This story is based on two homosexual men. You must be above the legal age of 18 (or as stipulated by your country/state) to read this story. If this story is illegal in your area, PLEASE DO NOT READ IT. This story is a work of ficition. Any similarity of the characters to any person is clearly a coincidence. All other usual disclaimers apply.
Please send your feedback or critisim to mikeinstudio9344(at)yahoo(dot)com.
The Game
Looking In and Looking Back
'Come to hell baby...'
Even knowing he was playing with the destructive conflagration of a volcanic eruption, it had taken everything he had to hold against the pull. 'The need.'
Despite the orders he knew he was under, McCall had given him the truth, trusting him with a painful piece of his past, and he heard McCall's soul return the call in return. 'Jake' was his unspoken cry in the perimeter of the shadow-world they both inhabited - and it was the name he'd heard inside him, the acceptance of who he was, that all but undid him.
Almost as much as McCall himself.
Oh, McCall. Even when he had the tourist's mask on, all he saw was the dark-hearted barbarian, the savage heathen pulling him out of his ordered, controlled, hemmed-in life. He heard it, heard all McCall wanted to say to him in just the air he breathed. The wild singing, like a pagan night revels, busting to life from deep within the tight-leashed male strength of McCall, commanded the long-dominant man in his soul.
'Come to hell...'
Drawing him there irresistibly. A mirror image to the mystery inside himself. McCall had scorch on his soul, a deep core of loneliness waiting to be unleashed, and a young boy's dream lying in scattered shards at his feet.
Yet like a mad, vulnerable boy playing a game beyond his ken, he picked them up and tried again, facing danger down with a grin and a challenge thrown like a gauntlet on a jagged cliff in a lighting storm, daring it to kill him.
'Come and get me, baby.'
Temptation flooded him, almost beyond control. His 'no' had been a flickering defiance, all but whispered. McCall knew - he had to know - the desire inside him, even as he tried to deny it -but McCall had respected it. Respected his will, his wishes. McCall had walked out when he'd asked. The sight of him leaving, his voice guttural and his eyes holding the very soul of darkness and self-hate, had gutted him. If he could have made himself speak, he'd have called McCall back.
Like a sudden slam in his ribs, he remembered five years ago, and the midnight call that had sent him and Danny on a life-or-death bolt across the world.
'Falcone's men shot Dan - the man that had risked his life for you, the only other man we'd trusted most - through the forehead. He's dead, love. Leave the country now, follow the procedure Dan set up for you, or they'll find you within hours.'
He shuddered. Even he didn't believe McCall was one of Falcone's men, he couldn't tell him. He couldn't give in to the temptation to touch him. He had to get rid of McCall somehow, before they killed him just for knowing him.
'I'll be back.'
For his sake, he had to pray he would he wouldn't.
He started when the bell tinkled, announcing a customer. Looking at the sodden mass beneath his fingers, he groaned to himself. Oh boy, he was losing it. Sitting here destroying his work, wasting time thinking about McCall when he should be making his plans for escape...
"Here. You need this."
Starting with the rough gravel-over-velvet voice from in front of him, he glared up at the dark, mysterious and so-very sexy reason for his turmoil. Well, he said he'd be back...he just didn't expect it so soon, nor had he expected him to be soaking wet and wearing an ankle length dark leather coat, wrapped around him like the storm.
"W-what's this?"
McCall's gaze on him was lush heat locked savage concern. "A sweet roll, fresh fruit and coffee. You need it."
Unable to face him after McCall had met his cruelty with rough kindness and care, he lowered his eyes. The fretful nap he'd fallen into after dawn left him too distracted to think of eating while getting Danny ready for school, and he had forgotten lunch.
How McCall knew, he didn't question. He lifted his clay-coated hands. "Can you mind the store while I wash?"
He shrugged off his coat, hanging it on the door hook. Beneath the damp, close-fitting sweater, his muscles flexed and ripped with the movement. Danger honed inside dark masculine beauty. "Are you sure you trust me in your precious store? I could have a moving truck around the bend."
He threw McCall a wary glance. "Somehow I don't think it's my pottery you're after." Even if McCall looked throughout the store, even broke into the house and ransacked it, he'd find nothing.
'Good reminder.' The world righted itself again. That big, muscular bronzed body of McCall's was unkickable... and that was as far as he'd trust him, no matter how often McCall fed him.
He got on his feet, and the world took a sharp turn right - uh, right or left? He blinked to reorient himself, but even half a dozen did nothing to reduce the sudden vertigo.
