Take me home tonight

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Hm?"

Alejo wasn't focused on the sticky sweet warmth at his throat. All of him hurt so much that it was difficult to pinpoint one place to be concerned about. At any rate, he wasn't concerned at all. His ass was never going to recover from this, he was almost sure. Didn't care. Being fucked so hard that he could just about taste Jack in the back of his throat was a memory he was taking to his grave.

He cuddled into Jack in a tangle of sweaty arms and legs, wiping damp hair out of his eyes, slicking it up and out of the way. Jack's expression was sorrowful, apologetic; Alejo's was still blissful and full of joy. He looked down at his own blood-stained claws and let out a soft laugh. Oh. He was bleeding here too. But there wasn't a fountain of blood so it wasn't like Jack punctured his jugular or anything. Just a little scratch. A little love scratch.

"Why?" Alejo nuzzled against him, still smiling. "I wanted it this way, Jackie." Why was Jack so contrite? Because he cared? Oh, how his heart leapt at the thought. Alejo tugged his hand away and absently wiped the sticky blood against his own thigh to rid his fingers of it. Then he hugged Jack tight, tight, tight. "I wanted you to do it, Jackie," he whispered, letting his eyes drift closed. "It felt good."

[Jack Ripley]

"Are you saying that because you're drunk?" he asked, bemused. "Because alcohol can dull some things."

A lot of things. And Allie had how many drinks before Jack realized he was there? Although it seemed like the chill of the night air and their walk to the apartments had spun away a lot of that alcohol. It still left Jack tipsy, but not without his faculties.

"Or... are... you... a... masochist?" he asked, mischief back in his tone, his words scattered as he slipped a leg through Allie's legs, slid a hand over his arm, and lowered his head to allow his lips to touch the slope of a shoulder. Allie clamped onto him so tight that he could scarcely breathe. The way he held on, in every sense of the word, it was like he was afraid.

Jack... didn't know what to do with that. Afraid, not of him, but of him leaving. It had to do with whatever turning point happened during the week. The boyfriend? Jack stared out into the middle distance, his chin now resting against the place where his lips last touched.

"...sometimes, I like the pain, too." It was a quiet admission but a true one, with more weight than he thought Allie could understand. Sometimes, he thought it was because he deserved it. Anticipated it. Only knew pain for so long that it took the place of pleasure. But there were mixed signals, cross firing in his brain. Because he wasn't about whips and chains or anything like that. Just the wildness of sinking his nails into somebody, into fucking them so raw that their blood mingled together as one. Or being the one fucked, didn't much matter either way to him.

But he liked it when those fine little hairs at the nape of his neck were toyed with. Laying his head in a lap and having somebody stroke his hair. Sitting with an arm around somebody while they watched lame sci-fi movies. Brushing somebody's hair over his ear because it was too long. Watching somebody's lips twitch because they wanted to smile at something utterly ridiculous that he said. None of that is Allie. And he knew that. He knew that.

"Mm... kay." He kissed the tip of Allie's ear. "You should stay tonight."

He didn't want to sleep alone. Couldn't... sleep alone. Not without help and fuck the Ambien and whiskey. Besides, Allie, he suspected, wasn't going to be walking any time soon.

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo laughed and tapped an index against Jack's forehead. "No sir, I'm not drunk. And I'm not~ a~ masochist~"

He was the other m-word: monster. There was a monster inside that made him this way. Alejo didn't go out of his way to get fucked into oblivion but when it did happen, he didn't resist. He didn't even love the pain. Maybe just the intensity. Fuck like you mean it, right? If they fucked hard, they meant it—and for a little while, they cared enough to put everything they had into it so that Alejo could feel it, too.

Yeah it was fucked up. No one said Alejo was the poster child for mental health.

He traced little pink swirls against Jack's shoulder as Jack rested against him, chin on his own shoulder. "Hmm... then you're one too." Masochist. No, monster. Alejo didn't say the word but he thought it. They were both monstrous little things in their den of depravity. Devils. Demons. Unclean, as his mother would have said while making the sign of the cross.

Sighing, he turned to Jack with an almost comically disappointed look. "I've already booked myself into your bedroom for the next... oh, week." The Look melted away into a playful laugh, a twinkle in his eyes. "And I do expect morning service, sir." He couldn't go back to that motel room alone, sit there alone, hold that gun alone. It was too tempting and Alejo didn't want it to end like that. He needed to still be a part of someone and he couldn't do that if he was dead by his own hand.

