Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/10529904.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural_RPF
  Relationship:
      Jared_Padalecki/Original_Male_Character(s)
  Character:
      Jared_Padalecki, Jeffrey_Dean_Morgan, Original_Male_Character(s)
  Additional Tags:
      Suicidal_Thoughts, Knifeplay, Necrophilia, Graphic_Description, Obsessive
      Behavior, Underage_Sex, Extremely_Dubious_Consent, Size_Kink, Unsafe_Sex,
      Blood_Kink, Blood_and_Gore
  Collections:
      Fuckpig_Verse
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-04-03 Words: 10471
****** that long-forgotten song ******
by dollylux
Summary
     jared visits daniel in georgia.
Notes
     this story will not be for everybody. please read the warnings
     carefully and know that each of them is meant, bolded and underlined.
     in the second half of this story, jared has dubcon sex with a 12-
     year-old boy.
     for my ladybug. another blood offering, my darling. <3
     title from 'synesthesia' by afi.
the last red rose
 
“It doesn’t even hurt.”
Jared watches as Daniel bleeds, red like rubies seeping from his eyes.
Sacrilege. Virgin Mary. Jesus on the cross the way his palms and wrists ooze
crimson so deep it’s nearly black, but through it all he’s smiling. Smiling
right at Jared, milky blue eyes trained on him under heavy lashes. Sleepy boy
smiles.
“Are you sure?” Jared asks, stupidly.
“Mm,” Daniel hums, settling back against the ground, against the blood-drenched
grass, against the dirt now mixing with red, the earth fighting to absorb it.
There’s just so much of it. His eyes fall closed, long lashes against the
bruise-colored haunt beneath them. He takes a deep breath that leaves him
slowly. “I’m sure. I’m just so tired.”
Jared stays crouched beside him, blood pooling around his boots, soaking into
his jeans. How can one person have so much blood?
“Do you want me to--” he starts.
“Hold me,” Daniel says, stealing thoughts, his smile stretching and stretching
until his corpse-pale lips start to crack, and red seeps through like it had
been there under the surface, just waiting. Red on the tongue that slides out
to soothe over them. Mouthful of lifeblood. He doesn’t choke, doesn’t
acknowledge the overflow. Jared feels his hands trembling, quiet like an
aftershock.
Curling up around Daniel isn’t even a decision.
His waist is smaller than Jared’s arms remember, but he smells the same.
Cigarettes and blood, the barely-warm of a premature baby. Jared nestles in,
closes his eyes, and lets the rush of blood surround him, cover him. Drown him.
Finally.
“We’re here.”
A hard elbow makes contact with his junkie ribs, and he startles awake,
reaching for the knife clipped to his belt before his eyes even open.
“What?” he snaps, his heartbeat steady even as his hand closes around the knife
handle, thumbing the strap keeping it in its sheath.
“I said we’re here,” the trucker says, killing the engine of his semi and
pulling a crusty old Tennessee Vols cap over his balding head. “Now, I don’t
know about you, but I’m gonna go take a piss, eat some steak and eggs, and get
me some pussy. I don’t really give a shit what you decide to do, but this is
where you get off, kid.”
Jared lifts his sunburned arm up off the open window and drags a hand through
the mess of his shoulder-length hair. He squints outside at the truckstop, at
the stretch of highway beyond and the gentle rise of the mountains in the
distance.
Blairsville, Georgia.
“Whatever,” Jared mumbles, grabbing his backpack off the floorboard and opening
the door, using his long legs to jump down from the cab and touch down on the
dusty gravel with his trusty Docs. Fall is just now starting to seep in around
the edges in the northernmost jag of Georgia, so the breeze that cuts through
as the sun starts to sink low is a welcome reprieve from the heat of the day.
He bypasses the gas station because he’d spent his last dollar two states ago,
and his tired feet take his hollow body on down the road, scuffling in the
dirt, eyes down as he eats up first one mile, then two.
There’s nothing to this town but dollar stores and churches, junked-out trailer
parks and bruise-eyed mamas, the whole place smelling of spilled beer and
roadkill and fried chicken, piles of discarded trash kicked up under Jared’s
heavy boots. A desolate shithole to live and die in, a place nobody remembers
and everybody tries their whole life to forget.
He has the address of the cemetery memorized, had looked at a map before
leaving Texas, and he finds himself there at the closed, rusted gate of it just
as darkness starts to fill in all the color, leaving Jared alone with the moon
and a fine spittle of stars under the clouds.
This is a different South than he’s used to, a wilder version of the one back
home in Texas. The mountains here look exhausted and ancient, slumped in a
permanent recline against the foothills with green that goes on forever and
ever, amen. There are creatures furrowing in the dark beyond the boneyard;
quiet, secret sounds of rabbits and deer and all the other hunted creatures of
the night.
He’d had that dream, too; the night before Daniel died. His hungry-eyed boy
stepping light as fae in some overgrown forest, silent so nothing with claws
could find him, nothing with teeth that eat pale throats for dinner.
Something’d gotten to him anyway. Red and red and red, once again.
He should’ve known it was gonna end in blood, he muses, mouth twisting up in a
mirthless smirk as he chews at the rawness inside his cheek. It’s as perfect as
a story, careful with foreshadowing. There was never any other way for Jared
and Daniel to end.
Jared hooks a long-boy leg over the side of the creaky fence and hauls himself
over, landing on his feet like a cat in the silent graveyard.
Most kids his age are at home on a Monday night like this. Doing homework,
watching MTV, sucking their boyfriend’s dick. Jared had decided not to go back
when school started four days after Daniel died, had decided that institutions
had taught him just about enough, and he was ready to learn on his own.
He hadn’t counted on his mama’s broken heart, on Dad’s quiet fury. It’s like
they’d thought all along that Jared had been normal, somehow. That this was out
of the clear blue sky, that he wasn’t just born wrong and grown up in the
twisted, gnarled way that nature had intended from the start.
Well, maybe it was time for Mama and Dad to learn, too.
It’s easy to spot among the neglected graves. It’s bright and gleaming like
bone in the moonlight while the other headstones dull and disintegrate under
dirt and years of no one caring about the rot beneath. Daniel Llewellyn
Hawthorne, just buried last week, is sleeping eternal beneath a fresh, curved
mound of red clay dirt.
Sixteen years, five months, and nineteen days old when he’d drawn his last
breath. But Daniel had been a ghost long before he’d been buried. Long before
Jared had seen him in the hallway the first time and his heart had claimed him,
right then.
White flowers crown the headstone, funereal scents of lilies and chrysanthemums
and snow-white roses filling the air, masking any scent of decay on the jut-
bone September night. Jared had always loved those smells, flower smells,
scents meant for girls. Daniel’s favorite had been roses, and he’d smelled like
them in the most unexpected places, in his pinkest places.