The low growl shivered into his nerve endings; McCall's arms came around him, keeping him upright. "Come here." A moment later he was in the big padded wing chair he kept for customers. McCall crouched down right beside him, putting a morsel of warm sweet roll between his lips. It's rich flavor burst onto his tongue with lush stickiness. "How long has it been since you ate?"
He welcomed the taste of honey, nuts and fruits inside the roll, like a fruity baklava, with a soft moan of delight. "I haven't been hungry."
McCall fed him another piece. "Get hungry. You can't get away with erratic eating habits anymore. You're a father."
McCall's blunt words made him stiffen, but he was right. He couldn't function properly if he allowed the stress of McCall's eruption into his life to disrupt his eating habits. He couldn't escape on an empty stomach.
How ironic that the one person who should want him weak and needing and afraid was feeding him, taking care of him, keeping him strong.
'He's just trying to make me trust him.'
But he couldn't stop eating the wonderful food, couldn't hold back from looking into McCall's eyes...eyes so tense and filled with commanding, compelling desire, he gave a hot shiver. McCall's taut, muscular frame, masking burning heat and hiding a leashed savagery, made him feel alive and strong - and wanting for the first time a decade.
"Common, Jake, I know you like it. Open your mouth." The low, sensual words didn't startle him; it had long ago become part of him, waking or sleeping an internal "on" switch only McCall knew how to find in him. He opened his mouth for him without even making the conscious decision.
'Frozen.' He'd been frozen since Papa told him the man he adored was a traitor to his country, His emotions encased in a delicate layer of ice, afraid to trust his own judgment. Now the ice was melting. With one look from McCall's forest eyes, fire slammed into ice and kept on burning, hard and bright and remorseless as the sun. Within a day McCall had brought him back to life. The ice that had been his protection for a decade was a puddle of warm, slushy water at his feet.
He automatically opened his mouth for more food when he urged him to, finishing the roll and fruit salad with yogurt.
"Good boy." he whispered in his ear making him shiver. Fear and distrust, sweetness and pain, defiance and trust and need...McCall left in a perpetual state of confusion. A man absolutely and utterly wrong for him, yet so right...
'Yes, a hit man in the employ of an arms and drugs dealer would be just right for a man on the run.'
Yet when McCall held the polystyrene cup to his mouth, he drank as trusting as a baby, and another taste explosion filled him. Oh, joy - his favorite South American blend of mocha coffee! With cream and suger just as he liked it. Just as McCall had brought it for him years ago, complete with hamburger and fries. Nobody else dared give him food that could make him put a single ounce. But Brendan had known how much he liked rich food and drink; it was his personal ambrosia and nectar and by the time he's met McCall he had no longer cared if he was fit or not, a supermodel or not. And McCall had known that.
McCall knew too much...oh God, what had he done? McCall had set the simplest test for him, and he'd failed!
He didn't dare let his gaze fly to Brendan's, or let himself stiffen. 'Danny, think of Danny!' "Oh, this coffee is good..." His purr was alive with sensual discovery. "Would you mind telling me what blend it is? I'll have to put it on my shopping list."
"Games can last so long." McCall tipped up his chin and they both knew it.
"I'm feeling better now." He got on his feet. "Thank you." He said simply. "I hadn't realized how long I'd gone without food."
McCall shrugged. "It's been a while, but I'm kind of used to doing it." 'For you.'
The unspoken words shimmered in the warm, fragant air inside the studio, the dangerous half light of the storm outside, and he wanted to scream. For years his cover had been impenetrable. Now, within a day he was giving himself away with every word and act. Even to allowing himself be fed by McCall; the food he knew 'his Jake' would have loved. Dizzy as he was, his strict upbringing would never have allowed him to trust a real stranger so completely, the stranger he'd claimed McCall to be... and no man would know that fact better than McCall, who had seen him freeze when any other man even tried to make the slightest move on him.
He'd never allowed any man to touch him but his beloved SEAL, his Brendan, whom he'd brought back to life as he had brought him.
From that first brooding look, he'd been intrigued; but when he didn't try to touch him apart from the demands of the photographer, he'd felt drawn. Then, when he actually made him smile and even laugh amidst the crowd of bodyguards, hangers-on and wanna-bes he's so hated, he'd tumbled head over heels straight into first love. He'd given Brendan his heart and soul, his hopes and dreams. So McCall had learned what he couldn't resist, and give it to him with the smile that made him want to do anything to please him.