Shifting one leg out from under Jack's made him yelp in pain. See? He wasn't a masochist or... else he would probably have cum again from the pain so sharp that it made him feel faint. "Jackie. Jackie I need Advil."

[Jack Ripley]

"Yeah... maybe a little."

He could be a little masochistic. Not like he writhed in ecstasy every time somebody beat him or anything. But he liked nails down his back, it felt good. A hard spank--nice. And he liked bites on his throat. Maybe he should be vampire~ bait. Haha... as if they even existed.

But no, he wasn't really into the deep stuff. The whole dungeon set up thing with ball gags and people chained upside down, that wasn't his kink. Far be it from him to shame anybody else for their kink, of course. To each his own.

"Oh? The whole week, you say? You're going to be very bored when I'm at work." He said it with a smile, though, somehow... somewhat relieved that somebody was staying with him. And also... a little concerned. A part of him just really wanted Brayden--and he had to stop that. Even the bartender could tell he was pining and it so wasn't a good look for him. Or for anyone, for that matter.

"Aw, my poor baby." Jack kissed Allie's cheek before forcing himself to sit up and climb over Allie. "Advil, coming right up." But before he went down the hall to grab the medication, he stopped and turned around with a light of mischief in his hazel eyes. Hands clapped together once.

"Do you want me to bridal carry you into my bed?" Humor was written all over his face. Partly because he thought it was a funny vision but also partly because he'd always wanted to dramatically carry a lover across the threshold into his bed like a prince. (Not all fantasies were Amazingly Original, all right?)

[Alejandro Riviera]

Sure he was. They both were. Everybody was a little masochistic on the inside—a little monstrous in their own way. What about that guy across the way? Did he have some tiny wiggly little demon inside of him too? Alejo smiled thinking about it. Maybe. Who could be absolutely pure in this day and age? Who didn't have at least one skeleton—or at the very least, a few bleached bones—in their closet?

But now was not the time to wax poetic about inner demons. Alejo snorted. "Please, I'm obviously going to entertain myself while you're at work." His eyes twinkled too. "By masturbating furiously in your bed all day." Oh he... he kind of grossed himself out a little bit imagining himself covered in cum after 8 straight hours of jacking off. Eww...

Well, if that didn't make him want to jump off a cliff...

Which he would as soon as the Advil came to him. And that would be. Never? Alejo gave it some serious thought, weighing the options. Then he held out his arms to Jack. "Carry me baby. Like I'm your princess~" He sang the word 'princess' in a high-pitched falsetto, foolishly grinning away. Jack looked so pleased with himself and so little-boy-naughty that he couldn't resist. And what the hell? What did Alejo have to lose by now?

[Jack Ripley]

"...please don't."

He said that with his hands still pressed together from the earlier clap. The idea of Allie furiously masturbating in his bed all day long... Yikes? Jack was a clean man. Sex together, that was a thing. But there was a reason he used various covers and blankets for his couch and even if they had fucked in bed, Jack would wash it first thing in the morning. Hush, okay? He liked things clean, but especially his beloved bed. And sex. Well, sex wasn't clean. And he circumvented that whole business by taking care to masturbate in the shower. Clean bed. Clean body.

(He was going to have to wash the bed anyway though, since their filthy demonic bodies would soon be lying in it.)

Jack expected to grab the Advil and come back for his royal cuddle-fuck-buddy but... who was to deny his princess, with his arms open wide and waiting? Laughing aloud, Jack made his way back over.

"This will hurt for a second," he said. "But bear with me and you'll get your Advil. Promise~!"

Lifting Allie wasn't all that difficult. Jack wasn't beefy by any means but he could slip his arms beneath a man and bridal carry him into his room. Not that he'd ever had occasion to do so before but it was easy enough. And cheesy enough. And he loved it because of it--it was so dumb.

"You're heavier than you look," he said as he carried his new burden off into the sunset. But they made it there without incident--Jack took care not to smack any limbs on the doorway. "Welcome to my boudoir, mon chéri~"

Gently, he laid Allie down, which was, he realized, too little, too late. Allie was bleeding, not just from that dark side of him choking him out... but also from... ahem. All that raw fucking. Hence... he supposed, the raw part. No wonder he wanted that Advil. He took in a breath, started to say something, lifted his hand, thought better of it and ended up putting his two hands together, the backs of his fingers against each other.

"I'll just go get that Advil now."

He rushed out of the room and into the adjacent bathroom, feeling... He didn't know what he felt. Hateful of himself? Disappointed in himself? Afraid of what might happen if this relationship continued? Was this even a relationship?

