Want
"Do it."
Without a word, McCall turned and strode up to the house. For once, Jake was left chasing him. And suddenly, Jake knew he would give everything he owned to be able to take back those terrible words of the other night.
Jake found McCall sitting over a laptop computer. The strange buzzing sounds buzzing sound of connection to the Internet filled the room. "It will only take ten minutes, so be sure you want this it isn't so easily reversible."
"A lot of things are hard to erase, no matter how much you want them gone." Jake agreed softly, his gaze drinking McCall in. "But this is one thing in my life I won't regret... Brendan."
Nothing. McCall just kept watching the screen and punched in numbers. "Panther. Team Commander One. Go ahead with the operation." He disconnected, and dialed another number. "Leslie? Hi, it's Brendan. Can you tell Morgan the op is a go? You've signed the register already, haven't you? Yes... thanks. Oh by the way. Danny is at the waterhole with your kids. Do you think you can – yes, we discussed it." He listened for a moment, and then gave his rich, strong chuckle. "Is that so? I think tomorrow is fine, but you'd better check with Jake. Hang on, I'll put him on." McCall handed Jake the phone. "Leslie wants to know if they can keep Danny over-night. She says his presence is stopping Jenny from smothering Nate to death with love." His eyes twinkled. "It appears he has a fan already."
Despite his aching heart, Jake smiled as he took the phone. "Hi, Leslie. How are you?"
"Pretend to laugh, all right?" Leslie McCrery said quickly. "I have something to say and I don't want Brendan to know."
Intrigued, Jake laughed and waited for more.
"Jake, I like you." Leslie said forthrightly. "I see a kindred spirit in you and because I do. I want to stop you from making all the stupid mistakes with Brendan that I made with Morgan."
"Oh, really?" Jake replied chuckling through a throat that hurt. "What happened then?"
"If we are kindred spirits, so are Morgan and Brendan." Leslie went on. "Morgan was dumped on a church doorstep soon after he was born, rejected by his birth parents. And because of that, he never felt he was good enough for me. So when I started taking things out on Morgan – things that happened with my first husband that Morgan didn't deserve – he took it as proof that I could never want him as a man, or ever truly love him. He was sure I was too good for him."
"I see."
"Do you?" Leslie's voice was gentle, yet penetrating. "At least Morgan never really knew what he was missing. But Brendan... did you know he rarely sleeps more than fifteen minutes at a time, and it isn't just because of his SEAL training?"
"Yes." Jake replied quietly, as something small, cold and ominous snaked up his spine.
"You know we work with him – I saw it in your eyes this morning. Until we had the baby and semi-retired, offering the farm you're on a as training facility. Brendan was our Team Commander. Morgan especially had worked with him, but we only got to know him well after he bought out the other half of our farm. We became friends, and he doesn't have many because he won't let them in." Leslie sighed. "The reason he won't sleep is because he talks when he goes into deep sleep. He asks his mother to take him with her, that he's sorry; he won't be a bad boy if only she won't leave him there with his dad. He also dreams of his father beating him up – he begs his dad to stop hurting him. We only heard him when we transported him home after a mission went bust last year – he was knifed almost in two. So he trained himself not to sleep. As Team Commander, he's on call 24-7, and that suits him fine. He doesn't have to dream of her – his mother, then, doesn't have to relive his mother walking out on him, and whatever it was she said to damage him so badly."
A slow shaking hand came up to cover his mouth; he forgot to hide his emotions. "Dear God..."
"Yeah, exactly." Leslie whispered. "Don't destroy him, Jake. He's already been abandoned one time too many."
"Thank you, Leslie." Jake whispered. "We'll pick up Danny in the morning. I'll call later to say goodnight, all right?"
"Sure, if you can pry Jenny away from him long enough. She seems to think she's found the love of her life." The cheerful mother-next-door came back. "Anything he can't or won't eat?"
The conversation turned prosaic after that... as ordinary as Jake's shaking voice would allow. When he hung up, Jake stood lost in thought until McCall broke into his thoughts with a voice as cool and remote as New Zealand's snowcapped peaks.
