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A growl cuts through the night, deep and bassy, licking across Jim’s skin and tearing into his dreams. He starts, remembering in a flash of unrelenting light that he is prey and sleep is his enemy.
But there is no jaw clenching around Jim's neck, no claws sinking into his skin, just the crunching of tires on sand and the beam of a set of headlights traveling through the room. Just the softness of the pillow under his cheek as the light takes the shadow image of the threadbare curtain with it and moves across the wall, dousing Jim's surroundings in cold hard white.
Like a stolid behemoth, the truck moves along and finally, darkness returns to the dingy little motel room. Somewhere not far away, a shower is running.
Jim lies there as his consciousness surfaces and for a blissful moment he drifts gently on the waves that flow and sway above the fathomless depths of slumber.
Then, next to Jim, the mattress dips with the weight of a shifting body and a hand wraps around his shoulder, a solid weight anchoring him and pulling Jim onto the shore of waking.
A shower is running and running and a body is lined up against him, warm and close, a chest broad and firm heaving against Jim's back. Another face, another breath behind him, nuzzled almost, into the nape of his neck.
That hand on his shoulder is so large where their bodies touch.
He knows, before he knows, knows before he fumbles for where it rests almost within reach of his heart, touches those big fingers covered in scabs and bandages and grime.
Ryder has found him.
Jim barely flinches. There is something like relief almost, here at the end of the chase. Idly, Jim wonders if the lamb can rest, can finally find peace between the teeth of the lion. If there is solace, in the belly of the beast. A breath leaves him in a sigh and John's hand moves, tangles their fingers together in a playful motion.
Red shines through the window and drenches the bed in flames as the brake lights of another truck flare through the night.
So much red on the sheets, on Jim's skin, flowing over his hand and lips. He's blinded by it but doesn’t dare to close his eyes again.
He's awake now, alive to the sensation of Ryder entwined with him, his touch, his smell.
Like sweat and dust and blood and gasoline. Ryder smells like a car crash, like high octane death.
Jim shudders as the phantom impression of velocity runs through him, presses their palms together, holds John’s hand tighter. The shower is running, a steady pouring of water and the soft gurgling of the drain.
They lie like this for minutes or maybe hours. It’s hard to tell, time seems to wrap differently around Jim since he’s let Ryder into his car, stretched out impossibly by the open road and the horizon and shot into pieces through the muzzles of a dozen guns.
"How did you like my present?" Ryder finally asks, breath fanning warm and moist against the back of Jim's neck, an intimate thing.
Jim inhales, all that presence, all those sensations swirling inside him, kaleidoscope-like, beautiful but terrifying.
"I didn't use it." he confesses then.
"Why not?"
The question whispers through the dark room hoarsely like wind in dry grass or rats' feet over broken glass. Ryder’s hand shifts, his thumb swipes across the soft skin on the inside of Jim’s wrist, where his pulse flutters.
Jim knows the answer, has seen it long before he fell asleep, written on the inside of his eyelids like a prayer.
"You gave me those bullets so I would kill someone." he says.
"That's what bullets are made for." John's voice can be so soft, so gentle "That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"
Jim listens to the shower, just lets Ryder hold him against his wide chest a little longer, the heat of their bodies mixing until he can't tell anymore where Ryder starts and Jim ends.
"I wanted to kill you in the diner." Jim finally admits. There are no lies between them here in this bed where they lie like lovers. Not after all the lives Ryder has taken for him today. "But I don't want that anymore."
"How come?" John hooks his chin over Jim's shoulder, curious, his stubble rubbing the skin of Jim's soft cheek raw.
They are so close. Closer even than in that corner booth when Jim, with an empty gun in his hand, two pennies on his eyes, and Ryder's thumb sweeping over his bottom lip had thought his fate would be sealed with a hateful yet passionate kiss.
Jim wasn’t ready then, he’s not sure if he is now, to give up all the undisclosed desires of his heart.
He swallows, finds his throat dry and his mouth tasting like road dust and says nothing.
As the seconds tick by John starts humming softly, just a low murmur at first but then the notes thread together into a tune. It’s a song Jim thinks he’s heard before, a lullaby perhaps, but he never figures out what it is because the melody is cut off when Ryder’s knife snaps open.
