#clover write

Dickass Lee laughed.

"You kids' bump n' grind stuff doesn't count."

Jian rolled his eyes at that, but had no rebuttal. He watched helplessly as Dickass Lee’s wobbling figure floated across the living room, gliding between his case of records and the antique player near the window seat. He set his chosen record down and started it spinning, and Jian could only catch a glimpse of a cream colored album cover with red lettering before soft, jazzy doo-wop instrumentals began to play, and Dickass Lee turned back to face him with predatory glee in his eyes.

"You'll like this one. Come here."

Dickass Lee approached slowly, stepping in time with the gentle tempo, already swaying his shoulders to Frankie Valli's rosy voice which shimmered through the haze swirling around Jian's head.

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off you

You'd be like heaven to touch

I wanna hold you so much

Dickass Lee offered both hands to Jian, who shook his head emphatically.

"Uhh, don't think I'm up for--"

"You can lean on me, Jian, don't worry," Dickass Lee said. He untangled Jian's hands from where they were hidden beneath the blanket and took them into his own, not unkindly. "We'll go slow."

"Where've I heard that one b'fore?" Jian slurred under his breath, but allowed himself to be drawn up into Dickass Lee's arms, trusting the man with most, if not all, of his weight.

Dickass Lee held him up as steadily as he could. Drugged and woozy as Jian was, the most he could offer in terms of stability was a tight-ish grip around the man's neck. But despite the looming pain and the depression weighing down what remained of his limbs, Jian found himself almost blissfully giggling as Dickass Lee made him sway to the sentimental tune, Jian's single foot on the floor acting as a swivel point.

The tempo picked up just as they'd finally found a tenuous balance. Jian surrendered himself entirely to Dickass Lee’s whims as the man began to swing him around in earnest, even releasing Jian to float in brief moments before catching him by the hips again. Jian's laugh arose candidly, the bright easy sound of it mingling with cheery instrumentation and the rhythmic stomping and clapping of a long-dead chorus. Or maybe Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons were still around. Jian didn't have a clue, and he didn't care.

The phrase climaxed with a brassy flourish, which Dickass Lee took as an opportunity to drop Jian into an easy dip, one hand supporting Jian's lower back while the other held his hand, leaving Jian breathless and dizzy as he stared up at him.

A stray muscle in Jian's right thigh suddenly cramped fiercely, triggering a pained flinch after just a second in that little half dip. Jian's hiss of pain was followed by an energetic round of tambourines and bright trumpets, but Dickass Lee just gently led him back to his spot on the couch, laughing sympathetically, a bit out of breath himself.

“I’m not scared,” Jian said adamantly, simmering with annoyance at the man’s condescending tone. But he kept his hand tightly clasped, his palm beginning to sweat as his footing grew more unsure. “I just can’t see.”

Dickass Lee chuckled. “I know these woods very well. You can’t get lost when you’re out here with me.”

Jian rolled his eyes freely in the dark. He was already lost out here, as long as Dickass Lee was at his side.

Blue-black darkness fell quickly around them, and the temperature seemed to drop another twenty degrees. The light jacket wasn’t cutting it anymore. Jian doubted the simple miscalculation of that, too. When his shivers grew violent, Jian clenched his jaw and huddled close to Dickass Lee, despite the biting nausea. Dickass Lee let go of Jian’s hand and wrapped his heavy arm around Jian’s shoulders, keeping him warm and steady as they walked. Jian tried not to feel comforted, and for the first time in ages it wasn’t a challenge. His thoughts drifted to the tall tree behind the murder shack, to his brush with hypothermia. No, Jian couldn’t see this as anything other than more manipulation of the same kind. He didn’t know what exactly Dickass Lee wanted from him this time, but he knew he’d acquiesce without much of a fight, as long as that threat of cold hung over him.

Nighttime out here was dazzlingly noisy, much louder than in the city. Compared to the soft rumble of traffic, to drunk clubbers laughing their way to the next venue, even to the occasional nearby siren, the woods were downright chaotic. With a sound like TV static blasting through concert speakers, everything alive in the forest came together in an invisible choir around and above him. Jian swept the forest with his eyes, squinting to find any hint of suspicious movement to serve as proof of the vast network of insects which were obviously still thriving here in what felt like early winter, but all he saw was black.