"It's all done. Here's your marriage certificate. I have a ring, too." McCall handed Jake a small box. "Get another one if you don't like it. And we had better train Danny to call me Daddy. It'd for his safety. People on the hunt may be less likely to look twice at a secure-looking family to find the boy or you." McCall spoke with a clinical detached air, as if he had no emotion input in either the certificate or the ring, or in what Danny called him.
"But while a gay family is secure-looking, it's generally not normal..." Jake said
"It's the 21st century. Things are changing. Gay families are accommodated into the society nowadays. Moreover, Falcone won't be expecting you to get married to guy while you on the run."
Having heard all Leslie said – or left unsaid - Jake now knew better than to throw an argument. "Thank you, Brendan." He said quietly, as he opened the box with hands that trembled a little. "Oh." Jake gasped. "Brendan... it's – it's so lovely..."
And it was. The soft tulip pattern engraved on the simple gold wedding ring gave it an aura of commitment and caring sweetness and sharing that choked Jake up. "Where did you get it?"
McCall shrugged. "My McCall grandmother left it to my sister, Meg in her will, but she had gone with Mom. I hid it from Dad – he would have only sold it for booze or gambled it. Figured I could start a family tradition or something. But if you don't like it..."
Jake couldn't stand it anymore – he would do anything to give warmth and light to that chilled, dark soul. With two quick steps Jake crouched beside McCall, his hand in his. "Don't say that." He said with all ferocity. "This ring is beautiful and special, and I love it, Brendan McCall-Silver. Now I want you to do something for me."
McCall eyed him with all the wariness a man would give to a wild animal or a vision he couldn't believe in. "What?"
Jake held out both hands, the box in his right, and his left bare. He kept his gaze locked on McCall's, knowing that his eyes shimmered with tears unshed. "Marry me for real, Brendan McCall. Make me your husband. Be my man... in more than just name."
McCall looked at him fully then, his gaze hot and black as the smoke of hell burning. "Don't, Jake. If you are going to leave, walk out now. The marriage is still legal. You and Danny are still safe. And I won't stop you, or chase you. But don't make promises you have no intention of keeping. You haunt me too much now."
It was now or never. A tear fell down Jake's cheek as he told McCall the unvarnished truth. "I deserved that, for saying what I did. I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't want to, but I had to save you." He whispered. "Danny's father killed a man before, just because he helped me get away. I couldn't bear it if I lost you, too."
Looking deep in his eyes, Jake saw the flinching, an infinitesimal recoil that showed how little he believed him. "I said don't. I don't need a pretty send-off in bed to thank me for your freedom." McCall's words were gut-raw, as blunt as a knife sawing at his skin and as black as the smoke in his eyes. "And you didn't say anything that wasn't true. This marriage won't be real. We both know you can do a lot better for yourself than me."
Tears rushed to Jake's eyes as he watched McCall force his attention back to the details on the laptop. "No Brendan, it's not true. You saved my life, saved Danny..."
"That's what I do." His mouth tightened, but he kept typing. "What I am is a not-nosed punk who thought with his fists for too long. That's why my mom walked out on me. She said I'd end up like my dad – a foul mouthed hard ass drunk who beat the crap out of everyone he met. She only took my sister with her, and it didn't matter if he took it all out on me."
McCall's unemotional recounting of Leslie's painful tale of his life seemed more harrowing to Jake. He felt torn apart, raw and bleeding from internal wounds – McCall's wounds. He ached to comfort McCall, but wouldn't help now – only the truth and justice could neutralize the poisons rotting McCall's soul. Still crouched in front of McCall, Jake laid his hands on McCall's thighs, gripping them hard. "Was she right? Are you just like him?" He asked fiercely.
McCall's hands froze over the keyboard. "I just told you..."
"You told me of your past. Tell me about your present. Are you like him? Are you?"
"I'm a professional killer." He said harshly. "You tell me, am I like him, or even better? Or should that be, even worse?"
"You've never taken one life without government sanction, and even then I bet you hated it. I know you did."
"Doesn't matter." His voice was gravely. "I remember the name of every person I've been assigned to kill."
The stifled anguish in his voice pulsed into Jake like a living thing... and he knew this was another reason for his sleepless nights. "Doesn't that make you a person of conscience?" he asked quietly. "Those people are – were – real to you."
