Chapter Seven You’re A Mean One, Mr Grinch
Chapter seven
You’re A Mean One, Mr Grinch
Aaron had one foot out of the car when Kenny tugged him back. Not hard. But enough to bang his knee into the bloody glove box.
Aaron blinked. “You planning on holding me hostage?”
“I like seeing you before you disappear into mutt-world.”
“Mutt-world’s more emotionally regulated than most of those college students you claim to teach.”
Monday mornings were always madness. That morning, same.
Post-bath emotional fallout, a literal crime scene playing on loop in his head, and now the joy of sleet, dog hair, and under-funded charity drama awaited.
Kenny had back-to-back lessons. Aaron had to do a collection here, at some old people’s home who’d done a Christmas fundraiser for the charity, before heading into his shift at the dog shelter.
And since they only had one car, he rode shotgun like a well-trained rescue and had to walk from this place to the shelter with a bag of coins in his pocket with only Chaos as his guard dog.
Useless though he was. Unless the mugger who wanted a load of shingle didn’t like being licked, that was.
He still felt all weird, though. An ache in his limbs from too many big feelings. Kenny would call it soft, of course. Like that was some kind of medical condition. He called it: Still recovering from being emotionally undressed and edged to hell.
But sure. Soft.
Whatever.
Chaos barked once from the backseat, tail smacking the crate wall while outside, the December morning was breath-fog cold, biting his ears and fingertips. The sky hadn’t bothered to show up properly, sulking in a smear of grey over the hills.
“I’ll pick you up at four.” Kenny skimmed his thumb along Aaron’s jaw. Maddening. And also, addictive. “We’ll go Christmas tree hunting. Axe, boots, the whole ritual.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “You realise they sell plastic ones in, like, every petrol station?”
Even his sarcasm landed with less bite than usual. Maybe it was the way Kenny looked at him, as if he was wild but precious. Not an animal to fear, but one not to disturb. One that didn’t survive cages.
“I want the one you pick.” Kenny tightened his hand on his jaw. “With the uneven branches and tragic charm.”
Something shifted in Aaron’s chest. A click. A creak. A loosening. “That’s weirdly romantic.”
“Guilty.”
Aaron squinted. “This about the corpse you’ll be flirting with later?”
Kenny bit his lip, beard catching faintly on his teeth. “I got an email from DS Parry this morning. She’s invited me to the station after my morning class.”
“Really nailing the festive mood, here, lover. Nothing says Christmas like murder.”
“There’s actually a long tradition of darkness tied to midwinter. Folklore. Ritual. Symbolism. The solstice marked the thinning of the veil. When things buried crawl closest to the surface. Maybe that’s why murder feels more… resonant this time of year.”
“Please don’t quit academia to write for Clinton Cards.”
Kenny chuckled. Then turned serious. “If you don’t want me to take the case, I won’t.” He met Aaron’s gaze with that unnervingly steady calm. “Say the word and I’ll reply right now. Tell them I’m stepping away.”
Aaron’s stomach flipped.
Not because he wanted Kenny to drop it. He didn’t. If anyone on this bleak little island could get into the mind of some freak who killed people at Christmas and dressed them like decorations, it was Kenny.
No, what knotted his insides was that Kenny meant it.
Utterly. Quietly. No performance, no pressure.
Nothing but a still, terrible truth: that he’d walk away.
Let someone else botch the profile. Let the bodies keep coming.
All to keep Aaron from losing himself again.
It wasn’t a test. Wasn’t emotional blackmail or some twisted ‘prove-you-love-me’ game.
It was worse than that.
It was real.
If you need me to stop, I will.
So he rolled his eyes. Not because he didn’t take it seriously, but because the alternative, meeting that kind of care head-on, would wreck him in broad daylight.
“Sure.” He reached for the door. “If you get too obsessed with someone who isn’t me, I’ll use the safeword.” He laughed, then went to get out of the car, but Kenny grabbed his wrist before he could. “What?”
“That…” Kenny tilted his head, stroking his thumb across the inside of his wrist, over his new tattoo. “That’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
Aaron sank back into the seat as if nudged into it by an invisible hand. “What?”
“A safeword.”
“I’m sorry? You want me to give you a code word for when I sass you too hard? Tough shit. You signed up for this.”
“Tempting. But no. A real one. A safeword. For us. Well, for you.”
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Bit late in all this to tell me you’re into dungeons, don’t you think?”
The joke didn’t land the same this time. It hit too close to something he didn’t know how to name, and Kenny didn’t rise to it. He met Aaron’s gaze. Calm. Direct.