"Fuck."

He whispered the curse at the sink as he held onto it. No, no. This was fine, it was okay. Allie said that's what he wanted and he didn't look... hurt. He didn't look sad or abused. Jack wasn't becoming one of his sick "stepfathers." Everything between them was consensual. There wasn't a drop of regret in Allie's expression when he looked at him. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Still, Jack splashed a little water on his face and took a couple of deep breaths before he opened up the medicine cabinet. Pushing aside his prescriptions, he finally came upon painkillers. Hopefully, it would be enough. Closing the cabinet, he sauntered back into the bedroom as if he hadn't been close to Meltdown City only a moment ago. Shaking the small bottle at Allie, he held it out to him.

"Advil, as requested."

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Ohhh you said it would only hurt for a second!" Alejo cried out, deeply aggrieved, as he was picked up off the couch. Well it hurt for more than a goddamn second, that was for damn sure! His arms slipped naturally around Jack's shoulders and he pressed in close as they made the arduous journey into the bedroom. He felt good about the silliness, peppering Jack's face with kisses, until Jack commented on his weight and Alejo slapped his shoulder hard enough to make an audible sound.

"You did not just call me heavy!" He-he wasn't fat! Alejo checked himself. Checked his own stomach, frowned, slapped Jack again. The second slap was undeserved but he did it anyway, because he was mildly perturbed to find that his stomach wasn't as defined as he thought and somebody had to bear the brunt of that disappointment. "...I had eight down there," he remarked to Jack as he rested his head against Jack's, then turned to kiss the side of his head.

Now there were only six abs. Where did the other two abs go? By way of the hastily snatched fast food dinners and late nights staying up obsessing over the serial killer he was here to track?

Alejo felt nothing like a cop in that moment. His badge was back in the motel room with his gun, both hidden under his pillow. He left them behind; tonight he wasn't a cop. He was just a deeply hurt man—inside and out. Sighing, he braced for impact as he was set onto the bed and winced as soon as he touched down. "My hero~ My prince!" Who said he was heavy. Mm.

Jack was still the hero if he got the Advil, though. Alejo arranged himself carefully on the bed, smiling to himself. They were so... dumb together. Being carried into the bedroom like that was dumb. And cute. Jack was cute. Alejo's gaze was fond as it slid over to the bathroom, where he heard bottles being pushed about. He grabbed the bottle as soon as it came rattling along, shook out six or so and popped them into his mouth like candy. Alejo chewed, wincing at the bitter taste—that way they started working faster.

"It might look like I'm trying to OD on Advil," he said as he reached for Jack again with grabby hands, "but I need it." That damned fast metabolism that helped eject alcohol quicker also made drugs far less effective. He looked up at Jack with an evil smile. Just an evil smile. "And as soon as I can move again, Jack, I'm going to destroy your ass."

An eye for an eye, as they say. Or, in this case, an ass for an ass.

[Jack Ripley]

Whoops. He over-exaggerated. Also... did Allie just slap him? Twice? Ooh, he should have dumped him onto the bed for his rudeness! But of course, he didn't. And he also realized calling a person heavy might come across as insulting, even when it was meant to be playful. Did he not have the tone for it?

And also? Eight? Eight what? He looked down and absurdly asked, "Cocks?" Because why would a man ever look down at himself and disappointingly recall that once, he had eight? "Eight at once?"

And what did that have to do with weight? Ohhhh, he got it. Eight cocks at once because he was so attractive, not heavy! "Got it. All right. Well some of us don't need to exaggerate how many cocks we've had at once."

Mostly this was said out of his own disappointment. What was Allie trying to say with that remark, other than the heavy thing? That one Jack cock did not eight other men's cocks make? Hm. Well. It was a strange line of thinking but Jack was a little strange and a little tipsy and he--what was Allie doing? Jack tried to grab the bottle from Allie, alarmed.

"Nobody needs six Advil at once!" Jack said. "Did you even read the bottle? It's extra strength!"

If Allie killed himself here--! Well, Jack wouldn't let him. He wouldn't let it happen. Death was no longer on the table, it was no longer Jack. It wasn't a thing that he did anymore, that he would ever do anymore. If he had to call poison control or get him to an urgent care--an emergency room--anything! But look at how nonchalant the man was. Grinning at him, like the damned Cheshire cat. Jack stepped away from the bed, as far as it took to be more than an arm's length away.

"Oh no, no, no. That's not how it's going to work tonight."

