Chapter Text
Mid-March, 2014. Austin.
“So, your profile said you’re a journalist?”
Geoff fiddles with the red stirrer in his club soda, his mind everywhere other than here in the bar trying to make small talk with a stranger.
“Yeah,” the guy says. “I work for the Register, downtown--I’m gonna be a sports writer but they don’t let me do too much on that side yet.”
Geoff had been planning on plying the stranger with drinks, and the fact that the man is already taking swallows from his second cocktail enthusiastically is really just icing on the cake. Last time, he’d gotten stuck with a teetotaler which had just really put a damper on the evening.
Luckily, between the man’s buzz and his penchant for filling any lull in conversation with details about himself ad nauseam, it’s not that hard to keep the conversation going.
“For me sports writing is just a natural, right? Recruited straight out of high school, played college ball, and if I hadn’t torn my ACL you’d better believe I’d go pro. I fucking eat, drink, and sleep football, you know?”
“Don’t I know it,” Geoff says, flat.
The man does look the part of washed up college athlete, all broad shoulders and square jaw. A very all-American boy next door, a Johnny Roommate type, clear skin and neat dark hair. Geoff was genuinely surprised when the man accepted his invitation for drinks because for all intents and purposes, the man looks like the type of guy who would shoulder him off the sidewalk in the street just for the hell of it.
Yet here Geoff is, buying the guy drinks, listening to his shitty stories.
“But yeah for now they have me on the fucking blotter, writing crime briefs most of the time,” the man says, taking another long pull from his cocktail. It’s the first interesting thing the man has said all night--but Geoff is careful to mask his enthusiasm with the same casual boredom he’s maintained for most of the date.
“I mean it sounds like it would be great right? Like, at least interesting,” the man says. Geoff nods. “And for a while it was ok--mostly sitting around with binders at police stations taking notes on funny shit like guys in bar fights or the drunk tank report. But now with these people going missing, I get stuck doing research on all of these boring missing assholes. But like, we all know they’re dead by now. Come on.”
“Sounds tedious,” Geoff says, pretending to concentrate on the small dish of wasabi peas on the high boy table in front of them. “Do you ever get to see any of the good stuff?”
“What, like the reports on autopsies?” the guy says. Geoff shrugs, neither confirming nor denying that this is what he meant. He selects a wasabi pea, puts it in his mouth, crunches. The spice hits hot and pleasant through his nose, an ephemeral flash of flavor followed by the flat, slightly sour taste of the dried pea.
“Nah,” the guy says. “The PD reps keep all of that as far away from reporters as they can. One of our senior guys, though, swears he has a source saying that they’re not even finding bodies--just, like, parts, you know?”
“Parts?” Geoff repeats back to him, selecting another wasabi pea, crunching it.
“Half a hand, a leg,” the man says. His second cocktail is down to the ice. “Weird remains. It’s creepy. Nothing verified, mind you. Personally I think he’s full of shit, an old jerk trying to act like a hot shot in the news room. Plus, if the cops had any sort of leads, they’d be riding us hard to help get details out--height, build, sketches. They’re always tight lipped until they actually need something from us. Do you ever read the Register, David? Maybe you’ve seen my byline.”
“Sometimes,” Geoff says, “but I’m usually just looking at the letters and editorials. The crime stuff just depresses me,” he lies.
“Yeah man, I hear that.”
“Do you want another?” Geoff asks, nodding at the empty drink.
“Sure, if you don’t mind,” the man says with a wide smile. “You sure you don’t want something harder than club soda?”
“I guess one whiskey won’t hurt,” Geoff says, finally. He needs something to take the edge off, to keep him from strangling the guy right here in the restaurant. Geoff strides to the bar, orders their drinks--another well cocktail for the man, a top shelf rye bourbon for himself--and then he closes the tab. Taking a sip before he leaves the bar, he can’t help but enjoy the way the spirit’s raw spice sears his palate.
