Take me home tonight

[Jack Ripley]

Judah. Judah the boyfriend. It sounded like Allie cared about him, though. And Jack could understand the good and kind comment, knowing somebody like that himself. But he knew others like that in the past and... Jack dropped his gaze.

Another cop. A good, kind man. But also... a cop. What, were they on this case together? Jack didn't have all the pieces. Why did Allie sound so sad about Judah but confessed to falling in love with a villain? Somebody he claimed to have never met but was with him for two years. Did he just fall in love with the idea of him? And... how? If he had somebody he described so wistfully in his life--who was with him, who was his boyfriend, who apparently was willing to work things out even after he was cheated on...

Why would anybody choose the villain?

"It sounds like," Jack said slowly, "you fell in love with an idea, not a person."

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo nodded, not disputing Jack's remarks. "At first, it was the idea of him," he sighed, turning his gaze to the ceiling. "At first I wanted to catch him to make a name for myself and to finally be seen, you know? I'd spend whole nights looking over the case notes, comparing evidence, drawing my own conclusions. Two years passed... Every day he was on my mind, in my thoughts. I guess somewhere along the way I stopped wanting to catch him for justice and... started wanting to catch him for myself."

And Judah, he didn't know. Alejo kept it all carefully hidden from him, fearing that he would lose Judah if he came out with the truth. Fearing that he would be taken off the case, and lose all contact with his killer. He didn't love Judah any less--but he grew to love his killer more. Coming here was a long shot. He didn't expect to find Jack here. Beautiful Jack, god-like, magnificent Jack. Jackie.

"Then I came here. I followed him to Oregon and the trail went cold, so I searched around for a small town that someone could blend into without raising too many questions. Hazleton seemed like a good place." He turned to look at Jack again, reached out--with heavy protest from his lower body--to tap his chin gently. "And here, I found you, Jackie. Isn't that a scream?"

[Jack Ripley]

Allie thought they were on the same page... but they weren't. Because Jack didn't understand how somebody could fall in love with the idea of somebody so black-hearted. On paper, it had to look awful. Somebody killing innocent young college boys, in the very prime of their lives. Beautiful boys, too. The kind that could light up a whole room with their presence and comforted the souls of those who weren't so lucky to have been born loved and protected all their lives.

Jack couldn't fathom falling in love with... a monster. He couldn't see himself loving somebody that genuinely wanted to hurt people. And wasn't that all a serial killer was? A monster who loved death, who reveled in it, who needed it to feel alive? That was what it said on paper. That was the understanding the public had. That cops had. That Allie must have had. So it didn't make sense, for somebody to become a cop for the aspect of being a beloved superhero... to fall in love with idea of a villain, a killer, somebody who didn't care, somebody who was only in it for themselves, a narcissist. All those things killers were supposed to be.

"A goddamned riot."

His intonation was flat. Jack had no intention of outing himself but it seemed like Allie was quite sure he'd found his villain. Jack hoped he was a disappointment. That whatever Allie cooked up in his head was nothing like the Jack he found. But maybe he found proof he existed when Jack let go and shredded Allie's throat. I should have killed him when I had the chance. But no, no. He didn't want to think like that. He couldn't think like that. It was like a disease. It was degenerative. But he could stop it; he had the power to stop it.

"I can't say I know what you're hoping to find," Jack said as he moved his head back, away from Allie's touch, as if it burned, as if it disgusted him. And maybe it did. Jack had everything wrong when it came to Allie. And he hadn't been so wrong about somebody in a long, long time.

"But I'm just a professor." Nothing deep and dark in him now. That was behind him. If Allie wanted to be with a killer... he had to look elsewhere.

[Alejandro Riviera]

Hi-larious.

Alejo was still smiling even though Jack was not. There was nothing funny about this; it was just a little sad, how far he'd fallen. "I told you I was a monster," he said quietly into the gathering silence. He was light and dark, shadow and sunlight. There was good in him and there was... the devil. Alejo couldn't make the two parts match up, you see. He never could. The smiling, happy, loving policeman and this... wretched creature laying in bed with Jack were somehow contained within the same person, sharing the same flesh.