Jian’s eyes felt dry and glassy from straining through the darkness when he noticed movement off to his left. He wouldn’t have seen it in the daylight. He almost stopped in his tracks, but bundled up so close to Dickass Lee, he just stumbled slightly and moved along. He couldn’t hear it behind the frenzied woods swallowing up any noise that wasn’t its own, but there was no mistaking the twin dots of yellow light that rose and flashed and diminished as the vehicle’s headlights turned towards him and away.

A car, a road, people. A way out.

Jian’s mind raced. The road was a long way from the house. It was hard to gauge distance over the hills and winding trodden paths, especially when he hadn't been paying that much attention, but it felt like maybe a mile or two. He’d walked this far already. How much further could he go, if he ran? At least to the side of the road, where he might just collapse and wait for another car to rumble by what a driver might at first take for a corpse. He’d probably have better luck playing dead than if he showed up to the road with his thumb out.

He’d imagined this plot of land as an endless mountain, even an isolated universe. There was no room for other people and their cars, no way for a public road to sneak through the little snowglobe he lived in with Dickass Lee. He tried to memorize the route they were taking, to feel the direction from which they’d come and keep it locked in his body, so that no matter where he started from, he’d know which way to turn once he finally got his chance to run.

Somehow, they made it back to the house. Even Dickass Lee had stumbled over fallen branches in the dark a few times, but he laughed it off with such ease that Jian couldn’t find any sadistic humor in it, instead feeling more tense the better Dickass Lee’s mood got.

They showered together. Dickass Lee urged Jian up to the bathroom with a playfulness that made Jian’s stomach flip. Without invitation, he helped Jian undress, taking every opportunity to run gently violating hands over every soft spot he came across in the process. Jian shivered, remembering the chill outside, and didn’t fight him. Eventually he stopped trying to use his own hands at all, letting Dickass Lee unravel him to the skin. He felt his expression slipping away to vacancy, and wished his brain could do the same.

He tried to disappear into the warmth of the shower, to focus on the earthy rosemary scent of the soap that Dickass Lee was lathering onto him. His movements slowed at Jian’s shoulders, rubbing small circles into the tightness he felt there.

“Jian, why are you so nervous?” Dickass Lee asked. His voice was sweet, caring. He brushed a soapy thumb across Jian’s jawline, his hand resting steadily on the side of his neck. It could’ve been adoringly. “Hey, I promise not to keep us out after dark again. Relax. We’re home now.”

Jian swallowed and nodded, shutting his eyes and taking an intentional breath to try and let go of the tension riddling his body, imagining it flowing down the drain. He imagined it clogging the pipes, a plumber being called in, driving a painted company van along that road through the woods.

A wet hand broke through the dark, Dickass Lee lifting Jian’s face to kiss him. All of that tension bubbled right back up, gray and stinking from the sewer, boiling hot at their feet, and Jian reflexively broke the kiss with a grimace and a violent turn of his head. He stood still for a moment, blinking away flashes of bright light and panting as the sick fumes died down.

“M’sorry,” he murmured quickly, before Dickass Lee could say anything about it.

“Hey, come on. You know I don’t want to threaten you. It’s alright.”

Jian recognized the threat for what it was. He bit back another flinch, sudden echoes of pain sparking across his thighs like a match striking over his skin, and leaned back into Dickass Lee’s touch, returning the kiss when it was offered again. He supposed he should be feeling grateful for the second chance.

Just one more night. He could do just one more night of this. He ran appeasing hands over Dickass Lee’s dripping chest and up around the back of his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss. One more surrender, and tomorrow Jian would disappear from this mountainside universe, crash through the glass of the snowglobe and spill out into another world, soaking wet and wild-eyed.

Dickass Lee pulled back suddenly, smoothing a fingertip over his bottom lip, a sideways smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That so, sweetheart?” he said in a darkly playful tone, teasing and a little bit impressed.

It took Jian a moment to realize what had happened. A moment later and he’d tugged Dickass Lee’s head down to bite him again, even harder, forging a path from the man’s lips to his jaw and down to his neck, dragging teeth over skin between each aggressive kiss.

It wasn’t long before they found themselves in the master bedroom, hair still dripping as Jian shoved Dickass Lee onto the bed, wasting no time in climbing on top of him to straddle his hips. The man’s proud fucking smile hadn’t faltered once, and Jian smothered it with another heated kiss, pinning Dickass Lee firmly to the mattress and pretending he could rip the man to shreds with the grip he had on his hair.

