists in place as he starts to fuck him harder and deeper. Liam cries out and takes it, his body looser now as he gives Jacen all the power and all of his trust. Each breath is ripped from him and Jacen’s mouth hovers above Liam’s own, kissing his abused lips gently as Jacen’s hips twitch, thrust and slam into him. Every now and then, Liam surges up toward Jacen for more of a kiss but then Jacen just grinds into him that much harder, driving the breath from him along with another moan.

In a tease, Jacen dares to reach down between them with one hand, grazing it lightly over Liam’s erection, feeling how wet and full it is before his fingers close around the piercing laced through the head, playing with it even as he holds Liam’s hands to the headboard and continues to ride him. It causes Liam nearly to sob, he’s so desperate to climax.

Shuddering with his own need, with Liam hugged around him so perfectly, gripping even tighter as he wriggles and tries to buck against Jacen’s hand to get off, Jacen gets close to release. Letting Liam’s wrists go, he cups the side of his lover’s face and gasps, racing toward his orgasm. Liam watches him come apart. Every care falls away. All that matters is the push and touch.

Jacen thrusts hard and holds, letting out a hard, shaky grunt as he empties himself into Liam. He’s still recovering as he closes Liam’s flesh in a firm grip and pumps it. Keening and rolling his hips up into the touch, Liam comes. A thick, milky jet of come arcs up from his cock onto his chest, neck and jaw. Grunting and groaning, his senses dull and blacken at the edges. The world falls out of focus and the only thing he can feel is the throb of his body around where Jacen is fitted inside it and the light tickle of the tip of Jacen’s tongue and then the soft press of his lips as he cleans some of the come from his jaw.

Distantly, very distantly, an old, familiar voice in Liam’s head tells him to go get cleaned up. He ignores it and drifts off. He’s semi-conscious of Jacen pulling out and easing Liam’s legs back down, then massaging some of the blood back into them. He’s less conscious of Jacen curling up around him. Time slips by, but then Jacen’s hand wraps the side of Liam’s face. Jacen’s leg is thrown over him where Liam is prone on the bed. His nose is buried in the short hair behind Liam’s ear and Liam feels as much as hears Jacen’s sharp intake of breath that holds and comes back out as a whine of pain.

“Jacen?” Liam’s voice sounds foggy in his own ears.

Jacen sobs, trying to hold it in, even now fighting against it. But it won’t be held. It all comes pouring out. So he clutches Liam as the hurt and terror of what he’s been through,
everything
he’s been through, is wrung violently out of him.

“Baby, it’s okay.” Liam tries. He’s unable to move, Jacen has him gripped so tightly, as if, should he let go, he’ll lose everything. Liam can’t even turn toward Jacen. All he can do is hug with one arm around Jacen’s head as he cries, caressing his arm with the other. “You’re gonna be okay. It’s over. Okay? It’s all over and we’re going to be okay. You and me. Together.”

Jacen cries for a long time, with decades of unshed tears finally washing out of him, cleansing some of the soul-deep wounds scarring him. He cries until there are no tears left in him, and he’s only hiccupping softly, holding to Liam as Liam holds to him, the both of them twined inextricably in one another, for better or worse.

“You ready for this?”

Clay has pulled Liam aside outside of the same diner where they had their previous meetings about Liam’s little project. Coincidentally, it’s also the same place that Liam and Jacen met Clay when first coming to San Luis Obispo, since it’s close to the precinct. At mid-afternoon, the place isn’t busy, and through windows dappled with twisted reflections and shadows from the trees lining the street, he can see the forms of two people. One he knows, the other he doesn’t.

Staring at them, feeling Clay’s concerned, watchful gaze trying to read his expression, Liam is pulled out from under the weight of the recent events of his own life. It’s astonishingly freeing, to for once be able to leave it all behind, to have something more pressing and, most of all,
positive
, to be focused on.

Of course, Clay sees the faint lines of wear and worry etching his friend’s young face. It’s taken its toll on Liam to endure what he has in trying to escape the life he was living, but having love and responsibility to anchor him once more has made him something like he used to be, yet wiser and stronger. He’s Avery, all grown up.

Liam blinks and peers through ghosts and figments dancing in his memory, blinding him like sun through the trees.

“Yeah. ’Course I am. It’s why I’m here, right? This is the whole point.”

“Did you look at the file I sent you? With his profile and background history?”

There’s a pause as Liam looks up at the figures through the window, but can’t quite make them out. “Nah. I trust your judgment, and Valery’s.”

Clay sighs with aggravation, “Okay, that’s great and all, but I really needed you to have a vague idea what you were walking in to here.”

Liam hears him, but doesn’t back down. He also doesn’t apologize.

“Let’s just go in. I’ll know more when I get in there and see him for myself. Paper is just paper. It’s meaningless to me.”

“You’re the boss,” Clay relents, though not seeming too happy about it.

They walk up the ramp and through the diner’s front doors. After a sharp left turn and a few steps, Liam sees the object of his curiosity seated across from Valery in a booth along the windows overlooking the parking lot.

Liam’s breath catches. As real, true pain blooms in his chest, a small sound of soul-crushing despair emits from back in his throat. Clay grips Liam by the elbow to steady him, hissing under his breath at Liam’s ear, “This is why you needed to be prepared for—”

“Shut up,” Liam manages, sounding choked with emotion. “You don’t know what I need.”

Timothy was sandy-haired and the boy in the booth has raven-black hair, but Liam sees a resemblance despite the more obvious differences. It’s not a matter of features or clothing, it goes deeper than that. They are both so desperately young, with an air of easily-shattered innocence and a more intangible, but no less noticeable, lack of something needed to know one has a future beyond the gutters and alleyways.