But he wasn't disappointed. It was mostly a relief to know that Jack was here and that he had caught up to him. Alejo had no real plans beyond that. He didn't think he would run into Jack this way, at a club. Twice. It seemed as if fate wanted to throw them together, every chance it got.

He looked at Jack, in his denial, and made his own thoughtful sound. "Mm." A professor. From out East, blending in with these simple people, trying to live out a peaceful life. He even had a small-town friend, with a gentle smile. Simple, kind, neighborly. No one suspected him; they were all in awe over his big-city charm. But how long would that last? How long before the monster inside came shrieking out?

"I know I sound crazy, Jackie. Believe me, I do. To everyone else he's a monster but to me, he's..." He wasn't talking to Jack now, just up at the ceiling. "I don't love him because he killed all of those people, you know. That's not... why I followed him here. But he understands. He knows what it's like to live one way but be another. And I don't... know how to..." Alejo's hands came together as though to demonstrate a point. Two halves within the same vessel, but too different to ever merge.

"Maybe you're right," he sighed at last, closing his eyes. "Maybe it is just the idea of him. A villain and a hero. How can someone be both of those things? I was hoping he'd know..." His eyes flickered open, then closed again. "...I think he killed out of love. Do you think that's possible? To love someone so much that you just... want them to be a part of you forever?"

The bodies of those young men were treated with care. With love. They were preserved in their eternal youth and Alejo... knew... that the killer loved them. That they would always be a part of him, be with him.

[Jack Ripley]

Did Allie think this villain knew how to live two separate lives? That there was some trick to it? If he knew the truth, he would surely be ever more disappointed with the truth. If he thought Jack was this person... Jack didn't have some magical solution. There was a break inside of him that made it easier for him to shove his worst thoughts and actions, the bad memories that he preferred to forget--deep, deep down, to a place where they couldn't touch him, couldn't hurt him.

Jack didn't spend time ruminating over the past anymore. He ran from it and left it behind, where it belonged. But... even psychology dictated that none of that ever disappeared forever. Eventually, such thoughts would resurface. They came out through the subconscious, in things like wanting to be hurt and punished, in wanting something so pure and loving that it eclipsed all else. And the bad parts, they came leaking out in the nightmares.

After a moment, Jack sat up, cross legged on the bed, hands on his knees. Now Allie was getting too close to the truth. Loving somebody so much that he would rather they die than experience the real horrors of the world. Nobody taught Jack what it was to truly love and maybe he was misguided but... he swore they were being protected. In the moment, in the darkest parts of his heart, he mourned them even before they were gone. Stay pure forever.

Swallowing hard, he lowered his head and let his hair fall across his face. Allie seemed to think he had him pegged but he still had it wrong. What Allie described seemed more what Allie wanted. What he hoped to get out of... this. it seemed important to him when he asked if he left an indelible mark on Jack, if he was a part of him. Allie wanted to be a part of somebody. Wasn't he already? Surely he had that boyfriend. Why was he here, chasing Jack down? What did he really think Jack had to offer?

"It's possible." He couldn't say it was impossible that somebody lovingly murdered somebody. How could he? He had done it himself. "But killing somebody isn't the only way to be a part of them forever."

[Alejandro Riviera]

Slowly and painfully Alejo turned onto his side, facing Jack. He watched him, watched the thoughts running through his mind, watched the cogs turning. There was no use in pretending that they didn't know what the other one was. All of the run-around was meaningless in the end. Jack knew. Alejo knew.

He reached out a hand the hesitated before touching Jack's knee. Jack looked... so alone in that moment. He was so sad. There was love and there was Jack's kind of love, Alejo's kind of love. A love that hurt instead of healed, one that tore them apart because they couldn't understand and couldn't feel what others felt. For others, love was pure. For them, it was... monstrous.

"I'm not here to hurt you, Jackie." His voice was low, as though what he said could only ever be for the two of them. "I just want to... understand. I just wanted to talk to you. Did you know, I've been leading them off your tracks? I've been trying to protect you even before I met you at that nightclub. I don't want to hurt you," he repeated again, letting his hand fall away.

"Help me understand, Jackie. How can I be part of someone without..." Alejo's hand went to his own throat. "This? Because this is what I... want. Need. To stop the monster inside."