Jared’s knees meet the hard ground, his hair falling dirty and ignored all
around his sunken face. Twelve days. Twelve days since he’d sipped his last
offering from Daniel’s veins, since Daniel’s last, sighed-out breath, since
Jared’s entire life stopped. Changed. He’s different now; a whole other beast
than he was before. He knows, after the grey days that followed, that it’s just
who he is now. There’s no going back.
He tucks his long hands into the dirt and curls down until his forehead is
resting on the mound. Cicadas sound off from the woods nearby, singing their
dying summer song as Jared’s fingers curl in the dirt, holding hands with the
boy six feet beneath.
Daniel had big hands for such a delicate body, all spindly-long and bony
knuckles and ripped-low fingernails. He used to tear and tear at his nails
until they bled, and then he’d start in on Jared’s.
Jared’s nails have already started to grow back, all of Daniel’s precious
teethmarks disappearing as his fingernails round out, adjusting to life after
Daniel like the rest of him.
“I just,” Jared mumbles against the dirt, tasting earth on his tongue, watering
it into mud with the tears that slip unnoticed from his eyes. He swallows, his
dry throat clicking, and tries again. “I don’t know why I came down here. Fuck,
I don’t know what I’m doing here. There’s nothing here for me. Not even you.
You’re not really here, are you?”
A rustle of leaves in the trees all around is all the answer he gets, the chill
in the air making him curl in even tighter, Daniel’s hoodie dragged tight
around him. He hasn’t taken it off since.
“I miss you. I just… fuck, babe.” His eyes squeeze shut tight, his chin
trembling as he digs his forehead hard against the pile of dirt, the tip of his
nose buried in it. “I j-just miss you. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know
what you want me to do.”
He’d come up with an answer of his own days ago, back when he’d realized where
he was headed, where he would end up: here. Right here.
There’s a gun in his backpack with two bullets in it: one for anyone who tried
to fuck with him, and one for tonight.
For him.
He fumbles with the bag, shaking fingers tugging on zippers until it’s open,
rummaging around until he touches cool metal. The gun feels enormous in his
hands, unfathomably huge in its power, its inflicting permanence. He thumbs the
safety off and closes his lips into a kiss on the dirt.
“Is this what you want?” he whispers, tucking the gun against his temple, his
whole body going limp as something very much like relief courses through him.
“Is this what you want from me?”
An ambulance siren shatters the silence, erupting into the night like a shriek.
Jared jumps, the gun falling from his hand and landing on the mound with a
quiet thud. He lifts up and cranes around to watch the ambulance fly by, lights
bouncing off headstones as his heart races in his throat.
He sighs, shoving his hand into the dirt again, closing it into a fist this
time and yanking it out, pulling a handful of dirt with him. The pile shifts
and resettles in his wake, and he watches, fascinated. Another hand shoved in,
another fist of dirt. The mound grumbles with his disturbance, dirt toppling
easily.
It’s so easy.
He goes in with both hands now, putting his whole, exhausted body into it as he
starts to dig, the gun falling at some point and thumping against his knee.
Yes, his heart sighs. Yes, keep going.
He digs and digs, piling dirt up all around the hole he’s unearthing again, and
there’s nothing in his mind for a blissful half hour, nothing at all. He comes
to a couple of feet down, breathing hard as his newly-ripped nails bleed and
sweat stings his eyes and soaks into his layers of clothes.
There’s gotta be something around here.
He staggers through the graveyard and follows the shaky chainlink fence to a
small white shed rotting in the back corner. He lifts the rusted hook from the
eye and pries it open, fumbling around inside until he comes back with a shovel
twice as old as he is, caked with dirt but it’s good enough for him.
Time blurs again as he falls into the rhythm of digging, his muscles burning,
whole body shaking with exhaustion, but it all falls away the second the shovel
touches something hard, something wooden.
He throws the shovel up to the surface and starts in with his hands again,
crouched like a man possessed as he kicks and shoves dirt away, not stopping
until the top of the casket is clear.
It’s a shitty, cheap coffin, barely more than a pine box. Jared grits his teeth
and curses Daniel’s piece of shit of a mother, curses himself for not doing
something about this himself, somehow. Making sure Daniel had better than this.
He deserves better than this.
The hunting knife at his waist is sturdy and long, and he wedges it between the
box and the lid and works for a good half hour on prying it open until finally,
finally it gives way.
Daniel is there, serene and soft, paler than life, his hair long and tucked
behind his ears, settling around his shoulders. He’s dressed in a suit for
Easter Sundays, a striped blue and white tie that makes him look like a little
boy. Jared stays crouched there on the rim, his hand gripped tight and
trembling on the creaky lid.
He’s missed him so much.
The coffin is small, slim for a nothing boy like Daniel, but Jared’s scrawny,
too. Skinnier than he used to be now that he doesn’t eat more than he has to.
He pushes the lid until it stays up on its own and carefully lowers himself
down into the casket, nudging at Daniel to make room along his left side, just
like they used to in bed.
It’s hard to move him, impossible that his little body weighs so much, but
Jared manages. He settles in along Daniel’s side, out of breath and exhilarated
beyond anything he’s ever felt before.
“What are you wearing?” he whispers, propping up onto his elbow and reaching
over, loosening Daniel’s tie and pulling it off, unbuttoning the crisp white
shirt underneath it to reveal his smooth, milk-pale chest, the beginnings of
the incisions made above both nipples. Jared slides his hand into the shirt and
strokes over the stitches, over his soft, babypink nipples, his eyes falling
closed as he lowers down and wraps the other arm around him, propping his head
up beneath it.
The smell of decay and embalming fluid is cloying, sickly sweet, a scent not
altogether unpleasant when he’s looking at his beautiful boy, his broken doll
with his full mouth and pale lashes that glow translucent in the moonlight. He
tucks his nose into his hair and strokes over Daniel’s sunken belly, pinky
dipping into his navel.
“You didn’t let me say goodbye,” he says against Daniel’s ear, his eyes burning
again with tears as his fingers curl to grip the skin of his tummy, wishing he
could bruise him again, like he used to, the way Daniel liked. He pushes his
face hard against his, nose digging into his cheek, mouth against his jaw.
The scent of death will never leave him now. Not ever.
“I wish you would’ve told me. I wish I’d known. I would’ve been there. I woulda
held you in the bathtub, if that’s what you really wanted. Just so you
wouldn’t’ve been alone. So you wouldn’t have been scared.”
He’s crying now, really crying, salt soaking into dead skin that’s cold as
stone. He doesn’t realize he’s holding the knife again until it’s pressing to
his own wrist, his hand steady for once as he digs the tip in and slices clean
and careful across.