Damn it, he'd just revealed another chink in his armour - his unconscious acceptance of the rights he'd once given him to touch him, feed him, care for him. The past he'd tried so hard to lock away in darkness had been brought to light with a stupid cup of coffee and sweet food.
'Pull yourself together! Danny's innocence and freedom - and your life - depends on this. McCall's knowledge of you is stronger than anyone alive. You can't let him see inside, just like he won't let you see inside him.'
Denial was not only superfluous at this point; it was ridiculous, beneath his intelligence and McCall's. So he chose to take refuge in deflection. "I need my wheel now, Mr. McCall."
McCall's eyes turned dark as the crashing clouds outside as he got to his feet. McCall stood before him with his feet splayed and arms folded, aggressively male. "Playing the fiddle while Rome burns? It's too late, too dangerous, to continue to deny what I already know is the truth. And why do you call me sir? Don't you think it's too gentleman-like?"
He lifted his chin and said, "It reminds me that you're a stranger."
"We need to talk." McCall stated.
"We do? 'We' do - does that mean you'll give me something beyond your tourist patter and your former rank and serial number?"
The walls slammed down into place before his eyes, bricks and mortar rendered in granite. "I thought not." He nodded to the door. "'Mr. McCall', this is still my property. Watch from across the street. I may not have any customers until after the storm but you'd scare ant off that dared to come out in this weather."
McCall took a step towards him, two. "That's the intention."
His eyebrows lifted. "Well, we've come forward - some honesty at last. Maybe soon you'll even tell me what you want from me."
Taking the final step, McCall touched that high-held chin. His gaze burning hot and dark as starless midnight settled on his mouth, and he shuddered in raw desire and hopeless confusion. "Take out the 'what' and 'from' and you'll get the picture. 'I want you', no matter what your name is."
Aching, he lifted a hand and the dry clay on his fingers and palm cracked and fell to the floor at the same time as thunder split the sky outside - and his last words penetrated his consciousness. His hand fell. "More honesty. That's impressive. A shame it all seems to revolve around your delusions of who I am."
McCall gave a low growl of frustration and cupped his hand around his arms, his touch as tender as his words were uncompromising. "You don't have much time left. They're on the move. He'll come himself this time. And he's not coming to reclaim his partner. You humiliated him in front of his people, his world. He's coming to kill you, personally."
On some deeper level he felt the gentle motions of his hand supporting him, but over and above it was he whitening of his cheek, like a gunshot to a vein leeching out his life force. 'Control, control...' It took all he had, drawing on strength she didn't know was still inside him, or lean on McCall. "Let go of me."
McCall's hand dropped. He took a step back. Watching him.
His eyes held his, shattered, pleading. "Let me go, please. I can make life save for my son again, if you leave for an hour."
Fingers curled into palms, making tight fists as his eyes squeezed shut. A breath came from him as if it had been forced, a warm coffee-scented zephyr from the heart of a man in torture. "I can't. God help us both, Jake, even if you and your son weren't in more danger than you can handle, I can't."
He dragged in air. McCall's scent came inside his like a beloved enemy and he knew that scent, heat and coffee and rain, ancient pain and pagan need, would haunt him for the rest of his days. "Don't do this to me. Don't destroy my life."
Eyes bleak as mid hamattan opened. "I don't have a choice. You have a day, two at most. You'll need me when it all goes down."
'You don't have much time. They're on the move.' The echo of McCall's voice kept resonating back to him, each time more urgent, more imperative. 'You humiliated him...he'll kill you personally.'
Given what Marcus had told him about Falcone, every word made perfect sense. 'Did he know from personal experience?'
"There's an umbrella in the stand behind the door" he said quietly. It wasn't an interference; it was a command. 'Go'
Without a word he tossed the coat over his shoulder and strode out into the rain. Half-wild storm winds swirled around him, soaking him. And from the hill across the road he watched still, tense and strong and with an overwhelming masculine beauty. Yet he'd never looked more alone.
He turned from the sight, aching with regret for what couldn't be. Whether McCall was a good guy or in Falcone's pay, no matter how he felt about him, he didn't have a choice.
'You have a day. Two at most'
He'd been responsible for enough deaths. He had to get away - from here, and from McCall - before he killed him, too.
