Drift (Don’t… #8)

Chapter 24 PIED PIPER

As Gray and Ray joined them, Light made it through to the west wing hall doors. He’d already checked in here, but that had been twenty minutes ago, and anyone could have walked in since, which from the checks on the CCTV and source of the loud music, someone did play arsehole inside.

Security protocol had been set for this side of the manor as well as in the hall, but with the music bleeding his head and ears, he bypassed them all, and despite a warning snarl off someone—Simon?—he pushed on through.

Light’s smack at the light switch took away the darkness inside, then his shift for the stereo took out the music. But the pressure in his head didn’t ease as he moved so fast for the middle of the floor, needing to take down whoever had been stupid enough to press every single one of his freak buttons.

“Hey, fuck. Whoa.” Someone sidestepped his knock meant for their calf to send them sprawling, but Light shifted back around in the same breath, his backhand smacking jaw despite the street rat trying to pull out of the way a second time. “Shit.” A grunt, a twist out of the way of Light’s roundhouse kick, then… nothing. The kid who had spoken was gone.

Light twisted around, not understanding why he was left fighting an empty wooden floor. “What the?”

Back by the door, a sharp whistle came off Simon, a nod off to the left, and Light looked back over by the wall.

A thin decorated ledge ran the perimeter of the whole hall, roughly about eight feet off the floor, just a few inches wide.

Crouched on top of a small section, the street rat winked his way from underneath such a long fringe.

“You okay there, Slappy Chan?” A slight cock of a smile. “Need another minute on your own to get it out of your system?”

Korean.

The report had said Korean. Korean heritage, and… and….

Jesus.

Jude wore simple black compression sports shirt and pants, the fit slipstream-tight to his body, like all he was missing was his racing bike for the hard-and-fast workout on the streets. The choice looked innocent: allowing the snug material to cool the body in the summer yet offer to keep it warm in the winter. But no reflective stripes licked lovingly at the material to his pants, even with being out in the dark, neither offering nor asking for safe zones. It took that offer of innocence into dark waters with just how well he’d blended into the night until Light had flicked the switch in the hall. It didn’t help with how the whole black fingerless gloves, a skull scarf handing out of the lip of his compression pants, and canvas shoes with a good grip finished off the inconspicuous out not to be seen look. Even jet-black hair was shaved at the back and sides, with a long fringe at the front, almost to hide his eyes and pale skin. Yet two pure white streaks in his fringe touched his lips and offered a striking contrast to the jet blackness of his hair, along with the single white dagger earing in his left ear, and…

Korean, the hint was just there around his eyes… just subtle, same with the jet-black hair, pale skin tone, and these… these startling androgynous features that called out natural beauty rather than worry over sexuality. Light could have said he made a massive leap to Jude, but… but those goddamn eyes of—

“Tell me, do you live by accident, or does something deeper naturally drive you into bad places?”

Light frowned. “You don’t know me well enough, mate.” He’d kept his voice even back then, but also judged the distance between him and the hall door, who had sat there in this hall all those years ago when Light had first played his violin in here. “Don’t overstep the mark, okay.”

Light flinched, more on guard now with the offer of a friendly smile that came his way.

“Don’t blame the rats for following the Piper….” He offered his hand. “Name’s…”

Martin.

Fuck.

Eyes. Yeah. Those goddamn eyes. They held every atom made since the Big Bang, Light knew that, and yet it was there now. Each one danced in a startling cascade of silver-moon grey atoms that lit up any darkened night.

That… that was Jude there.

That was Martin ’ s boy.

Gray had stilled by the door, and understanding sank in over why Simon fell so quiet as well. Why Ray hadn’t shifted his look from where Jude crouched up on the ledge.

“Get down.” Light frowned and pointed to the floor. “Please?”

“Please?” Jude distractedly pushed up the sleeves of his compression shirt to his elbows, showing Saint inked across one arm, Sinner the other, before he rested elbows to knees, and a sole white Tuareg-inspired necklace finished off the whole displaced Asian nomad look. “Well ain’t that a dramatic change from the welcome kiss you’ve just given me.”