His breath leaves him in soft, gasping hiccups, crying like he’s a little boy
again as he presses his wrist to Daniel’s lax mouth, blood pouring down the
sides of it and staining his hair, his nice, clean shirt.
“I could’ve given you this. Could’ve been inside of you while you did it. Just
one last time. I just needed you one last time.”
A horrifying whine starts up low in his throat as he kisses a long drip of his
own blood on Daniel’s neck, tongue stealing out to lick up to his jaw, to his
chin, wrist falling away so he can get at his mouth.
He’s so hard in his jeans that it nearly takes his breath, and he presses in
roughly against Daniel’s side, making it this-side of cruel love, just like he
used to. For Daniel.
He sucks on his bottom lip, lapping up the blood pooled there in his sealed
mouth that’s been wired shut. He runs his tongue over his slick teeth, growling
as he sinks his teeth into first his top lip and then the bottom one, not
letting himself bite down like he wants to, rip like he’s craving.
Fuck me like I’m dead.
The coffin creaks and shifts on the vault as he lifts up and moves down to
Daniel’s feet, lifting his legs and forcing them apart to make room for himself
at the foot of the casket. He makes quick work of Daniel’s belt, the button of
his dress pants, the white Hanes underwear they’d put him in. He yanks them all
down to his knees and grunts with exertion as he lifts Daniel’s legs and lets
them rest on one of his shoulders, Daniel’s small, tight ass resting on the
tops of his thighs. He feels something like a plug in Daniel’s ass, and he
reaches down to fumble for it, gritting his teeth as he strains to pull it out,
toss it aside.
He stares down at Daniel’s bloody mouth, at his messy hair, at the expanse of
his frozen chest. The only sound in the night is Jared’s zipper, the rustle of
his clothes, spit hitting his palm.
There’s no question, no hesitation, and he keeps his eyes open when he forces
his way inside, nestling his cock into Daniel’s lax asshole, startled by the
inhuman lack of warmth. A shiver courses through his body, driving straight up
his spine as he lifts up onto his knees, grips Daniel’s starved thighs in his
hands, and starts to fuck into him.
He bites both of his lips to keep from moaning, and he tastes blood all over
again when he does, the flavor making him feel wild, like he’s barely in
control of himself, like he could do anything tonight, anything right here,
with his boy. His forever love.
Leaning back onto his haunches, Daniel’s thighs pushed up, there’s just enough
moonshine to break up the shadows between their bodies, letting Jared see it:
his favorite place in the whole entire world, where his too-big dick is forcing
Daniel open, where he’s nestled his heartbeat inside of him, put some life back
into Daniel, just for a little while.
“Beautiful,” he says so softly, a broken hymn, and it shakes all through him
and rips at his heart as he works himself in and out, savoring. Memorizing.
My love. My love.
He forces Daniel to bend in half so he can get close to him, kiss his blood red
mouth, press their foreheads together while he digs nasty and desperate inside
of Daniel’s immobile body. Closing his eyes, he can almost pretend this is part
of the game, that Daniel’s made himself cold, holding his breath so well,
playing the part to the hilt so they can both get off on the thought.
Daniel’s just playing dead. He’s just playing.
“Good boy,” Jared whispers as he kisses and sucks at his mouth, tears smearing
with blood on Daniel’s beautiful face, and Jared ravenously laps up every bit
of it. “That’s my good boy. Feel so fucking good for me. C’mon, wake up. Just
for a minute. J-Just for a minute, god. Please.”
He cuts off the whimper that starts in his throat, fighting against it as his
chin trembles and his arms wrap up tight, trying so hard to feel a single,
faint inhalation, the tiniest movement. He can hear the crickets and the wind
and the cars on the nearby highway up above as he grinds into him, and suddenly
swears he can feel Daniel moving under him, swears he feels the pressure of his
lips against his tongue, and just the thought, the glorious daydream of maybe,
maybe, maybe is enough. It’s perfect.
Jared comes inside of Daniel with a violence that would hurt a real boy, a
living boy, even Daniel, the whole casket shuddering on its platform, the lid
rocking and knocking against Jared’s shoulder. He lifts up and arches his back,
digging in as deep as he can get as his asshole pulses and his balls empty, his
cock flexing inside of his dead boyfriend for the very last time.
He yanks at Daniel’s shoes and his pants, pulling until he’s bare from the
waist down and Jared can spread his legs properly, fingers petting reverent and
tender over his own name carved on the inside of Daniel’s runway model thigh.
He settles in against him, on top of him, for once not worrying about giving
Daniel his whole weight, not fearing broken ribs or if his little bird can
breathe.
His hands find Daniel’s hair as he relaxes into kissing him again, blood
trickling from his left wrist and getting brushed into hair that’ll never grow
again, that will never be washed by Jared’s careful hands, that will never thin
out and fade to grey, that Jared would have adored until he died, a perverted
old man with an angel by his side. That’s what everybody would say, would have
called Daniel.
His cock softens inside of him, come trickling out and staining the cheap white
satin beneath. It feels like lifetimes that he stays right there, kissing and
nuzzling, the comfort of it unbearably beautiful and lulling himself down into
an exhausted sleep.
He wakes an hour or so before dawn, disoriented until his eyes adjust and his
body comes to, and he remembers. He’s slipped out of Daniel’s body while he
slept, and he tucks himself back into his jeans and lifts up, tears burning in
his eyes once again.
The sky lightens above as he dresses Daniel again, tucking him lovingly back
into his pants, buttoning his shirt, putting his jacket back on him because he
gets cold so easy. He’s always cold. He fixes his hair and finds his knife
again, gathering up a long fall of it and twisting it around his fingers,
cutting it off near Daniel’s scalp. He tucks the hair and the knife into the
sheath, panic already setting in for what he’s about to do. What he needs to
do.
He touches Daniel’s face, long fingers petting over his forehead, his eyebrows,
his long lashes, sweet little nose. His mouth. God, that mouth.
“You know I love you,” he tells him, thumb against his bottom lip, wishing he
could see his eyes again, wishing Daniel would give him that sad smile of his,
the only one he owned, just one last time. “You’ll be with me until the day I
die. I swear. Forever.”
It’s a vow in a sacred space, and he leans down to seal it with a final kiss to
Daniel’s full mouth, breathing in the sweet stench of death like he’s savoring
it. He doesn’t let himself look again, doesn’t glance back down as he climbs
out of the coffin and stands beside it, pulling the lid down closed again.
He glances up at the rectangle of lightening sky above, the faint shimmer of
birdsong surrounding the world waking up there. His heart thuds in his ears as
an impulse suddenly grabs him by the throat, pressing in until he can’t
breathe, until he finds himself staring at the dirt wall in front of him with
his hand at his waist, around the knife handle.