"Not Stephen. He was my cousin." McCall said slowly. "I hated the little weasel. I beat him up twice. My mother called me a barbarian."
"How old were you?" Jake demanded hating a woman he had never met with all his heart and soul, for the damage she had done to an impressionable little boy.
"Five, the first time." McCall threw it at him like it was something awful. "Eight the second time. Mom left that night."
In other words, he had driven his mom to leave – or so little Brendan had thought. "What did that boy do to you?"
McCall shrugged. "He pinched me the first time. He didn't touch me again after I hit him, though he smirked when Mom forced me to apologize. The second time he tried to play "show and tell" with my sister. Meg was a gentle kid who liked to draw and play with her dolls, and the little pervert lifted her dress, even when Meg cried and said no. I got mad, like dear old Dad, and broke his collarbone. Mom couldn't stand the shame of it. She said leaving me with Dad was my punishment for acting like a wild animal. She wouldn't let me contaminate Meg with my bad ways."
Jake's heart bled for the child inside the man he loved. How could any mother be so cruel? Had that woman ever taught McCall how to behave or shown a little faith in him so that he could have some in himself? Or had she found a convenient scapegoat for her own shortcoming as a mother... an eight-year-old scapegoat? "Did you keep doing that?" Jake asked somehow sensing that, as shocking as it was that any mother could leave a little boy with a man she knew would abuse him, that this wasn't the full crux of his self-hate. "Did you beat up everyone you met?"
McCall turned away, slamming the lap-top closed. "For a while, yeah. Then, just before Dad died, I ran away. I joined a street gang in South Central L.A., and I did what it took to belong."
As protected as Jake had been, even he had heard of the notorious activities of street gangs. He couldn't hold back the shudder. "Did you..."
"Steal cars? Steal liquor and drink myself? Attack other kids who invaded our turf? Break into stores to get TV's and stereos to sell off for booze and drugs?" he asked brutally. "Well, that's what you have to do to belong, right?"
"No!" Jake cried, shaking his head in vehement denial. "No, I don't believe it. You wouldn't have join the navy and hide your past, not with that on your conscience. I know you too well to believe it."
McCall slanted him an odd, almost disbelieving look. "You can't know that."
"I do know! Don't tell me you did any of that, because I won't believe it! How long were you a part of that gang, and when did you get out?"
McCall shrugged his mouth tight.
"How long before you left? How long?" Jake almost yelled.
McCall shrugged again. "A few months. My friend Casey came to see me. She was the only nice kid at school who'd ever liked me. She was a nurturer, I guess... one of those kids that picked up strays and nurse them. But when she came, it was my jumping in night when all kids would beat me u to see if I was tough enough to take it. I was – hell, Dad had probably broken just about every bone in my body already – but Casey wasn't."
"What happened to her?"
"She got there just as it was about to start. She hugged me, and one of the girls – hell, some of them were worse than the boys – said hey, girls get jumped too. Casey was terrified. She begged me to get out, to leave with her then. She said I was better than this. But I was a guy, right? If Dad taught me anything it was that I had to hang tough or lose respect. And where else would I go, home to Dad? I had to fight to keep my place, keep my respect. But I wasn't letting Casey get hurt. So I stood in front of her and told them they would have to go through me to touch her." His fists clenched and his face whitened, cold and hard.
"Tell me."
"You don't defy anyone in aging. Twenty of them jumped me. I couldn't fight them all; most of the kids were bigger than me. I told Casey to run, but the girls made her watch while the boys beat me unconscious and then they turned to her. They left her in a gutter near Santee Alley. Thank God someone found her in time to save her life, but she was in the hospital for six weeks."
"How long were you in the hospital?"
