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The cabin. The shotgun. Robby staring calmly down the barrel at him. Jack. The word mistake still sitting like a lead weight in his chest, and underneath all that, raw and aching, what had happened last night. What he had seen. What he had done. The horror and elation that came from knowing Jack hadn’t stopped.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to get up and face them today like nothing had happened. Like he didn’t know what it looked like when Robby was between Jack’s thighs with Jack’s cock in his mouth, like he didn’t know what Jack sounded like when he was on the verge of coming down Robby’s throat.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to face them, knowing that he had gotten off to the thought of them together.

He was still trying to work up the nerve to get out of bed when the bedroom door opened without a knock.

Jack was standing in the doorway. Dennis scrambled into a sitting position, pulling the quilt up around him as though he wasn’t fully dressed—as though if Jack saw him, he’d see the evidence of what Dennis had done in this bed, in his clothes, and change his mind about letting Dennis stay. Not that he probably hadn’t done that already.

He searched Jack’s face on instinct, looking for—something. Some sign or acknowledgement of what Dennis had seen last night, any indication that he was as rattled by what had happened as Dennis was. But there was nothing. Jack’s expression was shuttered the way it had been yesterday, giving nothing away. His eyes didn’t even linger on Dennis; he scanned the room the way Dennis imagined he did every room he walked into, passing over Dennis and towards the window where the mid-morning sun was sparkling off the wet leaves of the trees surrounding the cabin.

“Back porch, five minutes,” he said, and Dennis noticed, finally, that he was carrying a rifle case and a box of ammunition. “Bring a coat. Mornings get chilly this time of year.”

He was gone before Dennis could respond, his uneven footsteps retreating down the hallway. Dennis’s heart did something complicated in his chest, something that felt like fear and hope twisted up into a single emotion that drove him to his feet, feeling like no matter what he did, he could not disappoint Jack.

Dennis dressed quickly, in his jeans from yesterday and his ratty sneakers, but—for some reason he didn’t want to examine too closely—he kept Jack’s shirt, pulling his shitty thrift store jacket with its worn fabric and its sleeves held together by safety pins on over it. When he entered the kitchen, he found Robby brewing coffee, looking sleep-warm and comfy in only sweatpants and a t-shirt, and glowing in the way that only someone who had been well-fucked the night before did.

“Hey, kiddo,” he greeted, and the nickname did something weird to Dennis’s insides. “Sleep well?”

Dennis froze. He could feel his cheeks warming as he stared at Robby, but he didn’t know how to answer. Yeah, I slept great, after getting off thinking about my dad fucking you, thanks. You?

“Uh—f-fine, yeah,” he said instead.

Robby smiled over his shoulder at him, lines around his eyes crinkling, and Dennis felt his heart trip over itself. “That’s good. Room comfortable? Anything you need?”

“N-No, thank you,” Dennis said, dropping his gaze to the linoleum floor.

Jack came in from outside, then, his gaze finding Dennis almost immediately. He looked him over, eyes lingering on the shirt. Dennis shifted nervously. Was Jack upset that he was wearing his clothes? Did he want his shirt back? But Jack said nothing, just finished his sweep of Dennis’s body, and then, his voice flat: “I thought I told you to grab a coat.”

“Uh.” Dennis looked down at himself, grabbing the flimsy denim of his jacket. “I did?”

Robby turned to look at him fully now, his brows furrowed in concern. “That’s the only coat you have?” he asked.

Dennis went red, this time from pure embarrassment. It wasn’t as if he could afford to have an extensive wardrobe or anything, and after he sold his mom’s car for extra cash, he didn’t have any place to store what little clothing he did have. He had to be able to carry whatever he had on his back, and that severely limited his options. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he was able to exchange his clothes at a shelter somewhere and get something new-to-him, but a lot of the time, he was making use of the tiny sewing kit in his bag, trying to make whatever he had last as long as he could.

“Uh, yeah,” he answered. “It’s fine, though.”

Robby and Jack exchanged a silent look. Dennis got the distinct feeling they were talking about him again, in their weird telepathic language that he wasn’t privy to. He shifted again, feeling vulnerable and exposed as he watched whatever they were discussing pass between them.

“You can use mine for now,” Robby finally said, nodding towards the mudroom, where the green Carhartt was still hanging by the door, Jack now wearing the matching tan one. “And take my boots, too. You’ll sink straight into the mud in those shoes.”