He can’t. He just fucking can’t. Can he?
Licks his lips, shifts on the concrete beneath. He lets five whole seconds go
by.
The lid creaks like a horror movie when he lifts it again, and Daniel is still
there, sleeping where Jared left him. He won’t mind. He wouldn’t hesitate to do
the same. He would love it.
Jared doesn’t climb in again, doesn’t give in to that particular temptation, to
the insatiable throb of his dick, just kneels down beside the coffin and
reaches in, massive hand braceleting Daniel’s emaciated wrist.
The death slices are stitched up, ghost-white beneath a neat, vertical series
of x’s that make light of the gashes Jared had seen on him that day, that
drained Daniel of nearly all of his lifeblood. He rubs his thumb down the line
of stitches, pushes in to feel the embalmed veins. The strap on the knife
sheath opens with a soft snap, the handle cold in his palm.
He presses the sharp blade just beneath the hard jut of wristbone, hand gripped
up tight on the middle of Daniel’s arm. He takes a deep breath, sets his jaw,
and starts to saw into the bone.
It takes longer than he thought it would, and it’s much more clinical without
the gush of blood or the scream that he keeps waiting to come from Daniel’s
blood-stained, quiet mouth, but he finally gets to the other side of Daniel’s
arm with the blade, and the hand falls off and into Jared’s own, their fingers
tangling together naturally.
He stares down at it, a smile pulling at his mouth as he rubs the pad of his
thumb along Daniel’s palm, bringing the hand up to his mouth to press a kiss to
the bony spread of his knuckles. He tucks the hand into his pocket, puts the
knife back up, and tucks Daniel’s handless arm back into the casket, along his
side. He gives him another goodbye kiss, forehead-nose-mouth-chin, goodbye, my
love, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, and then finally, finally, closes the coffin
for the last time.
He climbs out, his mind blank, shut down. He’s the only person who should ever
been allowed to bury Daniel. And he’ll be the last one to do it.
The white roses are turning brown, but he grabs the bouquet out of their
crystal vase anyway, spreading the flowers out and tossing them down into the
grave, smiling a little when he hears them hit the coffin. He would’ve filled
the casket with red roses, if he could have. Would have planted them in the
ground right over his grave, let it get consumed by them, by velvet red and
thorns and their soft perfume.
This’ll have to do.
He wraps the hand in an old Spacehog shirt and tucks it into his bag, right
beside the unused gun.
Filling the hole again takes until dawn, and he barely has the energy to return
the shovel to the shed and walk back into town. He collapses on a bench outside
a filling station, trembling from no food and losing so much blood, but he
knows Erica’s number by heart.
He pushes two quarters into the payphone beside him and dials the number
without standing up, praying she’s still at home, that she’s awake. She’s
always been there when he needs her; always.
“Hello?”
She sounds sleepy, worried. Probably saw where the call is coming from. Jared
rests his head against the glass window of the gas station and closes his eyes.
“I need you to come get me.”
 
---
the devil went down to georgia
Fuckpig’s next stop is in Savannah, one of Momo’s favorite cities. He talks
about ghosts all the way from Knoxville, ones that climb into bed with you like
a lover or stalk the hallways like your last night alive. Jared keeps quiet and
watches the Appalachian mountains roll along beside the bus, thinking of his
own ghost in Georgia.
Adri goes into the gas station just at the Tennessee-Georgia stateline to piss
and grab some Red Bulls, and Jared bails out with Jeff, not saying a word as
they light up cigarettes and watch Chad fill up the bottomless gas tank.
Jared can feel Jeff’s eyes on him, and maybe they’ve only known each other for
a few months, but there’s a connection between them, a wicked kindred spirit in
the guy texting a middle schooler and scratching his balls with a Kamel Red
dangling from his mouth. He keeps his gaze fixed on the Waffle House across the
highway and refuses to let his hand tremble as he flicks ash into sun-scorched
grass.
“How far away is he?” Jeff asks. Present-tense and everything. Jared’s veins
squeeze in sharp, thankful pain. He grits his teeth, takes a deep breath.
“Hour or so,” he replies, like it doesn’t matter. Like it’s not destroying him,
like it’s not something he thinks about every goddamn day. It’s harder though,
being here. Being so close. He shoots a quick glance over at Jeff and catches
his eyes.
“I’ve got a buddy that lives here. Mean ol’ sonuvabitch, but he’s got a truck
that’ll take you to the last fuckin’ day on earth. Bet he wouldn’t mind lettin’
you borrow it for a day or two.”
Jeff says it so casually, like Jared’s taking a quick jaunt to see the world’s
second biggest ball of twine and not his long-dead boyfriend’s grave. Jared
shifts from one foot to the other, taking a few seconds to reign it the fuck
in, to not let on how fucking much it means to him. He swallows with a dry
click and squints in the hot sun, fingers shaking a little as they brush his
bottom lip, cigarette following.
“Sounds good,” he manages on an exhale. Jeff nods, once and decided. He presses
a few buttons on his phone and saunters away, his low voice carrying tone but
not words back to where Jared waits, refusing to let tears touch him. Not now.
Not yet anyway.
 
Blairsville looks just the same as it did back in high school, the last time he
was here. Same starving, beaten-silent desolation, same empty storefronts and
overflow of churches and discount cigarette shacks, same hollow-eyed wraiths
wandering the sides of the road and haunting trashed front yards like a Romero
flick, meth-rot gapes where teeth used to be and filthy children playing way
too close to pock-marked roads.
No government anywhere gives a shit about this place.
Jared had found Daniel’s mama’s address a few years back, had thought about
coming down here and paying her a visit, maybe pissing in her flowerbed. He
pulls into the trailerpark now in a borrowed truck, trying not to make too much
eye contact with the bobblehead Jesus on the dash or the kids playing in the
gravel with dirty skin and hunger-swollen bellies, every single one of them
stopping to watch the rusted-out red Ford pickup slither through and come to a
stop in front of the most junked-out trailer in the park.
He knows, without question, this is the right one.
He hadn’t seen the boy on the front stoop until he stood up, but now he can’t
look anywhere else. His hair is stringy and unwashed, hanging down and touching
his bare, raw-boned shoulders, his collarbone jutting up like a model’s. He’s
shock-pale and so thin it’s amazing he has the energy to stand up at all, to
put one bare foot in front of the other, not wincing when he walks across the
gravel and comes to a stop next to Jared’s truck.
“You lost?” comes a country song twang, voice so soft Jared thinks maybe he
hallucinated it. He knows this boy, knows his face, knows his kiddie porn-pink
mouth and his translucent blue eyes and his haunt-white hair. Knows him
biblically, knows what his insides taste like. He swallows, wet-mouthed, and
licks his lips like a predator. His mouth feels full of canines.