The blade catches the light in an almost amiable way as Ryder’s free arm loops around the pillow underneath Jim’s head and brings it to rest against his throat. It meets his skin like a cold, sharp kiss and glides across it like a thirsting tongue when Ryder runs it along Jim's pulse. A caress more than a threat.
Jim has seen how carelessly he kills, showing such ease and practiced brutality, yet with him John is always careful, his touch always deliberate. The knife has never drawn Jim's blood but his tears have run along the edge of it and Ryder had watched them fall from the blade in a single drop like it had meant something.
All the other men he's met in the desert have hurt Jim when they were supposed to help him.
"Answer the question, kid." John whispers.
Slowly, Jim turns his head to meet Ryder's eyes. The blade moves as he moves, twists so that it lies flat against his arched neck. It's all the tenderness Jim still knows in this world.
"I'm not a killer. You can frame me all you want." he tells the only man who will believe him "I'm innocent."
Ryder laughs softly. The blade disappears, instead a hand comes up and cups Jim's chin, angling his head so that their faces lie even closer and their lungs share the same breath. From outside, another set of stray headlights shines through from underneath the curtain and gets caught in John's eyes, fractures there.
Glaciers in the night, arctic blue, ethereal. Deathtraps beckoning Jim closer.
"Yes, you are. You're innocent." Ryder says, gaze unwavering, packing Jim in ice, and then continues with something like remorse, almost. "But not for long."
Jim's heart jolts in his chest as he realizes that his innocence is the only thing he's got left and that John has come to take that too. That Jim is giving it to him when he parts his mouth for John as the killer leans in to claim it.
Ryder's lips are chapped and dry and he tastes bitter like cigarettes and like the copper coins he put on Jim's eyes. Like the fare for the ferryman paid in blood.
Jim shudders against him, so close to falling apart but held together by John's strong arms.
Lazily, Ryder's tongue dips into the cut in the corner of Jim's mouth, prying the wound apart and tasting the raw, sweet flesh inside of it. He savors Jim like this for a moment before he's kissing him fully, lapping into the darkness between Jim's lips in deep, broad strokes with the appetite of a starving wolf.
Jim doesn't resist it. He opens up for Ryder and lets himself be devoured.
He's wanted this, has wanted it since the moment John got into his car. Since the rain dripping from his nose and glistening on his chin had painted his sharp profile in water and light. Since Jim has seen his cruel beauty for the first time. He realizes now that the man has known this, has known it from the start.
"What are you looking at me like that?" Jim had asked but Ryder hadn't been looking. He'd seen Jim, all his secrets and his despair and his loneliness.
Jim is so tired, he can't fight it any longer, can only moan into the kiss and meet John's tongue with the same all-consuming hunger.
Never before has Jim been kissed this way, all heat and spit and teeth, forceful and sensual, until his lips feel like an open sore and Jim is burning with it. He thinks maybe nobody has been kissed like that and lived, that maybe he will only see another sunrise if he makes John his only way to breathe.
Or perhaps time will disappear entirely and there will never be anything else than this moment where Jim is finally safe from pain and fear and choice.
Ryder never stops kissing him but his hand unthreads their fingers and begins to undo the buttons of Jim's flannel patiently. One by one, he works his way south until he reaches the silver of pale, exposed belly where the boy’s jacket and his shirts have ridden up.
Jim gasps at the sudden sensation of blunt nails dragging across his skin, pulled out of his reverie and thrown back into the night, so far away from morning.
The kiss breaks like this and with it Ryder's patience.
He grabs the collar of Jim's jacket and yanks, the force of the pull and the leather so sudden and unforgiving that Jim has to move with it or dislocate his shoulder. The jacket and the flannel tangle around Jim's arms, effectively trapping both of them behind his back and leaving them bound at the elbows between their bodies.
Panic in his throat and his back arching against Ryder, trying to relieve some of the strain on his joints and free himself, Jim struggles, groaning under the effort.
But then, relentless and ever restless, the knife reappears, slides past Jim's navel and under his shirt.