"You don't get your hurts seen to in the gang, Jake. You have to be tough and show them all you can take it. I couldn't walk or eat for a couple of days. By the time I could, I was out of there. When I found Casey, she wouldn't see me. Her family guarded the room and threatened to call the cops on me if I didn't get out and stay away. So I headed back to the docks. Dad had been buried the week before. The house was rented. All his stuff was gone. So I walked around the city for two days. I woke up in an alley filled with the smell of vomit and worse. I looked at myself and felt sick. Just as my mom had predicted, I was turning into Dad. I was hungry and hurting, lost and sick at heart. So I handed myself in to a welfare office. When I got out of the hospital, I was put in foster care south of Long Beach, away from my old life. I took my foster parent's advice and went back to school. For Casey's sake, I wanted to make something of myself. Show the world that I could be somebody. She was the only person who had ever shown faith in me."
The late afternoon chatter of cockatoos and galahs taking flight and kookaburras finding their nests was raucous, but Jake barely noticed. He stayed crouched in front of him, so lost in thought he barely felt the cramping protest of his legs.
It was late for trite phrases. McCall had seen the problem all along; there was a yawning gap between them, and not just in birth. All his life, Jake had been adored and flattered, so much so that he'd run free from the stifling atmosphere of being constantly in such high demand. He had been worn out in spirit because everyone wanted a piece of him.
Brendan probably would have given his left arm to have one person love or wan him the way everyone had loved Jake. He'd probably give his life to have Jake's pristine, clean background.
No wonder McCall had never told him any of this before, when they were together. Jake now understood why McCall didn't feel good enough to lead a normal life. Even with all he had done for the greater good in his years with the SEALs and the Nighthawks, all he saw in himself was a street fighter with a license to kill. Trained only to see the worst in himself and to try harder, reach higher, all he ever saw were his flaws. He had no idea what a wonderful, magnificent man he was... because when he looked in the mirror, all he could see was his father's reflection.
Jake knew how desperately McCall needed redemption, to forgive himself in a world that demanded perfection of him. "Why did you join the gang?"
McCall's face twisted in self-mockery. "Because like my father, I am a jerk. I didn't care who my friends were. I found my level."
Jake closed his eyes. "You joined the gang before you were fourteen. That's right? Before your father died?"
"Yeah. That young, I was already on the road to damnation." He opened his eyes.
"But you got off that road. You finished school went to college, joined the SEALs and now the Nighthawks. Can't you see it?" Jake cried when McCall shook his head. "Do you think I don't have pars of my life I wish I could live over? You've spent the last twenty years proving who you really are. You are a man of courage and honour. Rising above your past..."
"Don't tell me you understand." McCall lifted a tired hand. "You can't. How do I atone for the things I have done?"
"Don't tell me I don't understand! I know what haunts you. It's with me too, day and night."
McCall's head snapped up, Jake raised a shaking hand to his mouth as he realized what he had said. But he couldn't take it back and if he was honest with himself, he didn't want to.
"I watched someone die." Jake let out a sigh "Someone who was too young and should have lived. I was responsible for the death of a dear old man who helped me. Can I give them their lives back? I wish to God I could, but all I can do is thank them for keeping Danny and myself alive. I can't forget the things I've done, but will sacrificing my life make my past go away? Will it make me a better person to constantly hide beneath my mistakes, making it an excuse not to move on? All either of us can do is what we are already doing. Learn from the past and the do the best you can with your future." Finally the cramps in his legs became stabbing bursts of pain, and Jake slowly rose to his feet. "So how is your life different from mine, except by accident of birth?"
McCall wouldn't face him, but only shrugged. "I'd bet yours were accidents you couldn't change, right?"
"No." Jake said quietly. "I have as much guilt to carry as you do. Maybe more."
McCall only shook his head and Jake ached with tears unshed for the child led to believe that nobody could ever be worse than him. "I want to be with you, Brendan."
"Don't Jake. Don't make the sacrifice because I did what I had to do for you." McCall reached for an untouched bottle of Scotch on the old fashioned walnut cabinet beside the dining table he had been working on. He now sounded only weary as he dropped his face in his arms. "If you are going to run again, damn it, take Danny and go while you can. I hate booze, but I promise to get too stinking drunk to chase you."
McCall was willing to give up his entire career to ensure his freedom – he had said it all. He could be charged with treason for letting him go...
Jake no longer needed to ask why McCall was dismissed from the SEALs. No matter what reason was given on paper, Brendan McCall was a decent and honourable man.