Maybe he’s never had this boy, but there’s no way in hell he isn’t related to
Daniel.
“You live here?” he asks instead of giving any kind of real answer, arm draped
on the open window of the truck in studied ease. The boy shifts from one foot
to the other on the hot gravel, squinting up at Jared like he can size him up
if he looks hard enough. He can’t be more than ten.
“Yeh,” the boy replies, folding his arms over his chest and pulling his mouth
together in what Jared supposes is trying to be a frown, but ends up looking
like the sweetest little pout. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from
smiling. “I’m Caleb.”
These mountains shape that word in his mouth, southern to the last drop: cah-
ee-lub, slow like honey. The truck idles low like a throaty groan, and it’s too
hot for this boy to be outside, the world too bad a place for him to be all
alone here. And Jared should know.
“You wanna go get somethin’ to eat, Caleb?” He lets Texas round out his own
words, making sure the boy knows he’s not some slick Yankee in a stolen truck
who cruises slums for little boys. He’s just as much of a redneck as this child
is in so many ways, and the prize of a middle school boy climbing up into the
truck on the bench seat beside him is nothing more than happenstance.
They amble out of the trailerpark, past the kids who watch them go with those
bright, silent eyes of theirs, and Caleb doesn’t speak until they’re out on the
road, Bob Seger yowling heartache from the tinny speakers.
“Why you bein’ nice to me?”
No shoes, no shirt, nobody to miss this child. Jared feels the hot rush of
blood through his juicy black heart.
“I’m not from around here,” he says after awhile, letting the song transition
into commercials and the boy get just a little nervous. “I need help finding a
graveyard, and I’ll get you a burger if you help me out. Sound good?”
Caleb nods, fast and hungry, skinny fingers plucking at the sun-rotted seal on
the open window. He stares out at the passing town for as long as he can stand
it before he turns those ghost-boy eyes on Jared.
“And you’ll take me back home?”
One side of Jared’s mouth twitches. They pass Day of Grace Baptist Church, the
sign out front stark and glaring right at him: The kisses of sin will kill your
soul.
“Promise,” he replies. He turns up the radio when the low churn of “Enter
Sandman” starts up, and Caleb relaxes back against the dusty seat. Jared
glances over, eyes catching on his tiny pink-milk tits. He grinds his teeth.
“Put your seatbelt on.”
Caleb obeys without question, a trait Jared takes note of and savors, not
bothering to hide it when he adjusts himself in his pants.
 
They slide into a bench at some diner Caleb points out, and Jared lets the boy
order whatever he wants, not even flinching when he gets a bacon cheeseburger,
chili fries, fried okra, and a cherry Coke the size of his tiny arm. He digs
into his pot roast and potatoes and watches Caleb gorge himself, stuffing fries
into his mouth while he’s still chewing, his eyes wide as a stray dog, his
ballerina body curled up protectively around his various plates.
“Where’re your parents?” he asks when Caleb finally slows down, his mouth
stained with chili and ketchup, the waitress wandering over to bring him a
second soda.
“Mama’s at work at the laundromat. She works down at Last Chance of the night.”
He wipes his mouth on a dirty napkin, not even reacting when Jared reaches for
the dispenser and hands him a clean one.
Mama’s a stripper. She’s gotta be pretty, especially if she had two boys who
look like Daniel and Caleb.
“And your Daddy?” He nurses an iced tea sweet enough to curl his lips, his
fingers twitching to reach over and tuck all that long white hair behind the
boy’s ears, to brush it out until it’s soft as cornsilk. His hand finds his
dick again under the table and starts up a slow, lazy massage.
Caleb scowls, full petal mouth pursing as he glares at the cherries in the
bottom of his Coke.
“Don’t got no daddy,” he says, swirling his straw around, ice clinking in foggy
plastic. “And anyway, me’n Mama do just fine. It don’t matter none.”
“Any brothers or sisters?” It’s the question he’s been wanting to ask, but he
says it just as casual as anything else he’s said to the boy, thumbing at the
thick ring of metal shoved through his cockhead in his faded black jeans, his
eyes fox-flicked and trained on the little boy he’s fattening up across the
table.
“I had a brother once. A long time ago.” Caleb sounds sad, too old to be so
young, and Jared feels a sentimental tug on his heart for what a boy who can’t
be more than ten would consider a long time.
“What happened to him?” He watches the waitress start over from the corner of
his eye.
“Mama said he died. I was real little, so I don’t ‘member much. He lived
somewhere else. Texas or somethin’. I got summa his clothes and stuff. And his
old tape collection.” Caleb glances up at Jared thoughtfully. “You ever heard
of The Cure?”
The fist around Jared’s heart squeezes, hard.
“Yeah,” he manages. The waitress stops at the table. Jared can’t seem to take a
full breath. “I have.” He glances up at her, pulling his wallet out and handing
her his credit card. “And bring him a strawberry shake.”
“Oh, I’m plum full, mister. I don’t think I can--”
“You can have a couple of sips,” Jared insists, not catching the odd look the
waitress gives him before walking away. “And you can call me Jay.”
Caleb smiles at him for the first time, and it’s such an unknown sight on such
a hauntingly familiar face that Jared has to fight off tears.
“Thanks for dinner, Jay. We don’t got nothin’ to eat at the house. I don’t
think I ever eat that much in my whole life!”
Their waitress slides a strawberry shake in front of Caleb and a receipt and a
pen in front of Jared. He signs without looking away from Caleb, from his pink
tongue poking at the red straw coming up out of his shake.
“Bring him a to-go cup for it,” he tells her, passing off the ticket and
licking his lips when Caleb’s cheeks hollow out for his first good suck.
“Good?”
Happy boy-blue eyes find him as a mouth he’d serve a life sentence for gets
creamier and rosier. He nods, not pausing in his steady slurping of sweet,
frozen strawberry milk.
 
It’s close to sunset when they pull onto the dirt road leading to the cemetery,
and Jared turns off the truck, letting the stirring, living quiet of a summer
evening spill into the truck.
“Why you wanna come here?” Caleb asks quietly, still nursing at his shake, now
in a syrofoam cup. Jared stares across the jagged teeth headstones in the
pitiful little graveyard, finding Daniel’s like a bloodhound and not looking
away from it for a long moment.
“Somebody I used to know is buried here.” They’re hard words to give away, too
much truth, and he shifts in his seat, tearing his eyes from the dead in the
distance to look over at the scrawny boy at his side.
“Girlfriend?” Caleb mumbles around the straw he’s chewing flat.