A part of him wanted it, he could hardly lie about that. But tonight was Saturday and tomorrow was Sunday. And Monday? He was back to work. And the last time this same little... minx destroyed his ass, he really destroyed it. Days, remember? Almost into this week! Or was that Sal? Their combined efforts were almost enough to make him rethink the ass destroying. Not so pleasant when he was at work. All that walking around the room--diminished. Any sitting at his desk--no reprieve.

"Mmno," he said again with a shake of the head, as if to make it clear that he'd even given it a little thought and come to the same conclusion: that it wasn't happening.

"I have a job, you know. And last time, you made my job hell so... no ass destroying tonight."

[Alejandro Riviera]

Well cocks, abs, they were basically the same things--except totally different. Alejo just ran with that because he found it hilarious that Jack would 1) go there and 2) sound almost a little sad about it. There was no reason to take that tone; Alejo had never had eight at once. Not even four at once. Three at most. No, wait. No, four. Five? Four. Three.

The point was, he had lost a few abs and he did not know where they had gone.

As the bottle left his hands rapidly, Alejo swallowed what was in his mouth. He had been eyeing it and deliberating on maybe three or four more but... not tonight, apparently. Jack seemed unduly alarmed. Or duly alarmed. Alejo laughed, still a touch tipsy, and laid back starfish fashion on the big, wide, comfy bed. "Relax baby. I have a... condition that makes things like booze and pills not work that well. My six is like your two."

He glanced over at Jack, frowning. "Not tonight, you heathen. I meant like. Well whatever, when I can move my hips without wanting to die again." Was there a good time for a working man to have his ass destroyed? Eh. Alejo could seduce him into it, he was fairly certain. With his six abs. He gestured for Jack to rejoin him, since Jack had tried to get away like his mortal soul was in danger.

"Come here, you're too far away. Look at you, all... over there. Over here's where it's at."

[Jack Ripley]

A condition? That sounded... concerning. Jack didn't ask since Allie didn't seem like he was asking for questions about it. Sometimes, Jack could sense when somebody wanted him to follow up on a remark or question--part of working in psychology, probably. Allie didn't seem too bothered by whatever made his tolerance so high. Jack thought it must have something to do with his metabolism, his liver, something like that.

Screwing the cap back onto the bottle, Jack set it down on the table nearby. That might be a bad call; he didn't know how badly Allie hurt or how many pills he thought might do the job. The problem was, it wasn't possible to simply look at a person and decide if they were close to suicide or not. In fact, most people on the brink of suicide were smiling the last time a person saw them.

It's just a condition, he wasn't killing himself in front of you, he reminded himself. He just didn't know if he could handle it. Another dead body. Another death. He was pretty sure every death pushed him to a new brink and he wasn't willing--anymore--to test how close he was to the brink.

"Well," he said, as he came back to the bed. "It is my favorite bed."

He dropped onto the bed beside Allie, on his back, too, staring up at the ceiling. For some reason, it made him think of stars. Pushing the thought away, he turned over onto his side, propping himself by his elbow. Again, he felt as if he had something to say but it just didn't feel right. Allie, he thought, was close to the brink. That glimpse of him back at the club and the need for the violence. There was no balm for his soul, the way Jack had in Brayden. Unless it was him, which... was a troubling thought.

"Good thing you don't have a job," he said, using his free hand to lightly touch the marks he'd made all over Allie's poor throat. Did he though? His mind went back to the cop joke and he wondered if it was a joke after all. "Or you'd have some eyebrows to contend with." He lifted his to demonstrate.

[Alejandro Riviera]

"It's... your only bed," Alejo pointed out smartly (he thought). Well there was just the one bed, it had to be all or nothing on favorite beds! But he laughed, carefree in the moment, "It's my favorite bed too." Because Jack was now in it and don't anybody dare tell him that was a cheesy line.

"Hmm." He didn't flinch when Jack's fingers touched upon the marks on his throat. They stung from the contact but he brushed off that pain. Just another drop in the ocean of his pain. Alejo's head turned a little to face him; he reached up to trace the eyebrows that were lifting at the evidence of sex and violence on his body. "I have a job, just not here. Back home..."

His gaze grew faraway, back to the streets of New York. Dingy, dark, dirty and depraved, New York was home. It was where he grew up and grew accustomed to the bag ladies patrolling the streets after midnight and the huddled masses wrapped in filthy blankets taking shelter around burning trash cans. New York was a city of extremes. Extreme wealth, glistening towers, and extreme poverty, tent cities and the scent of urine when the wind blew in just wrong.