“Oh, um… okay,” Dennis said, glancing down at his ratty canvas sneakers. They were already stained from yesterday’s trek up to the cabin; a little more mud wouldn’t hurt them, but he did like the sound of not getting his feet wet the moment he stepped outside.

Jack grunted, which seemed to signal that the matter had been settled, and jerked his head towards the door. “Come on, kid.”

The word hit him like a punch to the gut, just like Robby’s kiddo had, making his breath catch for a moment as Jack turned and walked outside. Dennis found he couldn’t move, staring after him with his mouth half-open; after what had happened last night, with Jack knowing what he’d done, what he’d seen, he was just going to call him kid like it was nothing? Like nothing had happened? Like Dennis wasn’t haunted by the knowledge of what he looked like when he—

“You’d better get a move on,” Robby said, interrupting his thoughts. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were crinkling at the corners again like he was amused. “I’ll have breakfast ready by the time you’re done.”

Done with what? Dennis wanted to ask. He had no idea what Jack was planning, other than it involved a rifle and ammunition—which, slightly terrifying thought, to be outside alone with Jack and his hunting rifle, but he doubted Robby would be talking about feeding him breakfast if Jack was planning on killing him this morning.

Instead, he just nodded, his mouth feeling dry as he hurried after Jack.

Jack was already outside, and Dennis quickly pulled off his sneakers and slipped his socked feet into Robby’s boots before joining him, pulling on Robby’s coat as he went.

It was chilly outside, despite the sun shining overhead, and the yard was still mostly mud. It sucked at Dennis’s borrowed boots as he followed behind Jack, wrapped up in Robby’s coat. Ducking his head, he inhaled subtly, parsing what must have been Robby’s scent on the collar, pine and musk and something that was utterly masculine, utterly Robby. It made Dennis’s mouth water, imagining he was burying his face in the crook of Robby’s neck instead.

Jack led him out past the workshop towards the tree line, and the old, rotted fence row that had been turned into a makeshift firing range. Metal cans had been set up on the fence posts—Jack must have come out here and set all this up earlier, while Dennis still slept—and the posts themselves were pockmarked with old bullet holes, the ground behind them torn up from hundreds of stray rounds.

They stopped a few yards from the fence, next to a weathered, rickety table, sitting lopsided on the uneven ground. A spinning stool had been welded to one of the legs, and the surface was burnt and melted in places where spent rounds had touched down.

“Ever held a gun before?” Jack asked, slinging the case onto the table and popping it open.

Dennis eyed the case and the large rifle nestled inside it. “No,” he admitted.

Jack made a sound in his throat that could have meant anything. Dennis heard the unspoken of course not, anyway.

Indignation flared in his chest, white-hot. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know these things. If he had grown up right, the way he was supposed to, with… well, a father to teach him, he might have learned how to do all kinds of things. Shoot a gun, fish, ride a fucking bike—anything besides just survive.

The rifle turned out to be older than Dennis, maybe even older than Jack. Its dark walnut stock was patinated with age, worn smooth in places from decades of being handled, and nicked in others, little divots and scratches carved into the wood. It looked powerful and intimidating in Jack’s hands. Even more so when he handed it to Dennis.

“Put your hands here, and here,” he instructed, and Dennis did his best to follow directions, placing one hand beneath the stock and the other at the trigger guard, with Jack’s warning to “never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to fire,” ringing in his ears.

“It’s not loaded,” Dennis argued, and Jack fixed him with such a withering look that he had to fight the urge to drop to the ground and curl up in the mud.

“You’re not getting away with any bad habits on my range,” Jack told him, voice hard. “In our line of work, bad habits get people killed.”

It was the first time, outside of their conversation about Dennis’s mother, that he had heard either of them acknowledge what it was they did, why they lived in a remote cabin in the mountains, why every window and doorway had a line of salt stretched across it and why runes and sigils had been carved into every other tree surrounding the property.

“Do you…?” Dennis asked cautiously, swallowing nervously when Jack just arched a brow at him. “Still work, I mean.”

Jack was silent a moment before answering.

“Sometimes,” he finally said. “When we need to.”

Dennis wasn’t sure what that meant, and Jack didn’t seem keen to offer up any explanation.

Taking the rifle back from Dennis, Jack demonstrated how to load it, and then went through the various parts and mechanisms as though Dennis was going to retain any of this. As he worked, he rattled off about the history of the rifle, almost as though he was speaking to himself and Dennis just happened to be standing there. It was the most Dennis had heard him speak so far, and it occurred to him that Jack was trying to fill the silence.