“Boyfriend,” Jared corrects, savoring the wide-eyed stare he gets from Caleb
then.
“You’re a queer?” the boy asks, swallowing the melted cream he’d been holding
in his mouth.
“Probably one of the queerest ever.” Jared raises an eyebrow and grins at him,
sharp as a wolf, and it makes Caleb laugh.
“Mama said my brother was a queer. He got in trouble one time cause-a Patrick
Shelby across the way. Patrick used to let my brother watch him and his
girlfriend doin’ it. Mama found them out behind the dumpsters one night with
Daniel suckin’ on Patrick’s thing. She tanned his hide!”
Hearing Daniel’s name out loud, in this sweet little boy’s mouth, is enough to
gut him.
“Who told you that?” he asks, the words abraded, thin.
“Patrick,” Caleb admits, falling into an uneasy quiet for a minute. He shifts
on the seat, careful not to look at Jared. “He makes me do it, too. But I only
do it when Mama’s not home. Patrick comes over to our trailer cause he’s got
him a family now. Three little boys. We only got one room, and I share a bed
with Mama, but Patrick don’t mind.”
“I bet he doesn’t,” Jared murmurs.
“I’m twelve!” Caleb says defiantly, sitting up a little straighter in the seat
and finally looking over at Jared. “He says if I can do long division, I’m old
enough to make a man feel good.”
Jared looks over then, catching Caleb’s eye. The boy doesn’t look away.
“Can you do long division?” he asks.
Caleb nearly preens.
“I’m real good at math,” he promises.
Jared feels that low, delicious ache he gets when he’s about to do something
illegal.
“You ever seen a pierced dick?” He pulls slowly at his belt, watching Caleb’s
eyes lower and stay. He shakes his head, slow and spellbound. Jared turns in
the seat and leans back against the door, eyes trained on Caleb’s face as he
works down his zipper and pulls himself out, taking a deep breath and letting
it out in a relieved sigh when his cock slaps up against his belly, shirt
tugged up to show off the furry line of his happy trail.
“You’re so big,” Caleb breathes. He moves closer without being prompted, cup
still clutched in his hand. Jared reaches down to wrap long fingers around his
cock, hefting it up from his belly and giving it a few lazy tugs, watching the
tip ooze out slick, just for Caleb.
“Take a sip of your shake and suck on it a little.” He holds it out to Caleb,
the 8-gauge ring glistening with precome, and just the piercing is about as big
as the boy’s little doll mouth. But Caleb, every inch Daniel’s little brother,
obeys without question, taking a hurried drink of his milkshake and shuffling
forward, nervous eyes flicking between Jared’s face and his cock before he
lowers down and wraps careful lips around the head, trying his best not to
dribble melted shake all over.
Jared shivers hard at the sharp bite of cold on his dick, his head falling back
out the open truck window and into the warm night air, his Adam’s apple bobbing
hard as he swallows.
“Fuck,” he gruffs, one paw coming down on the top of Caleb’s head, tangling in
the nest of his hair and staying there. Caleb whimpers, slurping as best he can
and swallowing the contents of his mouth in a big gulp, his knowing little
tongue wiggling against Jared’s slit as he tries so very hard to take more than
the tip into the delicious heat of his mouth. He pulls off with a gasp, making
Jared shiver again as air hits his wet cock.
“Was that--”
“Do it again,” Jared instructs, nodding at the shake, big fingers brushing at
his messy hair, tucking it behind hot-tipped ears like he’s been dying to do
all afternoon. Caleb sucks in more shake and takes Jared into his mouth with
more confidence this time, almost immediately gagging when Jared gives him an
experimental tug down, his PA hitting the back of the boy’s throat as he coughs
milkshake all over his dick. It slimes down the long length of it and down his
balls, and Caleb’s cheeks are red hot when he lifts up, looking at Jared in
tearful shame.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, wiping his mouth off on his arm and sniffling.
“It’s just so big, and--”
“Lick it up,” he cuts in, keeping his voice quiet, firm but with very little
threat. He pulls his jeans down some more, getting some room to spread his
thighs and let Caleb’s eager tongue get at his balls. He groans, arching his
back and rocking up into the bath like a cat, cradling the base of Caleb’s
skull in the cup of his hand but not pushing him anymore. He doesn’t want to
scare him off this early.
Caleb likes this game, is natural as a kitten with his deft little licks, and
he’s making some beautiful little humming sounds as he laps at Jared’s slit
again, teeth clicking against the metal curved there. Jared thumbs over his
warm cheek and the baby-round of his jaw, silently ordering him to look up.
“You ever let anybody fuck you?”
He feels the heat flood Caleb’s face, feels the rabbit-kick of his heart in his
tender throat where his hand is now stroking, slow and careful. Caleb shakes
his head quick to get the confession over with, his throat bobbing under
Jared’s loose grip as he swallows.
Jared reaches down with his left hand to give his dick a couple of appeasing
strokes, using little boy spit to ease the way as he lifts Caleb closer with
the hand around his neck.
“Are you gonna be a good boy for me and take all your clothes off and get in
the bed of the truck while I look for something to make it hurt less?” He
squeezes, just a very little, and he feels Caleb try to gasp. He nods, his eyes
wet in the growing dark, glistening just as much as his dick and strawberry-
soaked mouth.
“Yessir,” he whispers, his voice trembling. They stare at each other with only
the barest of inches between them, Caleb’s legs stretched wide in his awkward
splay on Jared’s lap.
“Get your hand on my dick,” Jared breathes, nestling their foreheads together,
his tongue sliding out to lick at Caleb’s slack mouth. Caleb does, fingers not
meeting as he grips up under the thick head, unsure and shy. Jared lifts his
hips, pushing up into the barely-there grip, his hand in a bruising clutch on
Caleb’s jaw as he pulls him in and licks into his panting mouth.
“Good boy,” he groans, his own hand rubbing hard at the bulging fullness of his
balls, hoping the boy has some of his pubes stuck in his teeth. He opens the
door, the overhead light brightening the cabin, and he moves his hand from
Caleb’s throat to under his arm to heft him out of his lap and into the sun-
scorched grass. “Clothes off. There’s some blankets back there. Get on ‘em.”
He knows a sick fuck like Randy keeps something in here to fuck little boys
with, and he grins when he rummages through the bullets and mustard packs in
the glove compartment and finds a well-used tub of Vaseline.
The truck squeaks on its hinges when he climbs out and stalks to the bed of it
where he can see only a hint of pale, underage limbs, hear the quiet rustle of
denim on skin and then nothing. Jared spares a quick glance around at the
abandoned boneyard, knowing nobody comes here after dark, especially not to
this dark corner where they unload bodies.
He climbs into the bed of the truck and starts working on his boots, loosening
them up just enough to yank them off, his filthy jeans following right after.