One more night. Why did it have to be a surrender? It wasn’t. Jian was taking his spoils of war, in a victory he just hadn’t technically earned quite yet.

Dickass Lee trawled strong hands up Jian’s thighs, his fingertips digging into the skin and snagging on short hairs as he went. Jian shuddered, and he was already grinding his hips against the warm body beneath his when those hands settled around his waist, their grip tightening along with a hitch in Dickass Lee’s breathing.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” Dickass Lee crooned breathlessly, adoring eyes flashing up at Jian, who straightened up to find more leverage and pressure. He raked dull fingernails over Dickass Lee’s torso, imagining rivers of the man’s blood in place of the little pink welts that surfaced instead. Jian’s hands faltered and froze as Dickass Lee’s began to wander downward, featherlight touches forcing out a desperate twitch and an equally as damning gasp and whimper.

Dickass Lee laughed at him softly, wistful affection clouding his face, one hand holding tight to Jian’s hip, keeping him from wriggling away while the other hand continued with gentle strokes. A sting of resentment sprang up in Jian’s core alongside the glow of pleasure, and he dug into Dickass Lee’s chest with his nails.

This wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to tear into Dickass Lee, to hurt him, to make him go along with whatever Jian bid, for once. And whether that meant beating him to a pulp or riding him until he was raw, Jian wanted to be the one calling the shots.

But Jian couldn’t help but react to the touch with exactly what the man was looking for, all but rutting into Dickass Lee’s hand, only held back by the firm grip on his right hip and his own fraught attempts to convince himself he didn’t also want this so badly.

“Someone’s in a mood tonight,” Dickass Lee said, his voice dropping to a rumble. The man’s unquestioned confidence radiated out from him like barbs that jabbed into Jian’s chest, making him sick with irritation and futile fury, despite the pleasure that he couldn’t deny or escape. “I wonder where that’s coming from. Was there something you wan--”

Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

Dickass Lee leaned down over him, taking his time, drawing out the agony in the slow roll of his hips over Jian’s ass, relishing in making him squirm even as Jian weathered through the shame of his impulsive attempt at retaliation. He nipped at Jian’s ear, breathing a fond chuckle when it made Jian’s hips twitch beneath him. Jian shut his eyes tight, breathing in little nervous shots through his nose and trying to hold back his moans.

Before he could think about it, Jian aimed a punch to Dickass Lee’s throat, his arm flying as if fueled by fire. He didn’t even get to make contact. With startling agility, Dickass Lee dropped off mid-sentence to intercept Jian’s fist, then snatched both of Jian’s arms and flipped him to his stomach with such unnerving efficiency that Jian barely had time to blink before he found himself suffocating facedown in the sheets, fighting off a wild rush of arousal as his arms were pinned behind him.

“That was cute,” Dickass Lee said, letting his lips brush against the sensitive shell of Jian’s ear. “But I’m sorry, sweetheart, it’s not going to happen. You understand, don’t you, baby?”

Jian shifted, trying to shrug his arms free, and got nowhere. He huffed out his frustration, mostly aimed at himself. Of course Dickass Lee had only been letting Jian toss him around. Of course Jian knew that. He cursed himself for getting caught up in the fantasy.

“I’m going to forgive you for that, Jian,” Dickass Lee said as he kissed a line down the back of Jian’s neck and between his shoulders, until he got to where he held Jian’s arms in that unforgiving grip. “Mainly because I’d rather just get back to where we left off. Are you going to behave yourself?”

One more night. One more surrender.

Breathlessly, through gritted teeth, “Yes.”

Dickass Lee hummed against Jian’s skin, pleased, finally letting go of Jian’s aching arms to press him more gently into the bed, one broad, steady hand on the nape of his neck and another caressing along the sides of his ribs. Of their own accord, Jian’s hips made eager little rocking motions into the mattress, and he had no way of stopping or concealing it, especially when Dickass Lee was doing about the same to him, teasing over his lower back.

“You’ll have to be good for me, Jian. No fighting this time. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

Jian arched his back, pushing his hips up and back, a mewling noise spilling out of him, only halfway unbidden. Fuck it. This was still his victory.

