Chapter Four #3
Crisp couldn’t hear a thing Jay had to say right now.
He would break down if he let go of the hold he had on his emotions for a second.
He kept moving. Crisp found his pajamas.
He pulled his shirt up and over his head.
His chest hurt so badly, he wondered if he should call nine-one-one.
He would put these pajamas on, and he would make that pallet on the floor.
Crisp would eat the junk food and keep his plans.
He would smile and pretend nothing happened—the way he always did in every facet of his life.
That kiss had been a mistake. Crisp had let a dream grow inside his head.
One where he wasn’t alone in the world. He had allowed himself to feel like he was more than he was to Jay—that he wasn’t invisible.
Right now, he was… fuck; he didn’t even know.
Why the fuck had he done this dumbass thing?
Why had he believed for a second that he was anything more to Jay than whatever the fuck happened between nurses and patients sometimes?
Whatever Jay felt for him didn’t match what Crisp felt.
That was fine. Crisp knew better than anyone that he wasn’t important.
“Fuck!” The scream was out of his control.
Something broke inside him that had been barely held together for a while now.
He tried to put his shirt back on, but the material fought him.
Even he didn’t know what he would do next, but he knew it involved leaving this place and everything in it behind for good.
Jay’s arms encircled him. He dragged Crisp back against his chest. The first tear fell, and Crisp was furious about it.
Still the tears wouldn’t stop coming, and he was pretty sure he couldn’t put himself back together this time.
He had sat, dying inside as he watched the elation grow among his so-called brothers as those DNA results were read.
For five whole months afterward, he had let himself hope Jay was a new chapter.
Why was he like this? He shouldn’t need anyone or anything. What was wrong with him?
Jay kissed Crisp’s neck and held him in a death grip, refusing to let him fall completely apart.
“I’m sorry I’m broken. Please don’t. I didn’t mean to make you cry.
Sometimes my words come out not like I mean.
I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is I want to do everything with you.
” Jay kissed his neck again. He felt the moisture of tears against his skin and Crisp froze.
Jay had said men don’t cry, but he cried for Crisp.
“This is suffocating me. Please don’t cry. ”
Crisp’s already swollen throat nearly closed completely at Jay’s plea.
Jay didn’t stop. “Please? Tell me what I’m supposed to do because I don’t know. I can’t see you on your knees the way those other people always were before I was forced to pull the trigger. You’re everything to me. Don’t make me do that.”
An ugly truth hit Crisp, and the horror hit harder.
The leather daddy thing. He was just like Zeus.
Jay had only been half honest about being nothing more than a hunter and assassin.
They had him seducing people, using him like a whore to get victims completely alone.
He knew how those agents were trained. Crisp had trained alongside them, cleaning the mess left behind.
Watching the horrors of that conditioning had made Crisp thankful to be good at making crime scenes disappear.
In fact, witnessing what happened to people like Jay had made him work twice as hard at the field chosen for him. He knew there were far worse fates.
Crisp’s tears were no longer for himself.
He hurt for the man who held him. He had noticed the way Jay had begun staring at his reflection—as if he were transfixed.
Those moments always broke Crisp’s heart, thinking about Jay mourning the loss of his old self.
Crisp hadn’t had a clue. Jay had been bred to be irresistible.
That was his purpose in life. Crisp thought Jay was still sexy as sin, but he wasn’t the same.
He realized now what he should have seen all along.
Many of Jay’s scars were purposely done, specifically to carve away his appearance.
They had stolen the very identity they had given him.
Literally everything about his life had drastically changed. Jay had to feel so goddamn lost.
Crisp turned in Jay’s arms and buried his face in the crook of Jay’s neck. He couldn’t begin to explain how safe and right Crisp felt when Jay held him. Each time, a peace settled in his spirit that took away an invisible weight Crisp carried every second of the day. He eased Crisp’s soul.
Jay rocked him slightly from side to side, as if comforting himself.
Crisp kept his eyes closed and tried to inhale the affection. He knew he should say something, but there was nothing except the one simple truth. “I love you.”
Jay’s entire body shuddered on a painful-sounding breath, as if he had been holding the air in his lungs the entire time.
His reaction empowered Crisp to continue. “That’s what I should’ve said earlier and stopped there. I would never purposely do anything to hurt you.”
Jay kissed his temple. “The way I feel about you terrifies me. I’ve never been allowed to have what you give me. But I also know I can’t survive this being taken away and I just…”
Crisp got it. Their pasts clouded a lot of things, and that was impossible to put into words. Logic didn’t have the wheel right now for either of them. That made this entire ship nearly impossible to navigate. What were they supposed to do now?