A sharp-edged rock seemed to be lodged in his throat and all the tears coursing down his face did nothing to ease the pain. He had run out of words.
So don't use words.
A feathered kiss across the back of McCall's neck was enough to get his attention. McCall lifted his face slowly, gently. Jake trailed his fingers through his hair, bringing McCall up with him as he rose, tuning him around to stand face to face. The next kiss was on his mouth, slow deep with all the love he felt for him. Jake hands slid through his hair bringing McCall closer but he resisted his mouth and hands, holding back an intrinsic part of himself Jake craved to reach. It was as if McCall was waiting for some untold miracle... for words whose cadence Jake couldn't hear.
So Jake said the only words that came to mind, words touching the core of his own soul. "Can we get married properly when this is over? I'd love a real wedding. It might sound silly to you, but I'd like to walk down the aisle with you."
McCall drew back, his eyes searching Jake's, giving nothing. There weren't shutters up inside him, there were brick walls. "No." The growl was quiet, but terribly harsh. McCall pulled away from Jake, tugging his sweater down over his aroused state. "Stop playing these stop-and-go games. I don't know what the hell you want from me."
Jake shook his head, but it wouldn't clear. McCall had only accentuated his body, his ready state, by tugging down the sweater. Now a slow delicious spin dominated his body and creating a new heaviness in his loins. "I want you." He whispered reaching out to lift the sweater McCall had pulled down. "Want you..."
McCall froze for a moment before he growled a particularly crude obscenity, yanking his clothes back down. "I've done a lot of low things in my life, but I haven't stooped to getting lucky out of gratitude."
In the sweet whirling of his mind, Jake heard the words, but couldn't process them. With a tiny sound of distress, he reached for the sweater again, but McCall grasped his wrists, with his eyes blistering hot with need and denial. "No." Jake moaned. "No, please..."
"Damn it, Jake, will you go? I can't hold out much longer!" McCall's hands still grasped Jake's wrists, gentle but unbreakable. "We both know you'll regret this in an hour."
Without warning, Jake started shivering. "C-cold, Brendan... I'm so c-cold." He whispered. The words tumbled from his mouth. "Ten years of cold, without you. There's this big empty space inside me. This pit of black ice and it hurts. Hold me Brendan... make me warm again. Like you used to."
McCall froze. For long heartbeats, h didn't breathe. When he spoke it was guttural, a bare growl of disbelief. "Jacob?"
Jake's fight was over. Secrecy had given way to the man who only knew he needed this man so much, needed to help heal him so badly he couldn't think beyond him. With simple relief, Jake nodded. "Did you get your car back in one piece after that night?" Jake whispered, trying to smile.
A slow grin came to life, making McCall's rugged, remote face warm and strong and beautiful. "Yeah, your Papa's right hand man got word to me about a month later that it was at my apartment."
Jake blinked and frowned. "A month? After the scandal broke, and you had left the States? Papa knew where to find you?"
McCall nodded, his smile slipping a little. "Yeah, I guess he did. I didn't think about that until now."
So it was true. Papa had known all along that Brendan was innocent and he hadn't told him.
Jake didn't want to think about to, not yet. One day he would have to come to terms with what his father had done to his life, but this day, this moment, he could only think of one thing. "Hold me, Brendan. Touch me. The world's been wrong too many years since Papa threw you out of my life. He took a deep breath. "I need you."
Jake felt the trembling in McCall's fingers before he let his wrists fall, and at last, McCall gathered Jake close, with their hard wants filling each other. McCall rested his cheek on Jake's hair like he used to a lifetime ago, when he was innocent and believed love was all that mattered. "I knew. I just saw you and knew."
Jake nodded against McCall's shoulder, his arms wrapped around McCall's waist. "I hated lying to you. But after what Papa told me, and running from Falcone..."
The frown was evident in his voice. "Falcone..."
"Not now." Jake said as he moved closer, burrowing in. "Please, Brendan. Touch me. You promised you could."
McCall lifted Jake's face. Their mouth met, hot, hard and needing. "Be sure, Jake. Be sure you want this."
Even as his blood sang hot in his veins in response to McCall's raw words. Jake launched himself into McCall's arms and said, "Brendan, ah, Brendan..."