[Jack Ripley]

Why, though? Jack didn't understand what it was about the Jack on paper that Allie thought was something worth loving. Worse still, he didn't understand how he could hunt him down and play these games with him. Some games were fun. This one wasn't. Jack didn't even know how to react to the idea of somebody fantasizing about the worst parts of him, holding onto them as if they were... something worth hanging onto. And all Jack wanted to do was slip them off, the shackles of his past, the brokenness that led him down that path, the inability to fix those things on his own, even with all the tools he had at his disposal.

Of course Jack didn't know that Allie had been leading people off his trail. He hadn't even been aware there was anybody this close to him, to knowing who he was, what he had done, the skeletons that hung far back in his closet. Never meant to see the light of day. Yet Allie kept trying to hold the door open and illuminate them--all the things Jack didn't want.

Talk about what? he thought sardonically. About all the ways he had done things? About his motivations? The thoughts that went through his mind? The emotions? The regrets? The nightmares? What the hell did Allie want from him?

"You already had it," Jack said, tone vague and far away, his gaze not on Allie. "But you threw it away."

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Then there's... nothing?"

He sat up with that same ugliness as before crashing over him from head to toe. Jack had no answers? Nothing?

Alejo sat looking at him, still watchful. He touched his own throat again in the horrible helplessness of the moment. Then he laughed. A low, soft, unnatural laugh.

"There's nothing," he said again in a little sing song voice as the pain faded from his over-worked body. Nothing, nothing, nothing~ The bed creaked as he stood up. Maybe some of that Advil was working now, helping him to get to his feet.

"I think... it's a good time... for a little walk."

Back to his motel room. Back to the badge. And the gun.

[Jack Ripley]

That word. Nothing. It used to mean so much to Jack. That hollow nothingness inside, from being distant, from holding others at arm's length with sarcastic remarks and an imperious act. But inside, Jack was nothing. He didn't know how to help Allie. Honestly, he didn't know what Allie was hoping to gain from all this. Watching him get up, Jack scooted to the edge of his bed and tried to take his arm before he got too far.

"Like this? I don't think so."

And he didn't just mean the raw asshole or the drunken state or the triple dose of Advil. He meant wherever Allie's head was at. It wasn't somewhere good, but it wasn't like that couldn't be fixed.

"Stay tonight."

Jack feared whatever might happen otherwise. That Allie would go back to the club, let somebody really hurt him. Let somebody kill him. Maybe just kill himself. Jack didn't know what was going through Allie's mind, but there was that dark look in his eyes that he'd seen back at the night club and that was concerning enough.

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo tried to shake Jack's hand off. "Why? There's nothing here, Jackie. You said it yourself. I had it and I lost it..." He smiled softly at Jack and pulled his arm away. "It's not with you."

Who was it with? Judah didn't have it or Alejo would be whole by now. He thought Jack had the answer but he didn't. He didn't understand after all and those two years of painstaking work had come to naught.

"Let me go, Jackie. I'm tired. I just want to go back and... rest."

He looked toward the door, out into the living room and then beyond to all of the dark and empty years he spent trying to find a place in this world for himself. Just himself. He thought he and Jack were the same but sadly, they weren't.

"I'm tired, Jackie."

[Jack Ripley]

"No..." It wasn't with him but that didn't mean it wasn't with somebody. Jack didn't understand. Why not the boyfriend--Judah? Why him? There were things about Jack that Allie must have made up, to work with his clever narrative, to work with the idea that he'd fallen in love, rather than the person those ideas were being applied to. And how could Allie know? He didn't know Jack. All he had were his assumptions and it turned out his assumptions weren't what he thought they were.

But Jack wasn't about to apologize for not being whatever it was that Allie needed. Jack didn't want to stay broken. He didn't want to stay nothing. He needed... he needed more than that. And Allie... he did, too. He was reaching for it, but he didn't realize how incompatible the two of them really were. Maybe where Allie thought they were so alike, they weren't. Or maybe in some ways, they were too alike to work. There needed to be a balance between two people... not two broken people trying to use the other as their glue.