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“Yes, Richard,” Jian said, his voice muffled into the sheets. He turned his face to the side, catching fresher air and glancing over his shoulder at Dickass Lee. “Fucking hell, please.”

Dickass Lee finally entered him, maddeningly gently at first, but it went on until Jian was begging at every desperate bid for a climax that Dickass Lee held just out of his reach. At some point a dull prong of actual pain started to build in his core like a lead weight in his stomach, growing with each new denial. By the time Dickass Lee finally allowed him to come, Jian had been sobbing for several rounds already.

His orgasm was blindingly bright, his vision going white as he wailed through it, and the last thing he remembered before passing out was a tender kiss on the cheek and Dickass Lee’s voice, soft between panting breaths.

Cal first caught Jian sneaking into Casanova on a chilly, rainy night. It wasn’t the first time Jian had gotten in. He’d just had a harder time blending with the partygoers that night: waterlogged and shivering, too exhausted to even talk, sitting by himself on a leather couch near the bathrooms. His clothes were damp, leeching all the warmth from his small body, but even shedding his wet jacket didn’t feel like an option. He was convinced that the moment he slipped his scrawny, narrow shoulders free, his age would be made even more pathetically obvious than it already was. It was better to keep still and try to pretend that he wasn’t there at all.

Cal was on the floor that night, covering for a sick bartender. He’d wondered how he’d missed the obviously underaged kid’s entrance into his bar. It was a Tuesday night. Not very busy at all. Maybe it was the rain. The patio sat empty, everyone instead gathering inside and cluttering up Cal’s view of the front door.

Jian flinched when Cal approached him. He was a tall, hefty man, comfortably in his fifties. Though with age his ratio of muscle to fat had shifted, he still had an intensely intimidating power in his stature, especially from where Jian was sitting.

“Hey,” Cal said, with just a hint of the stern edge to his voice which he only fully put on for the handsy creeps and mean drunks.

Jian looked up at the man, numb in the face. He had nothing to say, and was too shocked with cold and fear to even try to squeak out a word.

Cal stood tall, unyielding. “You wanna show me some ID?”

Jian looked at his shoes, a lump growing in his throat. His head was too misty to comprehend much, but he understood enough to recognize he’d been caught, which meant that he had to find somewhere else to hide from the rain. He already couldn’t remember how many times this had happened that night. All he knew was that he didn’t want to go back to the shelter, but he was quickly running out of options. With stiff, freezing hands and a weak, trembling effort, he pushed himself off the sticky seat and started on his staggering trek to the exit.

Cal’s large hands stopped him, butting against his shoulders. Not grabbing. Jian couldn’t even muster any awareness of the act, just pushing his empty body against Cal’s hands like they were an invisible wall in a video game. Cal pushed back a little more firmly, and Jian’s feet tripped to a halt. He stood in place, blinking through confused sparks in his eyes, feeling lightheaded.

“Hold on, hold on. Hey,” Cal said, stooping down to meet Jian’s eyes, and, as twenty-something year old Jian suddenly realized with fondness, to shield him from the activity of the bar around them. “Do you need… Would you like something hot to drink? A warm meal, maybe? Someplace dry?”

Jian had no clue what his face was doing. He remembered his body as a hollow wooden vessel. Still, something must have come across in his silence, because Cal softened even more.

“Look, I don’t know your situation,” he said, squeezing Jian’s shoulder. “But I can tell enough that you need help. I have the means. Come on, honey.”

Cal started to usher Jian towards the bar, and a volatile switch flipped in Jian’s gut, instantly rubbing every inch of his skin raw and sucking the air from his lungs.

“No,” Jian managed in a desperate whisper, shrugging his way out of Cal’s hands and stumbling backwards a few feet before blinking the blind terror from his eyes and halfway remembering where he was. Cal’s hands hovered in a deliberately non-threatening airspace, allowing Jian to retreat as far as he needed.

“Okay,” Cal said quickly, in a peaceful, hushed tone. Jian’s focus still whipped around the bar, but Cal let that manic vigilance die down in its own time, keeping his own body still and distant. “Okay. You don’t have to. But I really don’t want to send you back out there, to who knows what, without at least getting you dried off. You can stay here, honey. You don’t have to go.”

