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Adrian Dolan was born with an honest face and a charming smile, and thanks to his family’s association with Janine ‘Smurf’ Cody, he learned how to put them to use at a young age. The babysitters his mom hired before she took off always raved about how cute and well-behaved he was, never noticing the stash of cookies and toys he’d collected and stored beneath his bed. He remembers beaming toothily at the older lady who owned the corner market as he walked out of her store with pockets full of stolen candy, and the way she only chuckled and told the customer she was checking out what a great kid he was.
Adrian also remembers, vaguely, grinning up at a uniformed officer from the heat-baked sidewalk outside his family’s shitty apartment in Oceanside while his father jumped out the back window and ran for his freedom – remembers how the officer had blinked and held out a hand for Adrian’s, and called after him when the ten-year-old boy ran instead of accepting the offer. He’d gone straight to Smurf’s, of course. It’d been drilled into his head at an age far younger than ten that when Dad needed to lay low, he went to the Cody house and trusted the people there to protect him.
As a teenager, Adrian used his honest face to stand lookout for Deran and Craig more times than he could remember. Those memories are a blur of questions and frowning officers, of sun in his eyes and adrenaline flooding his system until it felt like his heart would pound out of his chest. He remembers Deran dragging him into an alley and kissing him senseless after they got away with stealing a sports car on fucking camera, and the way Deran whispered over and over again how incredible Adrian was into his skin while they had sex for the first time just ten feet from the police station where they were questioned.
He got older, and he got more independent. Adrian turned surfing into a career for himself, used the natural talent his father had encouraged and made himself something on the circuit. The Codys remained part of his life, Deran more than anyone – and Adrian knows that he was a damned idiot, letting them impact his entire life in such a way. Renting from Smurf, taking off with Deran, letting himself get beaten and terrorized and treated like shit in the name of staying with the one man he’d ever loved. But even through all of that, Adrian kept coming back, kept leaning on Deran and his reputation when he had to in order to keep himself safe from the thugs in Oceanside who knew exactly where Adrian came from.
After all that, it’s no wonder keeping secrets from Deran is so fucking hard, now that they’re in a good place and living the life Adrian’s always wanted together. They share space and breath and secrets, and keeping the fact that he’s working with the DEA from the man he loves is a lot like trying to digest acid. From the outside, no one can tell – but inwardly, Adrian’s being eaten alive. He can lie with the best of them, and switches through masks and cons as needed, but it’s never been that way with Deran.
Adrian’s always prided himself on being the only person in the other man’s life that gives everything to him straight, no bullshit, and trusts that he’ll be okay anyway. This drastic change in their dynamic makes everything seem off-balance and wrong, and Adrian knows that Deran feels it, too. He’s asked, point blank, what’s going on with Adrian, and the fact that even Craig is asking questions tells him that his house of cards is going to come tumbling down in a spectacular way at any moment.
So, in a way, it’s not surprising when Deran awakens with a jolt in the middle of the night to find a stranger in a ski mask pointing a gun at him. He swallows, the sound audible in the otherwise silent milieu of the bedroom he shares with Deran, and takes a precious second of the mere moments he’s got left to thank whatever God might be listening that the other man is gone tonight, working a job with his brothers in Santa Monica.
“Get dressed,” the man tells him, his voice a low, menacing rumble that starts Adrian’s heart pounding at doubletime. He feels light-headed with panic, can barely suck enough air through his mouth to inflate his lungs as the barrel of the gun is waved nearer his head, but Adrian follows the order, moving mechanically as he yanks a pair of too-long jeans over his legs. They’re Deran’s, he realizes belatedly, but it’s too late to change now – and there’s something poetic about the idea of dying in his lover’s clothes. Like they’re connected, somehow, even when that’s the last thing Adrian should want. Deran can’t be connected to anyone’s murder, not even Adrian’s, not without serious consequences.
“Down the stairs, out the door, and into the car,” Adrian’s abductor orders, his thin lips moving in the slit of the ski mask. Adrian nods once, silent, and begins to move – only to freeze when something cold and solid meets one of his kidneys. “You pissed off the wrong guys, kid. All we asked you to do was carry a fucking bag. How hard is that?”