Light eased everything racing his head with the trace of blood from Jude’s nose. Or tried to at least. Hitting Brin… the fallout…? “Sorry.” He meant that. So damn much. And this time he got chance to apologise straightaway. “Loud music…” He tapped his head. “Messes with this still sometimes.”

“Yeah?” A frown came Light’s way. “That wasn’t my intention. Just making a return annoying call.” Jude smiled softly, and it seemed something he didn’t often offer. “But in judging whether it’s safe for me to come down… tell me, you’ve got no knives on you as well to carry on trying to slay this wee beastie, right? Because I’m a runner, rarely a fire starter.” He winced. “Don’t believe the rumours that try and suggest otherwise on the latter.”

Light frowned, and Jude waved him off. “ Hotel California joke on the beastie side.” Another wince. “The other one is… debatable.”

For all of his effort, Light couldn’t place the song even though he knew it deep down. “No, no knives.” He snorted. “Don’t really need them.”

“Ah… the whole Crouching Tiger, Skinny-ass Dragon thing you have going on there, huh?” Jude chuckled, and the pain in Light’s head eased. He couldn’t ever remember hearing Martin laugh, and how much of a shame was that because there was so much warmth in Jude’s.

“No sharp objects,” Light said again and he put his hand to heart. “You have my word.”

Jude looked at his hand for a moment, a frown, then giving a sniff, a wipe at his nose—he jumped down.

Jesus. The ridges and dips to such a finely toned body and ass couldn’t have been more defined by the tight fit of compression shirt and pants on his body, showing Jude maybe, just maybe used muscles Light had yet to discover, and he had to force himself to stop focusing. Like one guy staring at another in the john stop focusing. But as Jude swept his long black fringe away from his eyes….

God. Those goddamn startling silver-grey eyes….

“Light, right? The apologist and stranger to lovers.” Jude looked him up and down. Four years younger, he still matched Light for his height, yet they were polar opposites in looks, Jude absolutely owning those rights. “You’ve got good taste in music, mate, and I mean that. Musician by any chance?” Jude focused on Light’s hands again, one, then the other. “You’ve certainly got the long fingers for either.” A smile. “But I’d really recommend not hitting out and breaking a few there. Gotta protect that talent, right?”

Light went to try and find a reply, like ask how Jude knew his name, why his own look went naturally to Jude’s hands and how he had the same slender offer—another musician? Yet giving a frown, Jude dug them in his pockets, almost what? Wary? His look at Simon as he came over almost said he was ready to bolt and test them all out in the process with the mass of needing-to-run energy he had coming from him with that focus on his hands.

“Now who are you?” Jude frowned Simon’s way. “You’re too young for Old Mukka. Wrong sex for Jan.” He shook his head “Not emo depressive enough for a teenage Jack, and not loner enough to go “Hotel California” like ‘Not Jack Here’. Not with how close you stay to Light. Hmm.” He seemed to work through things so damn fast, and the startling echo of Martin stole Light’s head.

“Security maybe?” Jude shook his head, not looking happy with that. “Nah. You’re stood too close to family, not over by the door like that guy over there?” He thumbed back at Ray. “But still a suit in the middle of the night too, so… not really at home here either?” His look suddenly softened. “Oh. Not family… but wanting to be Light’s and struggling with it?” A slow kiss went at his fingertips, a touch to his heart. “I feel the displacement, brother, I really do.”

Simon stayed locked in the same quiet that hit everyone but Jude.

“So.” All humour seemed to fade from his look as he distractedly rubbed at his neck. “You lot asked after Jude. You wanna tell me why?”

Light flicked a look to Gray—and like bird to air current, Jude followed it in the same breath.

“Right.” Giving a nod to himself, Jude went over to Gray, so bloody close and up in his space.

Night blackness still made a home in Gray’s eyes, and giving a serious frown, whether Jude recognised what that blackness meant or not, he pulled back a touch as if catching the energy Gray gave off, and all of his confidence seemed to… drop.