The vividness of Jian’s memory drained to an uninviting mist. He knew that at some point he’d started to cry, and that Cal had led him with an open hand -- so broad it nearly spanned Jian’s entire waistline, at least in those days -- to a more secluded area behind the bar, where both Cal and the small kitchen crew could keep an eye on him while he ravenously devoured a warm plate of various bar staples and a few Casanova specialties. Jian remembered being offered an offensively sugary Shirley Temple in that same spot, but that may have been on another night.

Sometime later, a shift change freed Cal up to drag a second black painted chair over to Jian’s, where he’d been working on drying himself off with an only slightly ratty towel, having adamantly refused a change of clothes from Cal’s apartment above the bar.

“Hey there, kiddo. You feeling any better?”

Jian nodded sheepishly, embarrassed at all the drama he’d become the center of tonight, now that the terror had mostly passed. The heat from the crowd and the food had long since stilled his shivering, and an almost contented sleepiness was taking over instead, a feeling so unfamiliar that he was struggling to guard against it, finding himself nodding off every now and then. He’d been focusing his energy on staying upright in the chair, and was glad for Cal’s interruption.

“I’d like to have a little chat with you, if that’s okay,” Cal said, leaning forward in his seat to match Jian’s height. Jian visibly tensed, swallowing nervously and breaking eye contact. Cal’s voice only softened more. “Sweetheart, you’re not in any trouble with me. What’s your name, honey?”

When Jian only gulped again with considerably more effort, his eyebrows starting to knit with growing anxiety, Cal nodded thoughtfully.

“That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

A rush of cool air flowed through Jian’s chest, relief unclenching his jaw before he’d even realized how tight he’d been squeezing it shut.

“I would like to know how old you are, though,” Cal continued lightly. “But don’t tell me that either. I want to guess. Flex my skills. Is that something the kids are saying today?”

One corner of Jian’s mouth lifted a bit.

“See, I’m out of the loop. This’ll be fun,” Cal said. “Hmm,” he hummed, one hand rubbing his chin as he made a show of scrutinizing Jian’s scrappy appearance. “I’ve got nieces in the eighth grade, but they’re all shorter than you. They definitely eat better, though.” Jian couldn’t help but chuckle silently under the heat of the spotlight, feeling himself becoming invested in the game, despite everything. “Fourteen, maybe? No, fifteen.” When Jian shook his head to both, Cal leaned back, worry overtaking his expression. “Oh, sweetheart, please don’t tell me I started too high. I don’t think I could handle it.”

Jian shook his head again, an easy smile finding its way onto his face. “Sixteen,” he said, his delicate voice all but confirming his answer.

Cal nodded, solemnity gently wafting away the air of humor that had eased them to this point. He leaned forward again, hands clasped in front of him, and looked into Jian’s eyes as he spoke. “It was a long time ago, but it was tough for me when I was that age, too. I can’t speak for your experience, honey, but I know what it’s like to feel alone in the world.”

His defenses down, Jian felt the words hit him square in his chest. Fear and apprehension prickled at the edges of the impact, but the crater was deep enough that genuine empathy was what struck Jian the most. He felt breathless and fragile as he listened, but he didn’t look away.

“I’ve seen some very good friends go down dark paths because of that feeling. And it’s hard to find your way back out. It’s hard out there, baby, I know. But no matter how lost you feel, you will never be unworthy of love, and safety, and peace. Do you understand me?”

Jian wasn’t sure that he did, but Cal spoke with such an urgency that Jian felt he should at least nod, though unease was building in his stomach again. Cal watched him with earnest conviction as he waited for Jian to answer, but Jian shied away from the intensity of it, breaking off eye contact and betraying the gnawing guilt he suddenly felt. Cal sighed, too softly to hear beneath the noise of the bar.

“I know that look, sweetheart. Your family?”

Jian hadn’t realized how obvious it could be. His stomach dropped and a flash of heat pushed tears behind his eyes as fresh wounds burst through their haphazard stitches. He could feel the metaphorical slam of the door all over again, the pain of his father’s violent and consummate rejection only compounded by the past year he’d spent trying to stitch himself back together without him. Failing miserably. He bit his cheek to keep the rest from spilling, and locked eyes with Cal to silently implore him to continue.

Cal didn’t falter. He wrapped Jian’s restlessly clenching fists between his warm hands and leaned in.

