Chapter Seventeen Yule Shoot Your Eye Out
Chapter seventeen
Yule Shoot Your Eye Out
Kenny slipped beneath the duvet in the hush of early morning, the quiet so complete it felt sacred. The house still smelled faintly of firewood and sweat, of come and cinnamon. And Aaron.
Having sent off the profile to DS Parry, he was now free of it.
He’d been refining it after tending to far more urgent matters.
Namely, Aaron. Making love to him twice in front of the fire, coaxing a third orgasm from him with nothing but his hand and voice, until Aaron was wrecked, beautifully, wordlessly undone, too raw to speak or cry or even think.
And Aaron had lain there for hours, stretched out and trembling in the firelight while Kenny worked beside him, grounded by the nearness of him.
Then as Aaron found the strength to move, he’d crawled into Kenny’s lap, still half-dazed, pressing his face to Kenny’s neck while they reviewed the case notes together.
Aaron had even scavenged the fridge, putting together a meal from scraps and half-forgotten ingredients.
Odds and ends Kenny wouldn’t have considered.
But Aaron made it work. Growing up in a care home and scraping through uni on nothing made him resourceful.
Even in the kitchen, which Kenny usually ruled, Aaron had his quiet magic.
He could feed someone as if it was an act of love.
And that night, it had been.
Now, in bed, Kenny inched closer, drawn by the gravity of a body he knew better than his own. He curled his arm around Aaron’s waist, the dip of it so familiar it felt like the shape of home.
Aaron stirred, lifting one arm from beneath the duvet, loose and warm with sleep, slipping his fingers into Kenny’s hair and tugged him to him.
God, he loved it when Aaron did that.
That half-conscious reach. Wordless need.
The quiet gravity of a boy who’d learned long ago not to ask for comfort but did it anyway.
And how his body asked for connection even when his words couldn’t.
So Kenny pressed closer. Wrapped him tighter.
Until there was no space left between them.
Until their hearts synched and their skin felt like a single surface.
Maybe they were one person. Maybe that was the point.
Kenny was a twin. Built in mirror image. And when Jessica had been ripped from him, torn away before he even understood who he was without her, he’d never stopped searching for his other half. Some reflection. Some echo.
Had he ever imagined it would be someone like Aaron?
Complicated. Prickly. Beautifully broken. The son of the very nightmare that haunted Kenny’s personal and professional life?
Of course not.
Yet, here he was.
Warm and pliant in his arms. Breathing slow and steady. Trusting him, submitting to him, even in sleep, with all that raw, buried weight.
It should have been impossible.
But somehow, in this moment, under this blanket, with the world held at bay by shared warmth and the steady pulse beneath Aaron’s skin, it made perfect sense.
All of it.
Kenny closed his eyes and kissed Aaron’s shoulder, breathing in the only truth that mattered.
He’d found his other half.
And he wasn’t letting go.
Aaron shifted beneath the duvet, drowsy but aware. He found Kenny’s hand resting warm on his thigh and laced their fingers together, pulling them under the covers, close to his chest. “Is it over?”
“I’ve sent what I know. That’s me out.”
Aaron brought Kenny’s hand to his lips, kissed the knuckles gently. “Until the next one.”
“If they follow my leads, there won’t be a next one.”
“You don’t know who it is.”
“I know what they are. And that’s enough. With what we’ve pulled from the scenes, the breadcrumbs are lining up. It’s only a matter of time.”
Aaron hummed, almost content. Kenny felt it vibrate through his chest.
“Sleep,” Kenny whispered into his ear. “I’ve got two hours before I need to be at college.”
“Thought it was closed.”
“No snow. Reopened for the final day before Christmas.”
“Can I safeword them?”
Kenny chuckled into his skin. “No. But you still can with me.”
“Shut up, lover.”
“I don’t respond to that one.”
Aaron smiled against his hand. Lazy, half-asleep, and beautiful. Then, gradually, he melted into him again, breath evening out, body yielding into rest.
Kenny held him there, trying to follow.
But his mind kept moving.
When morning arrived in full, Kenny was quietly replaced as Aaron’s personal heater by a heavier, snuffling substitute. Chaos crawled across the duvet and draped across Aaron’s chest like a lopsided weighted blanket. Both of them snored.
Kenny smiled.
Then slipped from beneath the covers without a sound, showered, and dressed: crisp shirt, slim tie, trousers and lace-up boots.