“Old Mukka, right? You’re poppateer.” Jude searched Gray’s eyes for a brief moment, but Gray was right there with him, searching Jude’s without losing any eye contact. Only Gray’s asked and answered every question so damn quickly.

Giving a frown, Jude quickly broke the deadlock and looked around. “Sick castle you have here.” He looked at Gray. “So why put a call out for a street rat to come poison it?” Whether he knew the black look or not, it didn’t stop him confronting it.

But Jude wasn’t saying the rat was him. He avoided it at all costs. But he didn’t know what his own looks brought to the table. How could he? All family photos were locked firmly away in a private gallery, purely for family.

Gray went to speak, failed, then wiped a hand over his mouth, all emotion played out in that single gesture that tried so quickly to call back the blackness in his eyes. “You… you got a name, kid?” Gray knew it, but… reject’s club. He didn’t look to make the same mistake twice. He no doubt wanted to get to know Jude under who he was now, not the name scrawled on a birth certificate that neither a mother nor father had given him.

Jude gave a shake of head. “Doesn’t work like that,” he said gently. “You put out a name to get a reaction. That makes you a rozzer, pimp, or family. None of which are good blood, especially as the security set up here is top notch, yet, strangely enough, even as talented as I am, I was still allowed inhere rather easily. You’re playing enticement. How stupid would I be to give you a name here so you can trace this Jude on the street if he is still out there, huh?”

Gray nodded. So much emotion played in his eyes, and Light wondered if he was lost back up in the alley with Jack, all the turmoil over a first meeting when Jack would have only been, what? Eighteen… nineteen himself, or so Simon had said? The echo of Jack in Jude was also… startling. And it was there, how that touch to Gray’s lip said he wanted to react, to call Jude out as Jack’s, as blood to his lover—lovers?—but he fought against it so badly here. Had that same look… the same fight been back there off Gray for Light himself, and he’d missed it all in the backdraft of bombs and burning bodies?

“Can….” Gray looked Jude over. “Can you at least tell me if your Night-walker friends have backed down? They could get hurt here, and I really don’t want that.” A brief look came Light’s way and, yeah, Gray was trying to avoid bad echoes of Brin being caught in the backdraught.

Any play and friendliness dropped from Jude’s eyes. “You put out a name. I got curious. Nothing more. Me and my pips are fuck all to do with those cunts.”

“You got curious in the dark,” Simon said flatly, and Jude looked his way, right along with Gray. “That could make you one of them.”

“You know, I don’t know whether to be relieved or just plain disappointed at that house-trained comment.” Jude checked Simon out, his scan of his body a little longer, more sarcastic. “Been having difficulty finding out anything about them, have we? Because you’ve just bunched every streetwalker into simple safe and unsafe stereotypes as if you think you know them. Only a house-trained pup used to pissing on a delegated mat would do that.”

Oh… as Simon narrowed his eyes Jude’s way, Light eased back a little. Jude… he knew of the Night-walkers even if he wasn’t with them.

“Apologies,” Gray said gently. “Sometimes lines have to be pushed in order to know who’s standing what side, right?”

“The man you used isn’t a Night-walker, but he is street and used to walking nights. You sent out confusing tones.”

Gray shook his head. “We sent out old-guard tones. Ones who have been around long before any night troubles started. He’s as concerned as you over bad tones bleeding through to daylight.”

Jude watched him for a few moments, seemed to size something up. Bad tones bleeding through to daylight? Talk on old-guards…? He gave a nod, something certainly seeming to hit a note with him. “I’m alone from here on in until I leave. No pips.” He snorted a small smile. “I trust you with them about as much as you trust me stepping onto your turf.”

Light went over, confused. “Pips?” He didn’t know the term, didn’t know why he felt he should, and Jude frowned his way.

“Kids,” he said eventually. “Apples or pears for parents, they all make… pips…. Some are either put in shit and pampered enough to grow into fruit-filled taxpayers, or they’re tossed in the garden waste, easing over-occupancy of the fruit field. Either way?” He shrugged. “All still pips, where the latter are given little chance to survive.” He nodded at Light. “No offense meant there on the pampered, tax-paying sort, mate.”