He sheds his shirt and tugs his hair out of its loose bun, letting it finally
fall feral and long around his face when he crawls over to where Caleb is
sprawled on dirty wool army blankets that probably scratch up his delicate skin
and don’t feel like the bed of roses this darling boy deserves for his first
time.
Jared realizes as he’s popping the lid off the Vaseline and scooping out a glob
of it that he’s absolute shit at giving boys good first times.
“Spread your legs for me,” he says, moving in close and grabbing a skinny ankle
in his left hand, hauling Caleb’s legs whore-wide and rubbing at his precious
little asshole with a generous amount of slick. Caleb tenses up, trying to pull
his knees together and shift away from Jared’s insistent fingers, but he just
tightens his grip on his ankle and pulls him close again, gritting his teeth as
he forces two fingers in immediately, not stopping until they’re nestled in
virgin heat and Caleb is whimpering, cold, curled toes pulling at the hair on
Jared’s thigh.
“Hurts,” he mumbles, tears in his voice, but Jared doesn’t respond, doesn’t do
anything but close his eyes and imagine his insides, imagine all the red of his
beautiful, untouched cunt, imagine the way it throbs and trembles when Jared
works him open, forcing him to give in, kneading and stretching until there’s a
third finger and Caleb is gasping in deep, sucking lungfuls, leg kicking fitful
and useless in Jared’s bruising hand.
A glance down tells Jared that Caleb’s little candy cock is completely soft,
tiny and pink and flopping against his well-fed belly. He turns his hand inside
of him and brushes up, baring his teeth and closing his throat around a growl
when Caleb jolts beneath him, arching up hard and grinding down against Jared’s
hand, completely helpless to do anything else.
“Feel good?” he asks, letting go of his ankle to dip into the Vaseline again,
slathering up his dick and spreading out on top of him while he fucks him soft
with long, unrelenting fingers. Caleb nods, his eyes wide in the near dark and
staring at Jared in awe, everything about him open now, his fingers clasped
around Jared’s forearm, petting at him in a distracted, gentle way that makes
Jared fall more than a little in love.
“Now this is gonna hurt,” he starts, forcing Caleb’s shivering, starved thighs
to clutch at his hips as he rubs the pierced head of his cock against his
asshole. “But I want you to not scream, if you can help it. Bite me, if you
have to. But try to keep quiet, you hear me?”
Caleb is so tense he’s shaking, his nails digging into Jared’s arm at just the
threat of his cock, just the touch of metal on a place never meant to take
something this big. Jared spreads his legs, digging his knees into the scratch
of blankets, and watches in obsessive hunger when he forces his way into
Caleb’s neglected scrap of a body, savoring the stunned, eviscerating terror
that takes over his lovely face.
He’s only halfway in before Caleb’s body simply stops him from going any
further, and Caleb is crying as quietly as he can, soft, damp hiccups spilling
into the evening as the sky blazes with watercolors overhead and Jared falls
into his most beautiful memory above him.
“Shh,” Jared breathes, lowering down and arching up a bit, his chest just above
Caleb’s trembling mouth. “C’mon. Bite me as hard as you can. As hard as it
hurts.”
Caleb leans up like an infant and latches on, biting at Jared’s nipple so hard
it actually shocks him. He doesn’t hold in the growl this time, just shifts on
top of him and forces his way in deeper, only stopping when Caleb screams
around his mouthful of flesh, nails digging into Jared’s biceps and drawing
blood.
“That’s enough,” he promises, pulling out just a little and easing back in,
going as slow as his body will let him, using his hips to curl and dig so he
doesn’t have to move much, not yet. He dislodges Caleb from his chest and knows
he’s bleeding there, too, the knowledge bringing a smile to his face as he
leans down and licks into the boy’s mouth, kissing him as best as he can while
Caleb gasps and writhes beneath him, not knowing yet how to kiss back.
“Breathe,” Jared soothes, giving him more of his weight, making his thrusts a
little deeper, drawing the most exquisite shudders out of Caleb that make his
cunt shiver hot all around Jared’s cock. “That’s it. Just breathe and try to
relax. It’ll feel so much better when you do.”
“It c-can’t feel better,” Caleb sobs, the heels of his hands pushing at Jared’s
chest, his curled, dirty feet locked right up under Jared’s ass. “I think
you’re hurtin’ me. I think I’m gonna have to go to the hospital.”
“No, you won’t,” Jared smiles, his tongue sliding out to fuck at Caleb’s wet
mouth, so pleased when Caleb’s tongue lifts to touch his own, flicking shy and
demure at it. He reaches between them and wraps a hand around Caleb’s sweet
dick, his hand big enough to scoop his balls up in the same grip. He massages
at him as he stays still inside of him, throbbing in the suffocating tightness
as Caleb starts to suck on his tongue, working it like a slutty cam girl,
making the most delicious sounds when he finally starts to stiffen up in
Jared’s palm, leaking honey everywhere.
“Ohmygod,” Caleb shivers, his bony hips lifting as best as they can under
Jared’s massive, grinding body. The truck shrieks and whines when Jared starts
to really work him, putting power behind every thrust that makes Caleb cry out
into the dusk, his little belly bulged out with cock that is now completely
nestled inside of him, taking more dick than most men twice his size could
manage.
“Makin’ me feel so good. You’re doin’ so good, sweet boy. Takin’ me so fuckin’
good.” Sincere filth from behind gritted, bared teeth, and Caleb blossoms under
the praise, under the attention, his scrawny arms thrown around Jared’s head
like a little boy greets his daddy after a long day at work, and they’re
kissing for real now, kissing like they do this every night, like Caleb has
somebody he belongs to. Like Jared has someone who loves him.
He rubs Caleb’s dick until he drips out the most intense orgasm, his small body
seizing up under Jared, pale throat exposed to a beast as he shakes apart on
the punishing fuck of Jared’s cock, his thighs trembling against Jared’s hips.
Jared leans back, shedding the last scraps of decency and settling in to get
his dick wet.
He shoves Caleb over onto his stomach and yanks his hips up, twisting him
around on his dick until he’s got his face shoved in the blanket and Jared is
spread-legged around him, straddling his ass and gripping it in hands that seem
to want to tear the flesh right from his body. He bears down and lays into him,
fucking him so hard the truck bounces menacingly, the sounds of rutting echoing
in the quiet night.
Jared keeps a hand on Caleb’s head, shoving his face into the blanket so he
can’t scream too loud, the other one gripped so tight around Caleb’s tiny hip
that he feels the bones grind against his palm. He throws his head back, sweat
flying from his messy hair, his closed eyes facing the nearly full moon as he
drives in one final time, nestled into Caleb’s shredded guts and finally
letting go.