A thick knit jumper layered beneath his trench.
Practical, presentable. He wrapped a scarf around his neck like a final layer of protection, then stalked back into the bedroom.
He crouched beside the bed, resting his chin on the mattress. First, he reached to stroke Chaos’s ears, then shifted to Aaron’s hair, brushing it gently off his forehead. He pressed a delicate kiss to the same spot and whispered something low, something only Aaron might hear if dreams could listen.
Then he left.
The drive into the college was quiet. No radio.
So he listened to the dull churn of tyres over slush and the low hum of grief hanging over the island like lingering smoke instead.
The news had broken overnight. Skye’s name, age, the location.
Photos lifted from social media. Nothing ever stayed buried. Not when it could feed a cycle.
And at this time of year, it hit differently.
Christmas had a way of spotlighting absence. Of shoving smiling families and warm fires into every advert and window display, while quietly reminding others what they’d never had. What they’d lost. What they were still pretending not to want.
For some, Christmas was memory and magic.
For others, it was isolation in tinsel.
He pulled into the staff car park, parked mechanically, and headed to his classroom.
He only had the one lesson left today. Year 13 A Level Psychology.
Eighteen-year-olds clinging to their conditional offers, most of them half checked out already.
He hadn’t expected more than three to show up.
But when he unlocked the classroom door and stepped inside, every seat was filled.
And they were early. Looking at him not with boredom, but with something else. Closer to need.
He crossed to his desk, switched on the projector, and opened his laptop. He’d planned to finish the term with forensic risk matrices. Low/moderate/high classification models. Basic, dry. A safe final topic before the break. But the moment his laptop blinked to life, a hand went up.
“Sir.” Jasmine waved from the front row. “Is it true they found another body near St. Joseph’s?”
A ripple moved through the room. Heads tilted.
“Yes.” Kenny closed the laptop. “It’s true.” There wasn’t any point in lying.
A second hand rose, this time from the back row. “Is this connected to the Santa killer?”
A ripple of discomfort moved through the room. A few students shifted in their seats. Others sat straighter.
Kenny sighed.
This wasn’t his undergraduate lectures, where he’d often use unfolding real-life cases to walk students through the mechanics of profiling. They lapped it up. That was what most of them had signed up for. To flirt with the edges of darkness in a controlled environment.
But this class was different.
These were A Level students. Teenagers. Some headed for clinical psychology, some leaning towards education, sports science, counselling. Not all of them wanted to be face to face with the worst humanity had to offer.
Still… as Kenny scanned the room, he saw no morbid fascination.
No wide-eyed ghoulish curiosity. Just concern.
Real, quiet concern. For the victims. Each other.
And concern that this wasn’t another story on the news, but something that could happen to them.
So if talking about it, carefully and responsibly, could make them more vigilant, more aware, more protective of each other… then he owed them that.
He wouldn’t let one of his students become the next name in the papers.
Not before the turkey had even cooled.
“All right.” Kenny set his laptop aside. “Since none of you are going to concentrate until we address it…yes. The latest case appears to be connected. And yes, I’m consulting.”
A ripple of whoas and exchanged glances moved through the room, but it faded quickly as Kenny stepped in front of the projector and crossed his arms.
“If anyone doesn’t want to be part of this discussion, or if it becomes uncomfortable at any point, you’re free to leave. You’ll still be marked present. No questions asked.”
He let that sit for a beat.
“But I think this is worth going through. Because the truth is, the victim profile so far? It’s not far off from some of you sitting in this room. And if talking about it keeps you alert, prepared, and watching out for each other… then we do it.”
No one moved.
“Okay. I’m not going to give you any details that haven’t already been reported.
I’m bound by confidentiality and breaching that would compromise the investigation, and the families involved.
But what I can do, as your teacher, is walk you through how psychological profiling works in real time.
What we look for. Why certain behaviours matter.
And most importantly, how understanding those patterns can keep you and others safe. ”
He turned to the whiteboard and scribbled one word: VICTIMS.
“Let’s start here.” Kenny turned back from the whiteboard. “What do we know about the victimology?”
Jasmine raised her hand. “They were young. Teenagers.”
“Good.” Kenny nodded. “Most of them are under twenty. What else?”
“From care backgrounds,” another student offered. “Unstable housing. Runaways.”