“There’s not a lot I can do to change the truly fucking awful things that happen in this world,” Cal said. “But what I can do is help lift some of the burdens that fall on us. You are welcome here, honey.” He accented this with a squeeze of Jian’s hands, then paused, blinked a few times, and made an undecided gesture with a tilt of his head. “Not in the bar, mind you.”

At the gentle chiding, Jian found himself laughing with him, vaguely relieved to be acknowledged as something other than a novelty or a criminal. Cal looked at him without hunger. Being the object of someone’s worry instead of their hatred or desire had faded to a memory from another world, and Jian didn’t know what to do with or even how to identify the bubbly feeling which sat high in his chest. The release of pressure set free a cold crop of tears that he had been clinging to. With grace, Cal let them fall without address.

“But any time it’s getting too heavy,” Cal continued, holding Jian’s hands tight, “if you’re ever hungry, tired, need someone to talk to, anything, you come to Casanova and you ask for Cal, okay? I mean it. We make our own families here.”

Jian nodded, with emphatic gratitude this time. His head felt too fuzzy and exhausted to really comprehend the mess of emotions that writhed and tangled inside him, like a rat’s nest of colorful yarn choking his heart, but the mess itself was colorful and soft, and that had to be enough for now. He took a steadying breath.

“My name’s Jian,” he said, feeling shy under the usually anonymizing glow of the blacklights. But Cal beamed.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Jian,” he said. “Now, the big questions: Do you have a place to stay tonight? Is there someone I can help you call, to let them know where you are?”

“No,” Jian said simply, and the scalding, mortified blush that would’ve normally flooded Jian’s entire face and neck just wasn’t there. Instead, Cal’s hands landed on his shoulders, blanketing him in steadiness and warmth without suffocating.

“Now you do, Jay. Now you do.’

From somewhere in the comfortable fog of Jian’s distant memory, Dickass Lee’s voice wormed back into his ears.

“Come here, Jay.”

Jian bristled.

“Everything okay?” Richard Lee asked. After a long pause during which his brain produced nothing but aggressive dial-up noises, Jian nodded, hoping it seemed at least a little bit thoughtful on the outside. Richard Lee mirrored the gesture, then backed towards the living room with a friendly bounce in his step. “Come on down,” he said, beckoning Jian after him. “I want to talk to you, and not on the stairs.”

Richard Lee disappeared and Jian stood still for a moment, catching his breath. Whatever the man wanted to tell him, Jian wasn’t particularly interested in hearing. He considered ignoring him and going back upstairs to look around, but allowing Richard Lee to keep up the nice guy act for as long as he could seemed like a better idea. Jian followed him into the bright living room, lit by a wide bay window with a cushioned bench built in.

The man sat on a soft tan loveseat and motioned for Jian to join him at a matching couch across a large round coffee table. Jian sat at the window instead, his body straight and tense, poised to put up a fight.

“You haven’t spoken much, Ji-yan,” Richard Lee said. An icicle of fear stung Jian in the back of the neck at the man’s subtle tone of disapproval, filtering chills down into his shoulder blades. He weighed his options quickly, his eyes flitting back and forth. Lucia had already said he was difficult, so that should have been what the man wanted. And it wouldn’t be too hard for Jian to pull off. But it didn’t feel like a great way to postpone his eventual murder or ensure a less gruesome way out. He watched the man’s face, searching for something in his face that would offer a hint as to what he really hoped Jian would do, but found only that unsettlingly convincing mask of kindness.

“Sorry,” Jian said. It was all he could think of. Richard Lee breathed a deep, patient sigh and looked down at his interlaced fingers in his lap, taking a moment to choose his next words carefully.

“Ji-yan,” Richard Lee said evenly, raising his gaze to meet Jian’s. “I know you’re afraid right now, but I truly mean it when I say that I don’t want you to be.”

Jian knit his eyebrows and stared dubiously at the man. Bullshit. Richard Lee just wanted Jian to be totally off his guard when he finally chopped him up with a hatchet. He wanted to see the trust break in Jian’s eyes along with all of his ribs. Did the man think he was a fucking idiot?

“Ji-yan?”

Jian flinched out of his thoughts. The man was watching him worriedly, his right hand on the arm of the loveseat now.

“You alright? You look like you have something to say.”

