Page 26 of Rust of Control

He knew what Rand was now. He'd known it since the bolted table and the word Easton said with cold in his voice. He'd carried it home an hour and ten down the interstate, into this kitchen, and hadn't really forgotten. It lived in his back pocket next to his phone, where Ghost's last three messages sat unanswered because answering them meant going to work, and going to work meant this little slice of a quiet life would end. The folder on the table was the small version. The big version had a bridge in it and a tag a man two tiers up had bragged about, a count of how many kids it had eaten, and Jude's whole bright unsuspecting world sitting one degree of separation from all of it.

Six more since Davya, and the gaps closing. That was the part Ghost kept circling at the table at night, the part that'd put the new flat note in his voice: it used to be one every few months, a slow bleed you could almost mistake for how a city loses its kids in any given year. Now it was weeks. Somebody on the other end had gotten hungry, or somebody on this end had gotten desperate. Either way, the rooms that smelled like the rooms Jude's band played were giving up kids and then more kids, every one of them the kind a tired precinct stamped runaway and filed where everyone stopped looking. A few days at most before the math came for the morning he was watching Jude have. He'd decided that on the drive home: the work could have him soon, and would, but not today, because Jude had earned a stretch of ordinary and Nate was going to stand at the edge of it the same as he always had, except this time he got to stand inside.

"You're staring," Jude said, not looking up.

"I am."

"Creepy." Jude capped the highlighter. There was no apology anywhere near it. That was new too. "You want to be useful, or you want to keep doing that?"

Nate pushed off the counter. He'd take useful. He'd take any version of this he could get.

Useful turned out to be moving the last of Jude's things out of a storage unit Rand didn't know existed, a concrete box across town where Jude had been quietly keeping the part of his life he hadn't let Rand touch. It took the afternoon. Jude couldn't lift on his ribs, so Nate lifted and Jude pointed. Pointing was its own small reclamation. Jude in charge of where his own life went, Nate carrying it where he said.

By the time they got back, Nate had drywall dust in his hair and a long stripe of it down one arm, and Jude was dust-grimed and satisfied in the quiet manner of a man who'd spent four hours directing a much larger one and wasn't going to admit how much he'd enjoyed it.

"You realize I did all the actual work," Nate said, at the door.

"You did." Jude went in ahead of him. "You were very good at it."

He wasn't wrong. Nate had carried two dozen boxes. He'd do it again tomorrow if it meant watching Jude point at them like that.

At the bottom of the stairs Jude stopped. Looked at the dust on Nate, then at himself, then back up, and there was a smile his lips did now, a small crooked thing that took Nate apart every time it happened.

"Shower," Jude said. And then, because they said things out loud now, because that was the rule they'd made and kept: "With me. If you want."

Nate wanted. He'd wanted for years he'd quit counting. "Yeah," he said, and it came out rougher than the word needed. Jude heard it. The crooked smile got wider.

The upstairs bathroom at the end of the hall was the good one, the stall big enough that Nate didn't have to fold himself in sideways like he did in the other. Jude got the water going. The old pipes knocked twice and ran hot, and steam climbed the tile. Jude pulled his shirt over his head slowly on account of the ribs, and Nate watched the bruise come into view, the long fading map of it down his side.

What his hands got to want was the rest of him.

Jude stepped under the water and tipped his head back into it. The grime went off him in grey runnels. His hair went dark gold and flat. He opened his eyes and found Nate still standing there in the steam with his shirt half off. "You're doing it again," Jude said.

"Doing what?"

"The staring thing."

Nate finished pulling his shirt off and got in.

Nate's shoulders jammed the shower stall walls, cold tile biting his back as Jude crowded in, their wet skin slapping together. Steam curled thick around them, carrying the sharp bite of soap and the musk of sweat-slick bodies. Jude's palms flattened over Nate's chest, fingers splaying wide across the heavy muscle, feeling the frantic thud of his heart. Water beaded on Jude's lashes, dripping down as he looked up, hips already canting forward to grind their cocks together, Jude's slender length sliding hot and insistent against Nate's thicker shaft.

"Okay?" Jude rasped, voice rough.

"Yeah," Nate growled low, one hand fisting in Jude's damp hair, tugging just enough to tip his head back. The other hand slid down to grip Jude's ass, fingers digging in, careful around the bruised ribs but possessive as hell. "You set the pace, baby. I'll follow."

Jude's eyes darkened. He rose on his toes, mouth crashing into Nate's, tongue pushing deep, tasting the salt on his lips. Nate bent into it, curving his bulk to meet him, water sluicing hot off his shoulders and down between their pressed bodies. Jude rutted up slow and deliberate, dragging his cock along Nate's, the slick friction making Nate's low groan rumble out from deep in his chest.

Jude swallowed the sound, hips rolling again on purpose, grinding harder, their cocks trapped and throbbing between them. Nate's head thunked back against the tile, eyes squeezing shut as pleasure coiled tight in his gut. Steam thickened, water pounding loud, every slide of skin on skin electric, Jude's hands roaming the broad planes of Nate's back, squeezing the heavy muscle over his shoulders like he owned every inch. Nate let him, braced and yielding, breath hitching as Jude's fingers traced lower, wrapping around both their cocks, stroking them together in a tight fist.

The rhythm built, slow and filthy, Jude pumping them with slick twists of his wrist, thumb swiping over the heads, smearing precum in the spray. Nate's hands stayed gentle on Jude's hips, guiding without taking, while his own body trembled, thighs flexing, balls drawing up tight. Jude's breath came ragged against Nate's throat, teeth scraping skin. "Nate," he moaned, wrecked and desperate, hips stuttering.

Nate gripped him firmer then, both hands on Jude's ass, holding him steady as they thrust together. The heat snapped, Jude's cock pulsing first, hot spurts painting Nate's abs and cock, the sight and feel pushing Nate over. He came with a guttural curse, thick ropes mixing with Jude's under the water, bodies jerking and grinding through it, Jude's open mouth sucking at his neck.

They stayed locked, water cooling on their skin, Jude's forehead pressed to Nate's sternum, rising with each heavy breath. Nate's palm stayed spread low on Jude's back, away from the bruises, the steady rush of pipes filling the quiet. "Gonna run cold soon," Jude mumbled into his chest.

Nate huffed, pulling him closer. "Ninety seconds left on this boiler. I know every damn thing worth fixing in this house."

Jude gave a quiet chuckle. “Of course you do.”