Light snorted a smile. “None taken. Home doesn’t always provide the best field to grow in.” But that comment over been tossed in the bin…. Jesus… did Jude find that out after running to the streets, or had he been told it by foster parents even though he’d only been a boy? Or was it all just a generalisation and Jude didn’t know?

“Too right. Home doesn’t always provide the best shit to grow in,” said Jude, tipping his head. “That’s why most pips have the sense to walk away, or hide from it in their head, if that’s all they’ve got.” He frowned. “It’s the ones who walk back into home despite all the trouble that scare the shit out of me. Avoid those.” He winked at Light. “They’ll always pull you down into the wrong kind of shit.”

Unnatural common ground. Jude seemed a natural at being able to walk in somewhere and find common ground to build on. Yet—

“Why’d you do it?”

Sat on the bed, next to Light, Gray smiled over at him. “Look at talking to Andrews?”

“Walk out on your kid.”

That lone stand on the beach with not growing up with family, Light still tasted it. The pull of the sand that drew him into drown over not knowing who or what he was. Only Jude’s pull into the sea must have been so much damn darker, so much more lonely. Light had grown up with at least half of the family puzzle. Jude had… nothing. Nothing beyond borrowed families, borrowed names.

Of course he’d walk in and answer the goddamn call of his name if he’d heard it on the street.

“You…” Light pointed at his jaw, how a little blood bled from his nose. Jude still hadn’t noticed. “You need something to ease that?”

“Hm?” Jude wiped it away and glanced down at the blood as if it finally registered it should be hurting. Then he focused on Gray, a little more anger creeping into his youthful look. Yeah. Light knew that anger too.

“I want to know why you put a calling card out,” Jude said flatly. “More so why you’ve all gone soft since you saw me.” He pointed at Ray. “Except him. He’s definitely looking like he wants to toss me out the window, second floor and a rush at concrete flooring a pure bonus over making sure I don’t leg it without a wheelchair he can keep tabs on.”

Ray looked down at his hands, snorted a smile.

Gray went to say something, but shouts from down the hall had him frowning at the scuffle of feet.

The nameless cat bolted through, claws scratching wood, and she went sliding into Gray before finding her feet again and bolting behind the long curtains, forcing Jude to dodge the fur-filled bowling ball.

“Christ.” Breathless and wearing just pyjama bottoms and a long scratch at his abs, Jan ran through in the next breath. He spotted Gray first and mouthed a quick Sorry his way, no doubt more over being out of the bedroom when he was supposed to be in lockdown. “She snuck in after you left.” Jan blew out hard and fast breaths a few times and rested hands to hips as he tried to control his breathing. He definitely wasn’t the runner in the family. “Damn music sent her up the walls.” He pointed behind him. “Jack tried to calm her, then got pissed off when George wouldn’t open the door and let her find relief outside. Then when he did because of the ball-wrecking she was doing in the bedroom, she lost it and bolted. And the rest?” He took another deep breath and nodded at the curtain, to the shaking coming from there. “Like trying to stop a goddamn freight train covered in lube.”

“Shit,” mumbled Jude, his look back on the shaking cat. “Sorry, miss. My fault.”

That image of a young lad with his dog hit home with Light. A love for pups… pets.

Caught out, Jan frowned Jude’s way, looked him up… down. “Who…?” The confusion playing about him called how disturbed he was over someone being in the manor he didn’t know, but then something clicked into place so fast in his eyes. “You… you… you’re—”

“—such a fucking asshole .” Behind Jan, Jack came in wearing just black silk pyjama bottoms, and rubbing at several long scratches down his left arm. He didn’t even look up. He seemed to have walked the halls for so long that he didn’t need to. “Asshole’s definitely going on your grave after I catch and chainsaw your furry ass. You took out two of my Land Rover magazines, y’big fucking wus,” he mumbled as he wiped at a scratch, lost maybe a little too deeply to the blood and no doubt the number of germs a cat scratch could carry in his world.