“You must be Aaron. I’m Liam,” he says, extending a hand.

“Oh, hey, nice to meet you,” Aaron says with a tentative glance to Valery and then Clay before giving Liam a crooked smile. “I mean... I should say thank you. Thank you, Liam.”

“Not necessary. This is an agreement, right? We help each other out. That’s how it works.”

Liam sits and lets Clay slide in next to him. They place their food order.

Aaron was picked up for loitering a few weeks back, and, after asking around at the local shelters, Clay discovered the boy’s homelessness. On closer investigation, and inquiries with some reliable sources, Clay learned Aaron’s age—seventeen—and that he had begun to associate with a group of young men that were known by local police to prostitute themselves for cash and drugs. After learning this, Clay had a little one-on-one conversation with Aaron about where his life was headed. It was soon crystal clear that Aaron was a victim of circumstances, not a lack of common sense. He didn’t want to become that which he was about to become; he simply saw no other options. Hunger was a real problem. The shelters were sometimes full, leaving him to the mercy of the streets nights on end. Without an address or clean clothes, he stood no chance of being employed. So, Clay, through Liam, gave Aaron an option.

Wanting to reach across the table and grab Aaron by the hands, to hold him there, a real incarnation of his own lost childhood and discarded dreams, Liam swallows his tears and his rage, and says, “Let me tell you a little about myself.”

He starts at the beginning—his foster homes—and those people, essentially strangers, who gave him a bed and a real shot at life. They are something he will always be grateful for, but the system isn’t perfect. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. Eighteen-year-olds need help too. Liam tells Aaron about Timothy and himself, the paths to death and ruin that each of them took and why. If not for the silent screaming behind Liam’s eyes, Aaron might not have believed Liam, but he sees, and he feels the yearning that comes through the story.

“This is the deal,” Liam says earnestly. “You get a place of your own, your own apartment. I’ll keep the kitchen stocked with groceries. And, in turn, you work for me, doing maintenance on the building and tending to the property. You’ll still have plenty of time left over to get a job doing whatever it is that interests you, as long as it’s legitimate. You’ll have Valery, Clay and myself only a phone call away whenever you need to talk, for advice, or whatever. You get six months to lock down employment, and then we’ll re-evaluate. The idea is to eventually get you established earning income, and stable enough to not need my help any more. But you’ve gotta play by the rules, or the deal’s off. One of us will meet with you every week to see how you’re getting along. You’re not alone.”

Valery is watching Liam intently, and he can sense that it would be bad to meet her eyes, lest his emotion bubble over again, as hers is about to. Aaron is focused on his hands as they pick at the wrapper of his straw. Their food arrives and the starvation Aaron has been suffering from lights his young face as a huge, heaping platter is set before him. Then he looks up at Liam. For a second there’s vertigo. Aaron is Timothy. He’s Liam too, and so many other boys that are now lost. Then he’s just Aaron again.

“So, what do you think?”

Aaron pushes past the shame, the defiance born of naiveté and pride, the gnawing in his empty stomach, and the guilt at what he’s been tempted to do. He pulls himself up in the seat, straightening. He clears his throat and extends his right hand over the table laden with steaming food. “I won’t let you down. That’s what I think. Just give me a chance.”

“Okay,” Liam smiles, shaking hands with him, trying to radiate strength and hope through the brief contact. “It’s a deal.”

When Liam returns to the apartment, he’s surprised to see that Yasha isn’t waiting with Jacen like he’s supposed to be. Jacen is alone, sitting sideways on the couch by the window in the living room with one leg propped on the cushion, staring at his fingernails.

Before even bothering to say hello, his key still wedged in the door’s bolt lock, Liam stands half-inside the apartment and frowns. “Where’s Yasha?”

Jacen raises his head to look at his husband, and at first he doesn’t say anything, just reflects resigned, dark restlessness. At least the stitches and the bruises are mostly gone, Liam thinks dully. “He’s on his way home,” Jacen mutters, then goes back to examining his nails. It’s been so long now since he worked at the bistro that his nails are clean and neat once more, like when he was still a prostitute. He doesn’t like it.

“Dammit, we talked about this! You shouldn’t be on your own! The whole point of Yasha coming up here today was so that I could get this meeting handled without having a fucking coronary worrying about you!”

Jacen reaches for a nearby bottle of water on the coffee table, upends it and drinks. The bottle goes back on the coaster and he locks eyes with his husband. Calmly, softly, he asks, “You done? Because if you want to keep screaming at me, I’ll wait.”

With a scoff and a shake of his head, hurt and still carrying around a head full of memories of Timothy and homelessness, Liam hisses, “Fuck you.” He yanks his keys from the door, drops them on a nearby chair and storms off to the bedroom, slamming it closed behind him.

Jacen rolls his eyes, at himself, at the situation, and watches the bedroom door, imagining Liam behind it, angry and closing off. The easiest out for Liam is always to run or hide, and when he’s pushed, no matter how far he’s come since L.A., that will be the course he instinctively takes. Jacen is actually a little proud of Liam for the ‘fuck you.’ Before, he wouldn’t even have gotten that. Hell, before Jacen wouldn’t have gotten the slightest hint Liam was angry, it would all be bottled, stored away under a careful facade.

The problem, for Jacen, is clear. The apartment isn’t safe. Not anymore. And it will never be safe, no matter how many bars he installs on the windows or whatever fancy security system they rig up. The memories are what taint it, and those are impossible to dispel for good. But what do they do, he wonders? Run again? To what? From what? This is their home now. This is all they have.