“I can explain that,” Shasta said when Jones picked up the dog tag he still wore around his neck. “In a hopefully non-creepy way.”
“So explain,” Jones murmured, rubbing his thumb against the letters stamped into the tag.
“Elle told me to wear it. So I, uh, did.” Shasta considered for a moment. “Okay, that’s probably pretty creepy anyway.”
“Where’s the other one?”
“I don’t know,” Shasta said, deciding to lie on the spur of the moment. “She just gave me this one. Do you want it back?”
Jones looked up at him, obviously struggling to think through the vodka he’d downed. “No,” he said finally, letting the dog tag fall back against Shasta’s chest. “Do whatever you want with it.” He traced a line across to the half-healed bite mark around Shasta’s shoulder, running his fingertips along the raised lines, until Shasta shivered and he stopped. “Sorry. Does it hurt?”
“Not really. Kalani did a good job. Did I ever say thanks by the way? Thanks if I didn’t.”
“You chatter a lot when you’re drunk. Even more than usual.” Jones gave him half a smile that somehow made him look even more tired.
“I’m sure it’s about as useless as my usual chatter, too,” Shasta said, grinning.
“At least you can acknowledge your faults.” Jones glanced in the direction of the vodka bottle but before he could get up, Shasta caught hold of his chin to turn him back and kissed him again.
He had half-expected resistance but instead Jones leaned into him and pushed him down in the grass, hands going to the button on his jeans. Reluctant to break the kiss—and have Jones come back to his senses—Shasta only lifted his hips enough to let Jones slide his jeans down, shivering a bit at the touch of cool night air on his bare skin. Jones pulled away and sat up enough to toss them to the side and take his own shirt off, adding it to the pile.
“Hey, tell me your name,” Shasta said without thinking, looking up at him. The moon was behind him, gilding his bare shoulders with silver but leaving his face in shadow.
“What?”
“Your name, Jonesy. The real one.”
“Now?”
“Is there a better time?” Shasta grinned. “I need to know what to call out. Unless you like the idea of hearing, ‘Oh, Mr. Jones, more’.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Shasta, you know that?”
“If you tell me I’ll never bug you about it again.”
Jones snorted. “Because you’ll know. I’m not that stupid drunk.”
“Well, I don’t want you stupid drunk. I probably shouldn’t let you drink at all, no matter—”
“It’s Grey.”
“—how nice the results are. Wait, what?”
“My name is Grey.” He glanced out over the grass for a moment, so that the moonlight lit up his profile, then looked back. “Grey Jones.”
“Grey, huh. I like it.”
“Now my life is complete,” Jones said dryly.
“Sarcasm is my job,” Shasta tried to say, but it only got swallowed up in Jones’s mouth on his and Jones’s hands sliding down his belly; and when it came right down to it, ‘Jones’ was the name that escaped him anyway.
He fell asleep in the grass with Jones pressed up against his back and woke alone in the fog of the between places. His heart seemed to skip a beat and he hurriedly sat up, wrapping his arms around himself in a small attempt to warm his bare skin and protect himself. He saw Jones a few feet away, still curled up asleep, and got up to make his way over, watching the fog warily as he crouched down to shake Jones awake.
“What the hell,” Jones muttered, squinting into the fog then rubbing at his eyes as he sat up.
“I’ve had some weird sex, Jonesy, but this is the first time I’ve woken up in the between places. On someone’s floor, sure. Upside down across the sofa, a little odd, but it’s happened. Never here, and I gotta say, not somewhere I want to wake up from groggy post-sex sleep. In fact—”
Jones clapped a hand over his mouth, cutting him off, and leaned in until his mouth was close to Shasta’s ear. “Shut up. There’s something out there.”
Shasta froze, automatically clutching at Jones’s arm, and studied the fog carefully. He almost didn’t see it then caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye; something slim but very long twitching through the fog. Reaching out a careful hand, he tried to open a gate back to the field of grass.
The slim line in the fog came up so fast he barely saw it move, revealing itself as the Kingsblack’s long, supple tail. It flickered towards them and caught Shasta neatly in the chest, flinging him backwards with the air knocked out of his lungs. He landed hard and bit back a whimper as the bite mark on his shoulder flared into life again, glowing red. It felt as though his entire arm and chest were on fire from the inside out, gnawing away at him.
He saw Jones turn towards him but the Kingsblack’s tail curled gently around Jones’s waist and tugged him back. It held him in place as the creature’s massive head rose out of the fog a few feet away and swung towards him. It bared its teeth and Shasta saw something silver glittering around one long tooth, ending in a dangling rectangular object he couldn’t quite make out. For a moment the Kingsblack and Jones just faced each other, completely still except for the slight movement of Jones’s hair in the Kingsblack’s hot breath, then Jones socked it in the nose.
It was such a puny blow against the Kingsblack’s size, pathetically defiant, but the Kingsblack reared back as though it had been much more powerful, shaking its head like a dog with a bee sting. Its tail tightened around Jones’s torso, hard enough to send him to his knees gasping for air, then it released him and ducked back down into the fog. Silence settled over them, broken only by their matched harsh breathing, then Shasta pushed himself painfully to his feet and went to see if Jones was all right.
“I’m okay,” Jones said when Shasta gingerly knelt down beside him. “You?”
“There’s no bleeding, I’m practically batting a hundred.” Shasta touched the lines of bruising already forming around Jones’s waist. “That was kind of awesome, you punching it like that.”
“Fucking killed my hand,” Jones said, flexing his fingers. “Like punching a rock.”
Shasta snorted a helpless laugh through his nose, trying not to break into outright laughter. He had to take a few deep breaths until the urge had passed, while Jones watched him with one eyebrow raised. “You’re one of a kind, Jonesy. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He took Jones’s hand and opened a gate with the other, not allowing himself even a sigh of relief until they’d gone through it and were back in the long grass.
His clothes were damp but he pulled them on anyway, grimacing at the feel of them against his skin. He waited for Jones to do the same—swallowing another urge to start giggling helplessly when Jones had to hunt for his pants—and led the way back towards the house. They let themselves in quietly; the house was silent and still enough that it was obvious everyone else had gone to bed. Shasta headed automatically for the stairs, already looking forward to climbing into bed, then stopped and looked at Jones.
“So are we sharing? Is this going to be weird?”
“Upside down sex on the sofa weird?”
“I just woke up there.” Shasta offered a hand. “Hopefully it won’t be that weird.”
Jones looked at his hand for such a long moment that Shasta almost told him to forget it, then Jones’s fingers laced with his own. Smiling a bit, Shasta led him upstairs and shut the bedroom door behind them, glad to strip out of his damp clothes and crawl under the blankets. He shifted over to let Jones in, laughing a bit as they both awkwardly tried to arrange themselves. Eventually he ended up facing Jones with his head tucked under Jones’s chin, finally warm and comfortable, with the feeling of Jones’s steady breathing to help lull him to sleep.
He was just on the edge when Jones said his name, keeping him from falling right into sleep. “Mmm?” he managed.
“What if we took Aloria there?”
“Where?”
“The between places. Took her there and let the Kingsblack have her.”
“I’m not sleeping with my aunt.”
“I’m serious, Shasta. If we could lure her there somehow.”
“Talk to me in the morning. It’s too late for this. I’m too tired and I’ll probably have a hangover in the morning.” Shasta nuzzled at his neck, inhaling his unique scent. “If you’re real lucky I’ll even cook you breakfast. You can have a choice of scrambled eggs and bacon, bacon and scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, or bacon.”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” Jones said, his voice an odd mix of tired and amused.
“Yessir,” Shasta muttered against his throat, and quickly fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
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