McCall stood across the road, watching him close the store. Though the rain worsened with the close of the day, his coat stayed slung over his shoulder; he barely noticed the lashing bite of the hard-biting needles of water. All of his life, from fishing boats to the navy and SEALs, and now with the Nighthawks, he was used to extremes of weather, especially water.
What got him was Jake dismissing him. 'Take the umbrella and go. Watch me from outside, out in the rain where you belong.' He hadn't said it exactly that way but this is basically what it means.
Even when Jake had said he loved him a decade ago, he'd always felt on the outside looking in with him, a guttersnipe daring to look at a duke. Nothing had changed in ten years, except Jake's address and martial arts. The freezing tone of Jake's voice - the dismissal bordering on contempt - left a slightly acrid taste in his mouth, as if he'd inhaled the cordite from a smoking gun.
Yeah, and the gun was from his own pocket. Being near Jake was a constant game of Russian roulette, yet like a fool he just kept on turning that barrel...
Even when Jake had whispered words of love to him ten years ago, he'd known it wouldn't last. He'd always known the truth - he wasn't classy enough for the ambassador's son turned jet set model. He'd forced himself to finish high school and even got a football scholarship to UCLA, but he'd still ended up working on a fishing boat to pay the bills - just like dear ol' Dad. He had left that too - the heavy drinking day and night had reminded him too much of his father. The booze and the fighting was the reason his mother had left. To this day, the smell of gin and beer made him want to heave his guts.
For the life he had now, he'd always bless old Burt Miner, ex-USAF. Burt had caught the nineteen year old Brendan hiding out in a corner of a hangar watching a weekend air show. Gruff, foul mouthed Burt had correctly interpreted the furious scowl on Brendan's face as frustrated longing and had given him a friendly chat about how it felt to really fly.
He'd come to the airstrip on all his days off, watching ill-contained anguish as the guys with money took off for the skies until Burt either got sick of him or took pity on him and finally taught him to fly.
When Burt found out about his talent in the ocean through a newspaper article about his impromptu rescue of a little kid drowning off Long Beach one weekend, Burt pulled in some favors and arranged for a navy officer to see his protégé's skill in air. After rigorous water skills tests and IQ exams, the navy recruitment officer talked to Brendan about the navy taking over his endangered college scholarship, and joining NROTC - the Navy Rescue Officers Training Corps. Two years later he had come out an ensign with the respect of all who knew him in his new world. then, as the recruitment prophesied, McCall - 'Ensign' McCall - did the Basic Underwater Demolition Training course , survived Hell Week with ease, took the weapons and foreign language courses, learned to work with a team and joined the SEALs.
From there, he hadn't looked back. Raw guts, a willingness to learn, do anything anywhere anytime and 24/7 availability had got him to SEAL lieutenant by the age of twenty-six and where he was now at the ripe age of thirty-seven - commander of Nighthawks Team One. one of the three trusted seconds-in-command in Nighthawk Area 4, South Pacific region. He now ran every op that Pacific Region commander Anson, code-named Ghost or the medical/field Team Two commander, Irish, or Special Infiltration Team Three commander, Nightshift, on track to running his on Nighthawk region one day.
But none of that would impress Jake's socially impeccable, class-conscious parents. If they were still alive they'd look at him and see the snot-nosed punk who played hide-the-booze with his dad's empty beer cans and gin bottles, an ex-gang member of low-class origins.
That was all Jake's incensed papa had seen when he'd found them together that final night. Without a word Edurado de Souza, Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S.A, called in his security men. He got kicked out of his own car, landing right on his bad-boy ass. Humiliating punishment for daring to look in Jake's eyes, let alone for touching him, loving him as if he was a normal boy.
What would Mama and Papa have thought of the man who had become their posthumous son in-law? Nobody knew who Falcone really was, or how old he really was, not even the CIA. The entry in the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England was dead fake - as dead as the man who'd been paid to enter it for Falcone more than thirty years after he was born God knows where. According to that certificate he was forty-four, but nobody believed that;the guy was fifty at least. But the anonymity of name and age and even nationality let Falcone slide in and out of two worlds, a smooth-spoken phantom menace the authorities couldn't seem to hold on to.
And without hard evidence against him, they were helpless. If they couldn't get him in custody fast and keep him there this time, Jake's life wasn't worth squat. And his kid...
Time to get back to work. And keep his mind there until Jake and his kid - his 'subjects' - were safe. Permanently.
Another night on the grassy hill across the road, taking fifteen-minute catnaps on his bedroll. Hourly reports to Anson proved he was still on the job.
Watching.