Shit. Shit. Sure he fucking did, but nothing he had in mind ended with any other scenario than Richard Lee suddenly realizing his whole scheme would be impossible, that Jian wasn’t worth the time. But Richard Lee was still looking at him, expecting some kind of response. Jian swallowed, his pulse beating into his face, burning his cheeks now with the same panic that had frozen him before.

“You’re saying my name wrong,” he blurted without thinking, and fought the urge to bury his face in his hands and set loose a frustrated scream. It wasn’t a lie, at least. Richard Lee had picked up the same two-syllable pronunciation from Lucia, but Jian had just been planning on ignoring it as usual.

“Really?” Richard Lee asked, an earnest crease forming between his eyebrows. Jian nodded stiffly. “I’m sorry. How do you say it?”

This wasn’t how Jian had hoped any of this would go. Teaching a client how to pronounce his name was at the bottom of the list of things he wanted to do, right above giving his father a big hug and right below heading straight back to Lucia’s lair. But it was too late to just shut up now. He spoke quietly and quickly, every word bringing a new awkward pain to his chest.

“It’s just one syllable,” he said, keeping his eyes trained to the floor. If this wasn’t going well, he didn’t even want to know. “With a softer J. More like ‘chien’ than ‘jee-yon’.”

Silence sizzled, and Jian was sure he’d blown it, that Richard Lee was just plain annoyed with him beyond redemption, that the next and last thing he saw when he looked up would be an axe to the face.

“Oh, okay.” The man’s voice was bright and casual, with a hint of compassionate understanding. Jian met his eyes, and he was greeted by a warm, knowing face and a sideways smile. “You have to do that a lot, don’t you, Jian?” He said it right this time, and somehow that was worse than before. Jian shrugged.

Another silence passed heavily between the two of them, and Richard Lee lightly slapped his hands to his thighs, that totally Midwestern gesture which meant alrighty, let’s go. Jian flinched hard and was immediately mortified that he’d done so, but the man pretended not to notice.

“Well,” Richard Lee said casually, “it’s not a big house, but I wanted to show you around, just so you don’t get lost, okay?”

Yeah, wouldn’t want to accidentally end up in the murder basement before it’s ready, Jian thought, but he nodded and followed Richard Lee through a tour of the two-story building, most of which he’d already seen. There was one door across from the bathroom upstairs which they didn’t open, and Jian amended his mental note to include a second-floor murder basement instead of the underground standard.

"And they don't know about..." Jian tried to  indicate himself with his hand but his plastic leg caught on a springy vine and his arms shot out as he tripped and nearly fell, killing the gesture. Dickass Lee laughed.

"Of course not. Could you imagine?" He helped Jian regain his balance with one hand on his right elbow and the other at his left hip.

"Because if they did," Jian said, taking the assistance gratefully as he unwound the shoot from his leg, "they'd know you aren't the upstanding citizen they think you are."

"Who says I'm not?"

It was Jian's turn to laugh. "I do," he said, and they kept walking, finding each other's hands again.

"I think the folks down in the valley would disagree with you," Dickass Lee said. Jian rolled his eyes while the man's head was turned, watching the trees. "Do all of their experiences mean less than one person's feelings?"

Jian sighed inwardly. This shit again. He looked away to his left, where the earth seemed to be sloping in a more downward trend, towards where he assumed the valley town lay. No, their opinions of the man were formed in ignorance about who he really was, so of course they didn't matter.

"You lie to them, so whatever their opinions are, they're wrong."

"How many times have you been asked whether you have a person held hostage in your house?" Dickass Lee said, his voice still light. "I don't need to lie to anyone, Jian. But let's put it this way: We are composed of the effects we have on others. Everyone in the valley knows me as a polite and kind man, because that's who I am to them. You know me as this evil monster." Dickass Lee wiggled his fingers in a mockingly spooky way, and Jian made a stink face at him. Real cute. Dickass Lee continued, "You can be a nice person and an 'evil' person at the same time, Jian. We contain multitudes, don't we? If I treat hundreds of people with kindness and one person with violence, am I still not overwhelmingly kind?"

Bull-shit. Jian wanted to roll his eyes again, harder, but Dickass Lee was watching him now. John Wayne Gacy was beloved by his neighbors, too. It didn't make his crimes any less wrong. If anything, the fact that the whole town apparently admires Dickass Lee would probably just make it seem that much more horrifying for them if the man was ever caught.