"Rest here." Jack tried again. "Just lay down... close your eyes... it'll be all right."

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo was exhausted. A lifetime of emptiness and nothingness could make anyone want to give up. Give in. The voice had always been there but tonight it was the strongest yet. At the club, here with Jack, in that very moment, he heard it loud and clear.

It was giving him the answer he needed.

But Jack wasn't letting him go. He was still trying to help save what was beyond saving. And that somehow made it worse. The fact that Jack cared, that Judah cared, it was worse because it wasn't enough. It ought to have been. But it wasn't. Alejo was too broken.

"...okay." He only said it to appease Jack and to stop him from looking so concerned. The voice was still there. He could slip away in the middle of the night to answer its summons.

"I'll stay the night. Don't worry." He patted Jack on the arm and sat back down onto the bed. Just sat there, staring at the wall.

[Jack Ripley]

Jack didn't believe him. Not for a second. Especially with the way Allie sat there and just stared into the nothingness in front of him, as if he saw beyond this moment and into some other moment. Jack didn't know what was expected of him. One moment, Allie was high as a kite and now he was in the lowest moment of his life. And Jack couldn't save him, if that was what he wanted.

"I'm not whomever you thought I was," he said quietly. "Nobody ever is."

Jack wasn't what Allie wanted him to be. Allie certainly wasn't who Jack thought he was. All people ever did was disappoint each other when they tried to make them whatever they thought they were. That wasn't how people worked. Jack had been learning that over time. That maybe some of the innocents he thought were so innocent weren't. That maybe some of the worst people hid behind a facade, just like he did, just like Allie did.

"...and honestly, Allie... I don't want to be whatever it is you're imagining I am. Whatever you... thought I was."

[Alejandro Riviera]

"I know."

He still stared at the opposite wall, looking at its whiteness and its blankness and its nothingness. But that wall, it had a purpose. It was put there for a reason, to block out the light and to prevent others from looking in. It was there to protect and to give shelter.

What was Alejo put here to do? To disappoint? His family, Judah, even Jack? Was he here to cause pain instead of giving love back to the people who loved him? That was what heroes did. They spread love and happiness.

Villains, monsters, they were the ones who caused pain and hurt. They were like black holes. No matter how much love was poured into them, it could never fill them all the way up. He saw that now. He saw how foolish he had been to think that one person could fix his nothingness. Only Alejo could fix that--fix himself.

Alejo nodded as Jack spoke and tried to explain to him things that he already knew. He understood disappointment. He understood not being the person others thought he was, mistaking others for something they were not.

"It's not your fault Jack. You don't have to explain anything. You don't owe me anything. The mistake was--is mine." His hands started twisting in his lap, fingers grasping at nothing. Alejo laughed again, the same low laugh. "Shouldn't have... gone out tonight, huh? I don't think I can get back into those pants tomorrow..."

His fingers stopped twisting. "I'm sorry I ruined your evening."

[Jack Ripley]

As much as he wanted to say he hoped that Allie found what he was looking for, he had a hard time believing that would be good for anybody involved. Shifting in his bed, he pulled the blankets back, so they could slide beneath rather than lying on top of them. There wasn't really much else to say. Everything felt... hollow now. Jack hated the feeling, it reminded him too much of how close he could have been to snapping, doing something... bad.

But it wasn't here now. Whatever it was that Allie saw in his research was no longer there. Or if it was, Jack had finally succeeded in shoving it so far down that it had finally been buried and laid to rest. He didn't know. He didn't want to know.

Jack brought the covers up around Allie. "You can borrow something from my closet." Which likely wouldn't fit but would still fit better than trying to squeeze into a pair of painted on breeches. As for coming out tonight, Jack couldn't speak to that but he was feeling similarly. Maybe he should have just gone over to Brayden's and played another silly game with him. His heart hurt thinking about it, how differently things could have been. To get laid versus to spend time with his friend.

"It's not ruined," he lied. "Well, not entirely."

They did have a good time before Allie decided to get heavy on him--and this time the word had nothing to do with physical weight. Why couldn't Allie be the Allie he thought he was? Why was he this... creature that reared up to remind him of all the ugly in the world that he had come here to get away from?