George followed him in, wiping the bottom of his shirt down a long cut at his throat and bumping into Jack in the process. They all looked like they’d gone dogpile on Lucifer’s hellhound and lost. But Jack? “Just a bit of goddamn music, lass,” he said, gently pushing George to arm’s length, then wincing as he looked his scratches over as well as his own. “C’mon, Pussy Gore-law. Back to—”

Fuck. Cats. That was another reason Light had mostly avoided the manor. He sneezed, never really sure what to do around them, and one led into two as Jack’s look rested his way. Such a hard look hit silver-grey eyes, and Light instantly backed off. Unnerving, there was the look of an aggression there with Jack that Martin’s calmness never had, the kind of mindless aggression that came with no control point beyond sedatives and restraints and that damn well couldn’t be reasoned with.

And on that look up, Jude sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, like he’d been punched in the gut, seeing Jack.

Jack froze, went so deathly quiet. “You… you….” He looked as if every ounce of life glitched and shifted around him, shifting sharply this way, that, the whole landscape stammering as—“You… you’re—”

Gray’s reaction was natural born, almost as if Jack’s glitched look over not knowing whether to run, to stay, fight, hide… it threw him back to Jack always taking the loneliest walk out of the front door. Light had heard about Vince’s rape when it came to Jack, about Henry and what he did to Jan, and Gray shifted over to Jack, almost head-to-head, gently backing him up towards the hall door, towards… out and Gray losing him again. “Timeout.” The call came so quietly off Gray, and he glanced back at Jude for a single moment. “Give us a second, please. Just a few more seconds.”

Jan’s reaction was just as… quiet and guarded with closing ranks. Where Gray backed Jack out of the hall, Jan moved up to Drift. Both of them gave that quiet defence over one of their triad falling, only Jan’s and Gray’s protection was as much there for Drift in that moment, easing down damage control before it had chance to walk out into the snow and either get hurt or hurt someone caught in the way.

And just how much balls did Jan have to do that after the hurt he’d taken?

Love, obsession, fear, fight… life lived as lovers in a complex chemical triad mix of psychopaths, sociopaths and normal blood… it was odd to Light, yet the reaction from Gray and Jan was done on unspoken words, without needing to look back at each other to know there was something that needed protecting, just that chemical shift that changed the colours around them. And that, that darkening of colours… if nothing else, Light felt and understood that change when it came to living life as a lover.

Jan whispered something to Drift, but Light was too lost on Gray as he backed Jack out and up into the corner of the hallway, almost like a… Light eased back, maybe seeing it for the first time.

Like a Dom to his stressed sub….

“Easy, stunner. Easy.” Gray’s breath played gently against Jack’s cheek but the press of his body had Jack turning his head into the curve of Gray’s throat, needing the hard and fast grounding.

“He heard the call of his name and answered, nothing more,” mumbled Gray.

Jack nodded, and didn’t realise he was shaking until Gray’s subtle rub at his arms tried to chase away the bitter chill. For a moment, he looked up over Gray’s shoulder to the hall, and the distance from where they stood to the offer of wood flooring seemed to shift and widen, bringing in a time-lapsed tripping down a tunnel. Jack screwed his eyes shut, dipping his head into Gray’s shoulder.

An image in a photograph. That’s all the kid had been in his life: one picture, one long-gone moment of a kid playing in the backyard with his dog. Not his own kid, not his own dog, his own home, just… some kid in a picture he’d seen, wondering why he seemed so familiar and should have been known in his own world.

But now that kid was here: a living, breathing presence all of his own so far removed from an image of a near-stranger playing in a backyard.

And that was what tripped Jack up in that moment. Not seeing, not knowing the boy behind the image, he could maybe handle life better with having to leave him out on the streets, away from all the illness that played in the manor, his own illness that he didn’t want the world to see let alone a kid, but now, seeing him walk these halls, no longer a ghost….

“Pissed off, Gray.” He gripped at Gray’s shirt. “So fucking pissed off with Martin for doing this to a kid. I never wanted kids for this bastard reason.”