He shakes through it, filling up a space barely big enough to even hold his
cock, let alone all the come he’s unloading. Caleb’s asshole is swollen around
him, throbbing hot and fast, and he gushes out come when he strains, trying to
push Jared out.
“Hold on, hold on,” Jared pants, bracketing his body with his knees and elbows
digging into the bed of the truck, his mouth blowing cool air over Caleb’s back
and leaving kisses in his wake. He’s on borrowed time and he knows it; he’s
gotten away with too much in this town, and he’s never had much luck to speak
of.
“Please,” Caleb whispers, too soft to be anything but a plea. “Please, i-it
hurts so bad.”
Jared savors the last few seconds of being inside of him, his nose nestled into
the soft skin right behind his ear, the place where he smells just like Daniel,
and it occurs to him right then what he’s doing, who he’s inside of, that he
has this boy’s dead brother’s hand back on the bus in a sealed jar, and Caleb
will never, ever know who Jared really is.
He pulls out in a drenched, painful slurp, his dick truly looking like a
horsecock sliding out of such a small body. He settles back on his knees and
tries to catch his breath, shaky hands reaching out to help Caleb up.
The boy doesn’t look at him, just grabs his jeans and jumps out of the bed of
the truck, landing in the grass quietly. Jared follows but much more
sluggishly, dragging his own jeans on and leaving his boots and shirt in the
back. Caleb is leaning against the side of the truck, grasping at the rusted
surface like it can help him. Jared takes one look at him, at the trail of pink
cream slicking up his thin inner thighs, and he’s on his knees behind him.
He spreads his ass and dives in, tasting blood and come and the dirty insides
of an unwashed boy as he sucks him dry, tonguing his abused hole until he
tastes like nothing, until he’s raw and beard-burned and begging Jared to stop,
his tiny hole fluttering and helplessly gaped around his tongue.
Jared pulls back like a man falling out of a possession, staring at Caleb’s
spread ass, at his too-big hands holding him open, at the horror flick red of
his well-used hole. He licks his lips and swallows down the rest of his meal,
letting out one, final sigh before he stands up on shaky legs and lets the boy
go.
Caleb steps quickly into his jeans and yanks them up on his hips, his burning
cheeks streaked with tears as he rushes past Jared and opens the passenger
door, climbing up into the truck. Jared follows, his movements slow and
content, and he doesn’t start up the truck until he’s dug a cigarette out of
his pack and lit it, exhaling out the window.
“You alright?” he asks, glancing over at Caleb who is curled up against the
door, sniffling as he stares outside. He says nothing but nods in reply, and
Jared eases out of the pull-off and onto the road, headed back to the trailer
park.
They’re nearly there when Caleb speaks again.
“Are you leaving?” he asks softly.
Jared wants to smile, but it hurts too much.
“Yeah. Gotta gig in Savannah tomorrow night.”
Caleb’s quiet again, restless in it this time.
“Will you come see me again?”
Jared turns into the trailer park, killing the lights as he coasts in as quiet
as possible. He doesn’t say anything until he slows to a stop in front of
Caleb’s place, putting the truck into park and turning all of his attention to
the boy at his side.
“I think we both know that’s a pretty fuckin’ bad idea,” he finally says.
Caleb wipes his face off with both his hands, looking more like a little boy
than ever. Jared’s dick stirs painfully in his jeans.
“Will you forget about me?” Caleb asks, his hands twisting together in his lap.
Jared reaches over, forefinger sliding along his cheek and tucking his hair
behind his ear.
“Never,” he says, and he means it. Of course he means it. “I never, ever will.”
There’s a beat of silence and then the truck is moving again, this time because
Caleb has launched himself across the seat and wrapped his arms around Jared’s
neck again, his wet face tucked in against his throat.
“I wish you could stay here and be my boyfriend,” Caleb murmurs against his
skin, digging out unpracticed kisses there and nuzzling fitfully. Jared closes
his eyes and buries his face into Caleb’s sweaty hair, his arms slowly coming
up to wrap around him, keeping him tucked in close, painfully close.
“Just keep doing good in school. Keep reading and listening to your brother’s
music. You’ll find kids your age who will be good to you, who are like you.
You’ll find somebody then, somebody who’ll take care of you the way you
deserve. You hear me?”
Caleb nods against his neck, sniffling there, leaving snot and tears in his
wake. He lifts his head and kisses Jared, much better than he was an hour ago,
letting Jared lick into his mouth until they’re both breathless and warm again.
“Here,” Jared says, reaching into his backpocket and pulling out his wallet,
digging out all the cash he has there and pushing it into Caleb’s hand. “It’s a
few hundred, I think. Not much, but it’s yours. Don’t give it to your mama or
to that fuckhead Patrick. Nobody. Keep it somewhere safe in your room, and only
use it for you. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Caleb says, soft and awed, staring at the wad of twenties in his
little hands. He pushes it into his pocket and looks up at Jared through his
lashes, leaning up to press a tiny kiss to the tip of his nose. “Thank you. For
dinner and… and everything.”
“Thank you for everything,” Jared replies, grinning as he gives Caleb’s ass a
firm slap. He reaches over him and opens the passenger door, nodding for him to
climb out. He watches him go, his throat tight as he slams the door and gazes
back into the dark truck and right into Jared’s eyes somehow, looking tearful
and bereft and knowing, all at once.
“Bye, Jay.”
“Bye, kid.”
He puts the truck into drive and pulls out slow and unnoticed, watching as
Caleb’s tiny shadow only gets smaller and smaller until he disappears
completely. He only turning his lights on when he gets back to the main road,
grabbing the forgotten strawberry shake from the cupholder and finishing it
with a shattering sort of relish. He doesn’t stop driving until he ends up back
in the cemetery.
The bouquet of red roses behind the seat aren’t as fresh as they’d been this
morning, but they’re fragrant and beautiful and look just right tucked into the
stone vases on either side of Daniel’s headstone. Jared’d bought him a new one
last year, had called and done it all by phone and email, paid an obscene
amount of money, but this headstone is lovely: his name and birth and death
dates scrawled in a ridiculously romantic, gothic font that Daniel would love
with stone roses etched around it.
It’s what he deserves.
He says nothing as he settles in on top of the flat earth in front of the
headstone, all the words stolen from him by the unexpected sins of the day. He
wipes the dirt and leaves from the stone, from the letters carved into it,
pressing a kiss to the cold of Daniel’s name.
“Hey, you,” he whispers.
The night is warm but the ground is cold, and he feels cradled when he curls up
on it, his head pillowed on his bicep, face nestled into the grass growing up
from Daniel’s grave.
It’s the soundest he’s slept since he was here last, all those years ago.
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