Jim stills as the blunt side of the blade slips against his torso. There's a moment where he thinks finally he'll be gutted, finally he'll bleed true red over the sheets and his heart starts pounding against his ribcage like it has doubled in size. But Ryder lifts the knife and the fabric above it splits open with a quiet sound.
A steady rushing fills Jim's ears now but there’s no telling if it is the shower or his own blood racing through his veins. He buries his face in the pillow, sucking in heaving breaths and body going hot as shame, fear and arousal swirl together and become indiscernible when he lets Ryder cut all the way up to the collar.
Finally, the knife is discarded again in favor of pulling apart the ruined shirt and running a broad palm over Jim’s naked chest.
John's hand as it travels back down along his side is rough and calloused, made hard by violence and time and underneath it Jim's skin feels like a newborn's, vulnerable and soft. And he wants to beg Ryder to stop, to do anything to him except to touch his soul like that, but at the same time Jim yearns to be laid bare and open so he may know in whose image he is truly made.
“Please.” Jim whimpers, salt stinging on his lips from sweat or tears, there's no telling.
"Say it." John murmurs into his ear, voice low with promise.
And Jim understands now what the words mean, what they truly mean. Understands that Ryder was always going to kill the boy in the car but that there is more than one way to do it, more than his life to take.
"I want to die."
It rushes out of him like a long-kept secret, tastes like honeyed venom on his tongue.
Ryder responds with a sharp kiss, the scraping of teeth against the nape of Jim’s neck and his hand shoving into the front of Jim’s jeans.
Jim’s stomach jumps and he lets out a high keening sound as John’s fingers wrap around him. But he is given no time to process the shock of it when Ryder twists his wrist and squeezes the root of Jim’s cock with the same precision he uses when he pulls the trigger of a gun.
Through a wave of desperation, Jim realizes he’s hard, has been hard for a while and aching to be touched like this since he’s felt that hand between his legs for the first time.
Need coils burning and urgent underneath Jim’s navel and blind with it he ruts into the touch, finds exquisite friction in that murderous hand. Ryder chuckles behind him, says “Smart kid.” and drags his rough thumb over the head of Jim’s dick in a way that makes a sweet moan spill from the boy’s lips and his toes curl in his sneakers.
Jim feels feverish, a thin sheen of sweat building on his skin and collecting at his temples. There’s not enough oxygen reaching his lungs with his face pressed into the pillow and Jim turns around to gasp for air, finds Ryder bent over him watching him with his crystal gaze and his switchblade smile.
Whatever he sees in Jim’s flushed face and his glazed, dark eyes, it makes the corners of his mouth twitch in amusement.
Every single hair on Jim’s body is raised as John gives his cock another pump and then releases Jim to slowly and deliberately undo the button of his jeans and open his fly.
The shower is so loud, whitewater streaming through Jim and drowning out all thoughts except ‘kill me faster’.
“Lift your hips.” John orders almost as if he can read Jim’s mind and when he obeys, pulls his pants and underwear down in one firm, practiced move.
Jim’s shoes get tangled in the mess of denim but Ryder makes short work of removing them and when Jim’s lower half is fully undressed, moves on to free his arms from the bounds of his jacket.
One layer of clothing after the other joins the growing pile somewhere in a dark corner of the motel room. And just like that everything Jim thought he knew, everything he thought he was is stripped away and discarded to rot like old skin until what is left of Jim is spread out naked and exposed on the sheets.
John leans over him, his great gray coat falling around Jim like gigantic wings, admiring his work as another beam of passing light makes Jim’s pale skin glow in the night.
And Jim feels seen, feels beautiful and fragile, knows this is what prey must look like through a predator's eyes, knows his instincts never lied to him when they woke him up, knows the jaw has closed around his neck and the claws have sunken into his flesh but cannot bring himself to mind.
Sweat glistens on John’s brow and drips on Jim's naked skin, tiny beaded prisms hitting his chest and his forehead, announcing that the time for his final anointing has come, as John guides his wrists above his head, placing them where Jim's dark hair is fanned out over the pillow.
“Keep ‘em there.” Ryder says giving the joints a good squeeze “Or stop me.”
Jim balls his fists, knowing that it’s not an out, only a taunt to show Jim just how much of an accomplice he is in his own desecration. Just another way to say “you wanted this” leaving no room for doubt about what is going to happen.