Alejo focused on Jack again. His hand slid to trace the outline of Jack's achingly handsome face and he smiled. "Back home, I was a superhero. Did you know that? People looked up to me. I saved lives."

[Jack Ripley]

Yes, yes, Allie, that was the joke. But he only smiled because Allie was probably still drunk. Anyway, he couldn't know Jack spent ages looking for the right bed and also spent exorbitant amounts of money on it. Hey, he was a single man with no dependents to look after and no pets. It was just him; he had a fairly disposable income and he disposed of it all over his luxury bed and clothes.

The important things.

Aha! So the backpacker had a job back home! East, as Jack recalled, just like himself. What he didn't expect was to hear Allie call it being a superhero. Ah... so it was true, then. He was a cop. Or some kind of law enforcement, he imagined. A gun, probably a permit to conceal it. The idea made Jack feel a little stand-offish but it wasn't as if Allie knew anything. His heart beat a little faster. He hoped he didn't know anything.

"Oh? If that's the case, why would you want to be here?" Why be here as a self-confessed nothing when he could be back home as a hero?

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Well."

Why was he here?

He came here hoping to prove his own worth to people who couldn't have given half a shit about what ended up happening to him. He wasn't an agent of the FBI; he was just 'local law enforcement,' one of those unfortunate little bit players who got caught up in the line of fire and didn't live to tell the tale. Cops died every day on the streets, doing nothing but their jobs. They were unsung heroes, often never acknowledged.

Alejo didn't want fame or fortune or glory. He wanted acceptance. He wanted people to know his worth, to acknowledge that he was worth something. That was why he came all the way out here to track his killer.

His killer.

His hand fell and slid over Jack's, fingers tracing fingers. "Every hero needs a villain. I'm here to look for mine." He smiled, wondering if Jack had guessed already. Alejo wasn't working too hard to be subtle; there was no longer a point to doing that. "I've been in a one-sided love affair with him for two years. He doesn't know me. Doesn't know I'm alive. But my life for the past two years... has been his and his alone."

[Jack Ripley]

And his villain was here? In bum-fuck-nowhere? Jack swallowed hard, not liking the implications of some cop from back east showing up in a sleepy town like Hazleton... and just happening to be on the trail of a so-called villain. For two years. In the past two years, only one person had died at Jack's hands. He... didn't do it so often that it should have been easily traceable. And the body count wasn't some crazy high number. But enough. Enough to be labeled a serial killer.

And deaths that had nothing to do with him could have been tacked onto the case in the meantime. They could be attributing several deaths in the name of a serial killer. Because... they knew how to profile killers but they didn't really know killers. There was a remarkably small understanding of how they worked, and even the experts were aware of that. There was a part of people who didn't want to understand. It was easier to recoil with disgust. Monster. Allie used that term for him--for them.

Jack moved his hand away from Allie's. Maybe he was just hearing what he didn't want to hear. There was nothing about serial killers in anything Allie said. Just a villain he'd been hunting for a couple of years. Jack couldn't be the only one in this small town. There could be any number of them. For all he knew, Allie was one himself.

"Mm."

It was his I'm thinking sound. The sound he made when he wasn't sure what else to say, the sound he made when he knew what to say but thought better of saying it. At the moment, he knew what he wanted to say but... He didn't. If there was enough on him to take him in, Jack would already be in handcuffs.

"Is that why it can't work with the boyfriend?" He rested his chin in his hand, as if he wasn't nearly as affected by what Allie was dancing around. "You want the bad boy and he's not bad enough for you?"

[Alejandro Riviera]

A contemplative sound left Jack and Alejo smiled up at him, waiting for him to put it all together. He didn't know for sure even now if his killer was Jack, but he thought the evidence was strong. That little piece of a degree they had in evidence... He saw the two framed degrees on the wall. One of them had a small piece missing too. It could have been simple coincidence... or it could be a sign.

Talk turned to Judah and the smile faded slowly from Alejo's lips. "No... Not really. I couldn't hide it anymore from him. Judah. His name is Judah. He's everything that's good and kind in the world and he wouldn't have understood. Not the way you do, Jack." Alejo tried to turn onto his side, failed--his ass really didn't like him moving even an inch. Sighing, he fell back to his original position, with only his head turned to Jack.

"He's a cop too, Judah. He's a real superhero. He apprehends villains, he doesn't... fall in love with them." His smile was a twisted, dark thing. Only monsters fell in love with killers, wasn't that right? Monsters with monsters, birds of a feather all flocking together.