Gray gave such a rough sigh. “I know.” A kiss came at his head. “I know, stunner.” Then he cupped Jack’s jaw and lifted his look up to meet his. “Walk away for a while if you need. We’ll handle Jude until you’ve got your headspace back. Just don’t…” Gray briefly looked away. “Just don’t go outside the manor gates, okay? You stay… here.”

Jack shifted his glance to the hall, how it still moved and shifted down a nightmare tunnel with no end, and he never felt more displaced. He shook his head before resting it against Gray’s, hating how the shivering still ate into his core, his head—how the echo of himself made him want to walk away before damage was done, because he did always do damage no matter how much he fought against it.

Jack screwed his eyes shut. “Not just my head, not just my body and heart behind it all, is it now, mukka?”

A rougher kiss cane at his head. “No. No it isn’t,” Gray said quietly. “But call the timeout, this stops. Jan… me… we’ll handle Jude.”

Jack brushed his nose along Gray’s jaw, needing to ease the struggling going on with the Dom too.

“I wasn’t here for you when you both faced meeting Light on your own,” he said quietly into him. “When you lost Ed. You pair didn’t get any easy timeout calls.” He kissed so briefly at the tightening at Gray’s jaw, how the muscle danced under his lips. “Neither has that kid by the look of it.” Jack pulled back and met his gaze. “Some trapeze moments before we catch the bar and stop the fall need to belong to us, right?”

Gray briefly rested his head down. “Always, stunner.”

Jack eased away, and as he bypassed Gray, he brushed the back of his fingers along Gray’s hand.

The return touch was brief, as discreet as ever, but it was Gray’s touch, and Jack needed it now because it felt like life slipped from his grip.

Gray’s touch became the trapeze bar, the one he knew he needed to reach before the fall took him down to the floor with no offer of any other safety net, mostly because he knew who waited at the bottom, grinning up at him.

Light let the tension ease from his body a little as Jack came back on through, Gray close enough behind to return a brief touch of the back of his hand to Jack’s.

Jude hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken a word as he tilted his head at Gray’s touch to Jack’s hand. Jack came over, head down, rubbing at his neck like he nursed one hell of a building headache. “Look, kid—”

“Jude,” Jan called it softly where Jack didn’t look as though he could say his name, and for a brief moment, it broke Jude’s stare.

“Me, I’m Jan, Jan Richards.” Jan rubbed at Jude’s arm and offered a really soft smile as he glanced briefly at Jack. “And this lugnut is—”

“Don’t.” Jude shivered, took a step away from everyone. “Jude…. That’s not my fucking name.” He couldn’t take his look off Jack. “But Jan….” Jude shivered again as if he fought to focus on something, anything but Jack and failed so badly. “Fuck… male. Sorry… That’ll… that’ll be me reading you wrong.” He paled, looking sick. “But don’t ever, and I mean fucking ever call me Jude.”

Looking a little angry that it seemed Jan was about to be caught in the middle of a street brawl, Jack took a step back, almost as if he didn’t like how he caught the echo of… Martin? Himself? Didn’t matter. The young semi mirror-image of himself disturbed him as much as the older version did with Jude.

“Sorry.” Jan spoke to Jude, but his frown stayed on Jack as if he saw something, and he shifted in real close to him a moment later. “Five minutes, martial arts guy,” he whispered quickly. “Just take another five minutes, please.”

What had he seen? What did he see in those eyes of Jack’s? Whatever it was, it had him pale.

“No. It’s okay.” Jack shook his head. “It’s all okay, just…. Fuck.” Head almost to chest, he rubbed fingertips into the side of his temple.

Jan shot Gray a look because Jack didn’t look so good. In fact, he—

“Yeah. Okay…” Such a long sigh was given. “I hear you. Now you’re struggling, our kid.”

Oh… shit .

Light had never seen the switch in person, not from Martin to Jack, Jack to… Martin… but now?

That slight change in voice… the drop in emotional turmoil…. It was so damn subtle, so damn fast.

A long sweep of hair off his face, Martin looked up, calm silver-grey eyes starting to take in the hall.

To take in the players.

To take in the… threat.