---
It only takes about fifteen more minutes before the man’s third drink is gone. Geoff nurses his whiskey slowly, letting short sips evaporate on his tongue. The guy is still talking about himself--recounting, now, the fateful day he tore his ACL on the field, including every painstaking detail of the game.
“It was second and thirteen, right? And this guy just had it out for me--” he says. Geoff doesn’t know how much more he can actually take of this conversation, and the man is thoroughly inebriated.
It’s time to go.
Geoff reaches a hand under the highboy, not bothering with subtlety at this point. He squeezes the other man’s knee then strokes a few inches higher. The man keeps his cool but the touch silences him at least for a moment as he grins at Geoff.
“What do you say we get out of here?” Geoff says, doing his best attempt at bedroom eyes. The man snorts out a small laugh.
“You’re forward, David,” the man says, smiling, “and I like it. Does this mean I get to see the rest of those tattoos?”
Geoff gives him a shrug, a deep and sonorous chuckle, his hand still on the man’s leg.
“Please tell me reporters like you don’t have to work early on Saturday mornings?” Geoff says.
“Not unless some sort of big news breaks overnight,” the man says. “Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that the cops don’t find a body tonight, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Geoff says, unable to conceal a wolfish grin. “I’ll keep ‘em crossed.”
---
Geoff convinces the man to leave his car in the restaurant parking lot, insisting rightly that he’s in no shape to drive and that Geoff will return him to his car in the morning.
“Where are we going?” the man asks as Geoff turns his sedan onto the highway, leaning onto the gas.
“East--towards Elgin,” Geoff says. “I live in the country. Not much longer.”
And it doesn’t take long, now that the traffic has died and the sun is down. Only five minutes and the suburbs fall away to flat rural properties, thick thatches of trees. The highway is a long, dark stretch. It’s the type of drive Geoff would normally revel in: quiet, straight, and hypnotic. But his passenger adds an unwelcome commentary to the journey.
The man yammers on and on, even after Geoff turns on music to deter him. He has moved onto some monologue about the evolution of the Ford Mustang, utterly undeterred that Geoff isn’t responding to the soliloquy.
Soon Geoff guides them off the highway, slowing to a creep and turning down an unmarked road, no mailbox, blacktop giving way immediately to a path of gravel that makes a satisfying crunch under the sedan’s tires. The gravel road snakes left and right, headlights illuminating their way through the trees. There are deep, dry ruts where tires have worn a groove coming and going from the property.
“Wow, it must be super quiet out here,” the man says, peering forward. “I’ve never been to this side of town. It must be nice to get away from it all after spending all day in the city.”
“You have no idea,” Geoff says, low.
Finally the road sweeps a sharp left and the trees open up to a clearing. The headlights seem suddenly dimmer, reaching feebly out to splash against a structure. A house, dark and empty, but neat looking, not abandoned.
Geoff cuts the headlights as he noses the car towards the front of the house and the moon washes the clearing a faint silver. Wordless, Geoff exits the car, shutting the door behind him and enjoying the first moment of silence all night. The dome light inside stays illuminated and as Geoff steps back from the vehicle, crosses in front of the car, he watches the man: his face wan under the weak light, his eyes dark and wide.
Geoff turns away from the vehicle then, forcing himself to look out into the wooded land, forcing his pupils to dilate, to flare wide as they adjust to the darkness.
He knows they’re out there. Is he facing them right now?
The night is quiet. Of course they’ll make no sound.
And in a moment, behind him, the man is crashing out of the car, his sounds exploding from the vehicle and bouncing off the house, the trees, the ground in strange angles, highlighting the open space. Geoff waits for the man’s feet to crunch through gravel, but the man just stands there at the car.
“God, look at the stars,” he says after a moment. Geoff turns to look and the man is leaning against the car, his head thrown back, his neck long and exaggerated in the light as he stares open-mouthed into the sky, adam’s apple taut under smooth and stretched tan skin. “It’s amazing out here,” he says, looking then to Geoff. Geoff strides to close the distance between them.