“It’s not only used for dungeons. It’s for clarity. Knowing there’s a word you can say if you ever need me to stop. Anything. Not just in bed. Anywhere. Any situation where something becomes too much.”
Aaron stared at him. He’s fucking serious.
And if they weren’t parked two metres from the front door of an old people’s home where he had to make nice with the residents so they’d leave something for the dog charity in their wills, with the building decorated disgustingly cheerful for Christmas, he might’ve asked Kenny if he was about to spring a contract and collar out of the glove box.
Instead, he sat there, silent, trying not to overreact and trying even harder not to feel the thing tugging low in his chest. The part of him that curled up, always waiting to be told what to do but never quite trusting the person giving the orders.
Kenny cupped Aaron’s jaw to pull his face towards him. “You have about seventeen things going around in your head right now.”
“Fuck, Kenny, yeah. You basically told me you want to tie me up and paddle me and you’re giving me a word in case I panic about that in Tesco. And it’s not even nine fucking a.m.”
“That’s absolutely not what I said.”
Aaron looked away. Bit the inside of his cheek. He hated how fast that laugh had turned into something too tight to swallow. “Then what are you saying?”
Kenny stroked the back of his knuckles across Aaron’s cheek with that insufferable look of bloody fucking longing.
“I’m saying you’ve spent most of your life being cornered.
Trapped. Talked over. Ignored. And I’m fully aware that I take control without checking.
That maybe I push you into things. Not because I mean to, but because I’ve spent four years learning you.
Two years learning how to handle you and the other two when to hold you. I’ve got used to that rhythm.”
He paused. Letting it land. Because he was nothing if not fucking experienced in delivering this sort of shit.
“And whilst I believe I have a very good handle on you, that I can read your thoughts before you even can, that I know you, I’m also not perfect.
I’m flawed, too. So I’m saying if I ever misread you—anywhere—I want you to have a word that ends it immediately.
No conversation. No fallout. Just full stop. Reset.”
He dropped his hand to Aaron’s thigh.
Aaron stared at it for a second. Then slipped his own hand on top, lacing their fingers together. “A safeword’s for sex. Rough sex.”
And okay, yeah. He liked it rough occasionally.
When Kenny got him facedown, grip tight around his hips or curled around his throat.
Even liked the sting of a well-timed slap blurring everything else out.
But that was… different. It was desperation disguised as desire.
Wanting the pain to outrun whatever was clawing at him inside.
And Kenny never hurt him. Never went too far.
Gave him space to breathe whenever they’d done it like that.
Kenny gripped his hand. “That’s not the only reason to have one.”
“So what, you want me to use it when you’re chewing too loud? When you’re psychoanalysing a fucking Disney film halfway through the climax? Please stop diagnosing Elsa, Kenny. She’s trying to belt a power ballad, not begging for a case review.”
“I’d never diagnose Elsa. She’s clearly avoidant with a history of emotional suppression and an overdeveloped saviour complex. That’s not a diagnosis. It’s simple observation.”
Aaron groaned, flinging his head back. “Jesus Christ.”
“But no…it isn’t for that.”
“So it is for sex?”
“It can be, yes.”
“Sex that we have?” He waved a hand between them. “Together.”
“Are you currently having sex with anyone else?”
“No. And if you are, or even think about it, this is me pre-warning you that I’ll use that fucking safeword, follow it with a kitchen knife, and remove your dick from circulation.”
“Noted. I’m not. Ditto back at you.”
“Great. Glad we cleared that up.” Aaron glanced out the window, then back. “But we aren’t currently having any kind of sex. Bondage bollocks or otherwise.”
“Which is exactly why it’s a good time to have this conversation.”
Aaron tilted his neck until it clicked.
Kenny stroked his thumb along Aaron’s. “Let’s establish a word for now. We can go through the rest later.”
“There’s more? Rules? A fucking contract?”
“No…” Kenny sighed, patient but clearly two seconds from throwing him out the car. “No. No contract. No rules. This is just us. What we want from each other.”
“Which is what?”
Kenny dragged his gaze over Aaron with that lazy, knowing heat that peeled back layers. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been doing these past few weeks?”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Really fucking pissing me off.”
“Right.” Kenny smiled, not quite. “Let’s start there. So you’ve noticed I’ve been shifting the dynamic?”
“I know you’ve been edging me like a sadist with a PhD.”
“Not a sadist, but I appreciate your attempt at clinical diagnosis.”