“She’s an M1903 Springfield,” he said, sliding back the bolt and looking down the barrel through the sight leaf. “Bolt action. They used these as sniper rifles during World War Two.”

He pulled the trigger, and there was a loud click as the firing pin sprang forward, no bullet for it to strike against.

Lowering the rifle, he pulled the bolt back again. “Found her in a pawn shop. Had to replace the barrel. Rusted out from decades of sitting around in someone’s grandad’s garage. But now she works good as new.”

He reached back for the box of ammunition on the table and grabbed another round, sliding it into the chamber and locking the bolt into place before handing the rifle back to Dennis.

Dennis held the rifle with even more trepidation than before. It felt heavier in his hands this time around. Before, he had just been holding a gun; now, he was painfully aware he was holding a loaded weapon. A weapon that could do serious damage, that had been lovingly, painstakingly restored by the man next to him into an efficient killing machine.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dennis wondered if Jack would do the same to him.

He gripped the rifle like Jack had showed him, hands beneath the stock and the butt pressed into his shoulder.

“No,” Jack said, and reached out. Dennis held his breath, and Jack hesitated for only a second before putting his hands on Dennis. He shoved his elbow lower, tucked it into his side, and straightened his spine with a large hand splayed between his shoulder blades. Each point of contact burned through the fabric of Robby’s jacket, Dennis’s skin buzzing.

“You can’t act like you’re afraid of it,” Jack continued, voice a low murmur right next to Dennis’s ear. “Your weapon has to be an extension of you.”

Dennis gave a shaky nod, feeling lightheaded. Between his legs, Jack’s boot tapped against Dennis’s, forcing his feet further apart. Dennis was so surprised—Jack’s thigh was between his—that he gasped and jerked backwards right into Jack, who righted him easily.

“You always this jumpy?” Jack asked. Was it Dennis’s imagination, or did he sound… amused?

Bastard, Dennis thought, feeling his face heat. He wasn’t sure what sort of game Jack was playing—was he punishing him for last night? For watching them? Did he somehow suspect that Dennis had liked what he’d seen?

“‘M not,” he mumbled, notching his cheek against the rifle, the wood nice and cool against his flushed skin.

A puff of warm air hit the shell of Dennis’s ear, followed by Jack’s low, gravelly purr. “Sure, kid.”

Dennis’s grip on the rifle’s stock was so tight that he could feel his fingernails digging into the decades of patina. He forced himself to relax, and then took aim at the first can on the fence row, Jack speaking instructions directly into his ear the whole time.

“Don’t close your eye to aim, that’s Hollywood bullshit. You always want to be fully aware of your surroundings. Good. And don’t lean back—” he pushed between Dennis’s shoulders again to adjust his spine “—she kicks. You lean back, she’ll put you on your ass.”

Dennis tried to internalize each correction, because despite whatever sick and twisted game Jack was playing with him, he still wanted Jack’s approval. He wanted Jack to praise him, wanted Jack to be proud of him. But it was a struggle. Each time Jack touched him, Dennis grew more tense, until he was practically vibrating. There was no way Jack couldn’t feel it, as close as he was standing, but just when Dennis didn’t think he could take it anymore, Jack finally, finally, stepped back.

“Now, take a deep breath,” he said, “and as you exhale, squeeze the trigger.”

There was no world in which Dennis didn’t obey. He dragged in a breath, his shoulders rising, and then let it out slowly, waiting until he was almost out of breath before he did as Jack said and gently squeezed the trigger.

The rifle went off with a boom that shook the trees around them, Dennis’s ears ringing with the sound. The force behind the shot was more than he had been expecting, and the rifle jerked in his arms, the shot going wide and churning up mud a few feet from the target. Dennis stumbled back into Jack again, who caught him by the hips, his big hands curling over the prominent bones beneath Dennis’s jeans.

Dennis didn’t realize how hard he was breathing, his chest heaving with each gulp of air, until Jack’s voice floated to him over the sound of his own surprised gasps.

“—hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Jack said, his thumbs rubbing at the jut of Dennis’s hips soothingly, his breath warm against Dennis’s ear. “Told you she’d knock you on your ass if you weren’t careful. Good thing I was here, huh?”