“It is amazing,” Geoff says, and he presses against the man, sizing him up, one hand on his chest, the other steadying himself on the car window behind him. The man smells like syrup and vodka as he breathes a shocked breath into the warm air. Geoff curls his hand into a fist, pulling the man’s t-shirt taught, pressing his face into the taller man’s neck. The man arches off the car, pressing himself back into Geoff.
“Don’t you want to go inside?” he moans into the air above Geoff.
“No,” Geoff says into the other man’s jaw, meeting his lips then--he wants to stay here in the open where they can see him--and the man’s short stubble rough against his own chin as he licks into the stranger’s mouth. Geoff releases the man’s shirt then, hands roaming freely over the man’s torso as he guides them through an urgent kiss, and the other man simply lets himself be handled, breathes harder as Geoff’s touch gets rougher, the smell of him growing, filling Geoff up.
They pause to fill their lungs again, the stranger’s breathing already ragged--and, relentless, encouraged by the two sets of eyes he knows are watching him, egged on by the knowledge that the stranger is falling apart right here out in the open, Geoff kisses the man again deeply and gives him another visceral push into the side of the car, hip meeting hip, chest to chest, and the man moans into the kiss. Geoff knows the rough handling already has the man hard, can feel the suggestion of the man’s erection against his own thigh, and Geoff pins the man to the car with the weight of his body while he frees his hands, one fluttering up to rest lightly on the man’s throat and the other on his cock.
The feeling of having complete control over the man is exhilarating, and Geoff pauses to enjoy the moment, his own heart pumping even and slow, his hand possessively around the man’s neck, stroking the outline of the man’s erection, knowing that the man could overpower him if he wanted to--but that he wouldn’t, that he would stand here, pinned against the car all night if Geoff wanted him to--that he’d let himself be fucked against the car in the woods, if that’s what Geoff decided, and he’d love it.
A stick snaps--behind Geoff and to the right, 35, maybe 40 yards.
It’s a clear, bright sound.
The man doesn’t hear it--or if he does, he doesn’t react.
But for Geoff, everything begins to change, his heart pumping faster now, flush with arousal.
He kisses the man again, wet and hungry, releasing his weight, no longer pressing against him. Geoff releases his throat, giving his cock a last firm stroke, and brings his hands up to either side of the man’s head. He rakes through the man’s short hair, down his neck, feeling his powerful shoulders, his impressive yoke, reveling in the muscles in the man’s upper arms.
There’s another snap, 20 yards off now.
It only takes a second for Geoff to put the man on the ground.
He twists each hand into the man’s shirt sleeves and pulls down and to the right with all his strength, at the same time kicking the man laterally in the ankle from right to left. The man’s ankles crash together and he loses his footing, careening over Geoff’s foot, falling hard, reaching out and finding no purchase, unable to cushion the blow as he lands hard in the gravel, his spine and skull hitting the solid earth with a full-sounding thump--and Geoff follows him down with all of his weight, landing on top and using the larger man to cushion his fall, his hip slamming into the man’s belly.
The stranger is still, doesn’t even call out--and there’s no time for Geoff to figure out whether the fall has knocked the man unconscious of if he’s just gone still with the shock of finding himself on his back in the dark--because he knows he needs the man silent and unconscious before they get here, knows they’re already on their way, can’t take any chance that the man is still awake when they arrive because Geoff doesn’t want their vicious help in subduing the stranger. No blood spilled out here--Geoff has no desire for the sound and smell of it tonight. So his knees find purchase in the gravel and Geoff rears up, landing efficient jabs at each temple, ensuring that the man is out cold, that he stays out.
“You never let us take the good ones down,” a voice says through a smile in the darkness in front of him.