And want it, Jim does. He’s a different creature altogether now, one that keeps its hands exactly where they are, offering his body up for supper.
There is such cold hunger, such quiet greed in Ryder's bright eyes as he grabs Jim’s hip and positions him so that he’s twisted in the middle, shoulder blades pressed into the mattress but his naked ass presented to John for the taking.
Whenever Ryder moves he does it with deadly grace and lethal confidence and there’s no exception this time when he settles behind Jim, resting languidly on a propped elbow and his side, half spooning him.
Jim’s entire body is thrumming with anticipation as John opens his zipper. Fabric rustles and Ryder spits once to slick himself up with wet, vulgar sounds that trickle into Jim's brain like poison. Then, his hard blunt cock presses against Jim's most secret spot.
Ryder breaches Jim slowly, a steady hand on his hip keeping him in place he spears him open with sweet agony. Jim squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a pained whine as he wills himself to relax but for a long moment there's nothing but the intense pressure of being filled, the ache of being stretched impossibly, saturating his entire world.
Finally, John bottoms out keeping Jim so closely, holding him so firmly as his body reshapes itself to make Ryder fit, that Jim thinks they're truly becoming one, that after tonight they will be the same thing. It’s overwhelming, Jim feels full enough with John to burst open at the seams and unravel completely but also devastatingly whole.
This moment of bliss doesn't last, Ryder rolls his hips and begins moving, teaching Jim exactly what it means to take.
It hurts, a kind of ache so deep it sinks into the marrow of Jim's bone as Ryder builds up a growing rhythm. He's so big, it's too much. Jim squirms but there's nowhere to go, nowhere to run, just that fat cock moving inside him and all that heat, all this madness.
"Wait!" Jim gasps, needing all his willpower not to move his hands and hold onto Ryder for dear life.
But instead of faltering, John grabs him by the hollow of his knee and spreads Jim's legs open, making more room for himself. He holds him easily like that bends and shapes Jim’s body to his will, his muscles shifting under the layers of his clothes where he’s pressed hard against him, inside him, betraying his raw strength, his unyielding power.
Jim cries out at the shift of angle but it's better, suddenly. The next thrust slides home easier, hitting a deep, hidden spot that makes Jim's stomach tingle.
His mouth falls open on a silent "Oh!", and Ryder does it again, and again, pounding that bundle of nerves until the feeling spreads all over Jim's lower half, cold and warm at the same time, pulsing in his cock and his balls until Jim's blood is singing with pleasure.
Some kind of delirium ripples through Jim, making his head spin. He wants to touch himself, wants to come so badly, knows he's so close with his cock leaking onto the sheets and smearing precum against his belly with every push.
But the haze in his head is too thick for words now, all he can do is rut into John's thrusts and take him deeper, harder.
Behind Jim, Ryder grunts, his movements growing erratic. He lets go of Jim's hip and gives Jim's soft balls a squeeze, making him jolt and his entire body lock up.
Jim shouts and cums so hard, he's almost shocked about it, legs thrashing as his orgasm blazes through him so brightly that white flashes behind his eyes and his insides spasm and twitch around where he's impaled on John's thick hard cock.
John holds him, fucks him through it, fucks him like an animal, thrusts never losing power until Jim starts sobbing, his body raw and wound too tight from overstimulation.
The last thing Jim knows is a large hand pressing into the spot below his navel, where John can feel himself move. And then his cock swells and throbs one last time before he spills himself inside Jim, fills him up with the hot wetness of his seed.
Jim collapses, spent, wrung out and used to the point that he barely registers when John slips from his fucked out little hole, passage made easy now, leaving it dripping warm cum and twitching around nothing.
The night itself wraps around Jim, heavy and suffocating and it takes him a couple of seconds before he registers that it's Ryder's coat, spread over him like a blanket.
There are so many tears in Jim's eyes that keep the world blurry and nothing left in it to mourn.
A knuckle grazes Jim's wet cheek and then the mattress dips again. Another truck passes. The motel room breathes emptiness as it goes bright and then dark again.
Jim just lies there, cum cooling in his navel and between his thighs, bathing in his shame and feeling a little less human than before while the shower keeps running and running and running.