Dennis froze, his heart hammering in his chest, pulse thudding in his still-ringing ears. He was aware of every point of contact between him and Jack—Jack’s hands on his hips, his firm chest plastered against Dennis’s back, the way the curve of Dennis’s ass fit perfectly against his crotch. If Dennis pressed back just right, he would be able to feel—

The thought brought Dennis crashing back down to reality. He expected Jack to let go of him, to push him away and tell him to fire again, but he didn’t. He just… kept holding Dennis, his fingers digging into the denim at his hips, his warm breath hitting the back of Dennis’s neck. If Robby happened to look outside—well. Dennis could only imagine what the two of them looked like right now.

Blinking, Dennis swallowed the lump in his throat, confused and a little wary. What the fuck was Jack doing, actually? Was he—was he coming on to Dennis? His own son? That wasn’t—that couldn’t be—he was married! And even if he wasn’t, even if Robby wasn’t inside right now making them all breakfast, Dennis was his son. He had slept with Dennis’s mother—a fact Dennis did not want to examine too closely—and made him! Dennis was alive because of him. Wouldn’t that cause some sort of—of psychological barrier to attraction?

It didn’t for you, said a nasty little voice in the back of Dennis’s mind, and he realized his mistake almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind.

Jack may not have raised Dennis, may not have even known about him until he showed up on their doorstep, but Dennis had lived his whole life up to this point hearing stories about his dad—how brave he was, how handsome. And Dennis had worshipped the absent figure of Jack from the time he was small, begging his mother to tell him about Jack over and over again, until Sarah had gotten exasperated enough that she just handed him her journal and washed her hands of the whole thing.

His entire life, Dennis had longed for Jack, had wished and prayed for Jack to show up and whisk him away to a better life—not that he didn’t love his mother, he did, but he hadn’t loved the constant moving around, never having a permanent home. Never having a permanent father figure beyond whatever man Sarah was hustling for money at the time. He wasn’t proud of it, but at his lowest point, he had wished more than anything that his dad would come and save him. Like he had saved Sarah.

Somehow, that feeling had gotten all twisted up inside him, had soured and turned into something rotten, something that burned inside him at the thought of Jack, something that craved, hollow and hungry.

Dennis was in love with his own father.

Or in love with the idea of him, anyway. All that hero worship had morphed and shifted, and the moment Dennis had laid eyes on Jack, just as handsome as Sarah had said, if a bit older and rougher around the edges, that lifelong desire for a father had met a physical desire for Jack, and now he could not separate the two. He wouldn’t even know where to start.

Silence stretched as Dennis stood there, having a minor—major—existential crisis at the realization that he didn’t just want Jack physically, he wanted him romantically, as well, and Jack was still touching him, his thumbs having found their way beneath Dennis’s shirt, his shirt, to rub circles into the skin above his waistband. Dennis wanted Jack, and Jack was… what? Toying with him? Getting back at him for spying on him and Robby last night?

Or was it possible that Jack actually… well. Dennis must have gotten it from somewhere. Must have inherited this sickness inside him, because the thought of it forming organically made him ill.

How many seconds had passed, Dennis wondered, that they had been standing like this? How long had Jack been holding him, back to chest, ass to groin, the way a father should never hold his son, but that Dennis desperately wanted? They needed to stop, before Dennis did something he could not take back, like drop to his knees for his father right here in the mud.

He sucked in a breath, shaky and wet. “Jack—” he choked out, and that seemed to break whatever spell was over them. He felt Jack flinch, his grip tightening just briefly on Dennis’s hips before he stepped back altogether. The sudden loss of contact made Dennis shiver, and he tried to tell himself it was only because Jack was warm, and the morning air still carried a chill from yesterday’s cold front.

Behind him, Jack cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was low, raspy and full of gravel.

“Again,” he said. “Load it yourself this time—show me you remember how.”

Nodding, Dennis reached for the box of ammunition, his hands shaking as he mentally talked himself through the steps. Load the round into the chamber. Slide the bolt into place. Safety off. Eye open. He took aim and fired again, the rifle pulling wide again, the bullet churning up mud about three feet away from the target. The kick still knocked him back, but he caught himself this time.

Jack made an encouraging sound. “Closer,” he said, and there, in his voice, was the barest hint of approval. Dennis soaked it up like a flower soaking up sunlight. “Again.”

Dennis ejected the used cartridge, loaded a new round, and took aim. This time the bullet found its mark, the can spinning and toppling off the post. Lowering the rifle, Dennis whipped around to look at Jack, who was—not smiling, but looking at Dennis with something akin to… well, Dennis didn’t know what a proud father looked like, but he imagined it was something like what Jack looked like right now.