He doesn’t know how Michael does it: ghosting in silently, somehow walking on gravel without even making a sound. The young man, dressed in black from head to toe, steps closer and offers out a gloved hand. Geoff takes it, pushes up, and with a yank, Michael helps him to his feet--and pulls him immediately into a kiss, gentle familiar, Michael’s hand snaking down to palm Geoff’s erection through his jeans as he kisses appreciatively into the older man’s mouth. Geoff has a moment of deja vu: it’s the same kiss and groping Michael has greeted him with so many times in the morning as Geoff rubs sleep out of his eyes, begins the tedious act of making coffee, and the familiar affection makes him feel unhinged out here in the stand of trees, in the clearing, in the dark.
“That was incredible to watch,” Michael says after a moment, breaking the kiss and buzzing with energy. “What a fucking textbook takedown.”
Adrenaline is still crashing over Geoff in waves as he hears the second man, approaching from the other side of the clearing.
“When will you deliver us a live one, Geoff?” Ryan says from a few yards off, smiling wide in the dark, a floating cheshire cat grin in the distance.
“You know I don’t do blood,” Geoff says. Michael is hanging off of him, hands all over him, manic with delight and ignoring Ryan.
“So you risk a broken hand?” Ryan says, closer now, scolding.
“I’m fine,” Geoff says. His knuckles are bleeding.
“You’re more than fine,” Michael says, squeezing Geoff’s hip. “You’re amazing. I could watch you do that all day.”
Ryan joins them on the side of the car, standing over the man on the ground. He assesses his prey, unconscious and breathing rough.
“You’ve really outdone yourself Geoff,” he finally says low, and Geoff’s heart continues to pound away like some separate entity in his chest, equal parts frightened of Ryan--of what the man is capable of and what he craves--and pleased to be praised by the man.
“He’s strong,” Geoff says, not sure what else to say, gone dumb with horror and arousal, his tongue thick.
“Not as strong as you, Geoff,” Michael purrs, continuing his handsy ministrations, and Ryan slips a hand around Geoff’s hip. Michael reluctantly disengages from Geoff and Ryan has his turn then, a gloved hand at the small of Geoff’s back, a slow and determined kiss. It’s the steadying force Geoff needed to be able to breathe, the strong current he needed to overcome the frightening feeling of being rudderless and he lets the man confidently take his mouth, Ryan in his element now, biting slowly on his bottom lip until Geoff knows he’s drawing blood. He moans into Ryan’s mouth and the man sucks his lip for a moment before finally disengaging, planting a kiss on Geoff’s jaw, a kiss into his ear.
“Well done,” he whispers brusquely, and as Geoff comes back to himself, as his heart slows to a reasonable pace, Geoff can taste his own metallic blood.
“Too bad you were on the other side, Ryan,” Michael pipes up. “Geoff put on quite a show.”
Geoff chuckles low at Michael, forcing himself to take a deep breath.
“I saw enough,” Ryan says, smiling at Michael. “You had complete control from the moment you pulled up.”
“This guy is ridiculous,” Michael says, gesturing to the man splayed on the ground. “I half thought you were going to fuck him on the hood of your car, Geoff.”
“And he would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for us meddling kids,” Ryan says, his own energy beginning to grow and meet Michael’s fevered intensity. “Maybe next time you’ll control yourself a little longer, Michael,” Ryan says, chiding him lightly.
Michael is already back at Geoff’s side, his hands on Geoff’s hips, on his flanks, sliding his gloves over every convenient plane on the other man’s body.
“Jesus, I’m sorry,” Michael says. “It’s hard to see our bait at work and not jump the gun. Or, uh, blade, in this case.”
Ryan is only half listening but he gives the younger man an appreciative chuckle. He’s kneeled and placed something on the ground next to the man--a small box that opens like a briefcase. There’s a metallic ping and Geoff catches sight of a sliver of the moon, reflected in a blade.
“I’m going back to the house,” Geoff says, his voice still not catching up to his brain correctly.
“Aw, Geoff,” Michael says, disappointed.
“Thought maybe we’d get you to stay this time,” Ryan says, looking over his shoulder with a smile. “I never will understand why you won’t stay for the fun parts.”
“I’m a hunter,” Geoff says. “Not a field butcher. You boys enjoy.”