Adrian doesn’t answer. What would he say? That it’d been harder than he expected? That it wasn’t his fault? None of that is true, and Adrian doesn’t want to make himself a liar this close to the end, just in case all those sermons his mom had dragged him to as a kid weren’t bullshit. Besides, he’d known when he accepted the smuggling gig that it could backfire on him – smuggling drugs was stupid, especially with no real plan or forethought. But the money, the need to feel on equal footing with Deran, was a siren’s call, and he’d succumbed. But Adrian had grown up as an honorary Cody, and so he knows better than anyone that life’s short as the weakest link… and even shorter as a rat.
He doesn’t know why they’re bothering to take him somewhere else to kill him. Maybe they know who Deran is and don’t want to risk being connected to a murder in his house, or maybe they want to torture him first, in retaliation for the information he’s given the Feds. It doesn’t matter; Adrian’s not brave enough to tell them ‘no,’ to make them shoot him here, and even if he was, he wouldn’t. Not when that would mean Deran coming home to his corpse. Adrian might be naive in thinking it would affect him to find that – if he had to guess, Adrian would hazard that Deran’s seen dead bodies before. But they’re together, have been for such a long time … surely it would matter? He’s not stupid enough to think Deran loves him – he’s pretty sure Deran doesn’t know how to love, not really. Not with his family. But he has to mean something to the man, or he wouldn’t be sharing his bed and home with him.
“Miguel! Sabes quien es el dueño de esta casa?”
Adrian frowns, the presence of a second person surprising him. The other man is somewhere beyond the bedroom – the kitchen, maybe? – and sounds alarmed, but that’s all he can tell with his rudimentary Spanish skills. “Callate! Just go start the car!” Miguel calls back, the volume and proximity making Adrian’s ears ring. He’s shoved forward, out into the kitchen, where the second masked man is staring down at the bills strewn over the counter, waiting on J to help Deran with his budgeting. The bills. With Deran Cody’s name on them.
Hope sparks in Adrian’s chest, desperate and impossible to ignore. Maybe these guys didn’t know who owned this house – and maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to convince them not to kill him. The Cody name is infamous in Oceanside, after all, and Adrian knows Deran would be obligated to retaliate against a home invasion even if he didn’t give a shit about Adrian, which isn’t the case.
“What’s the matter?” Adrian asks, hoping the tremulous quality of his voice will be mistaken for breathlessness after being forced to move so quickly. “Didn’t realize you were fucking with one of the Cody’s people?” Smurf didn’t have a lot of morals – or any, actually – but she did take care of the people in her properties, and always had. It’s self-serving, ultimately, since it’s how she maintains loyalty and her position on top of the criminal underbelly of the city, but it’s still true. And all of the people who run in her circles know it. “Didn’t notice you were dragging me out of Deran’s bed?”
The man hauls back and strikes him in the side with the butt of the gun, and pain erupts in the wake of the hit, but Adrian doesn’t cry out. He’s been hit before, plenty of times, and his captor isn’t nearly as strong as some of the guys who have taken issue with the way he lives his life. Adrian stares, trying to imagine what Deran would do or say in this situation – but comes up empty. Deran would never be stupid enough to get into this situation in the first place, and there’s no good in pretending otherwise. Adrian isn’t Deran. He’s not nearly as good at brute force and intimidation, and if he tries to be, it might get him killed that much faster.
“I wonder what he’ll do to you,” Adrian muses, once he’s gotten his breath back. “He and Craig are pretty tight, and I know he likes to use his bare fists, but Deran’s pretty smooth with a baseball bat. And God, you should see him with a gun in his hands. It shouldn’t be hot, I know, but –”
This time, his captor uses his fist, and he might be a little stronger than Adrian thought. His eye swells almost immediately, and the way his chest throbs with every breath he takes tells him that he’s probably got a busted rib now, too. As Adrian recovers, slumped against the kitchen wall with blood trickling from his busted nose and two guns trained on him, the men toss rapid Spanish back and forth, the anxiety in their body language escalating quickly before they both relax. They’ve got a plan, then – Adrian lets his eyes drift closed and prays to a God he doesn’t believe in for a quick death.
********
The room they tie him up in is small – Adrian would guess it’s a closet, except for the narrow window to his left and up near the ceiling. His hands are bound behind the chair with twine that digs into the skin of his wrists, and if he moves too much, blood starts to pool, warm and sticky, in his palms. His ankles are likewise bound, one to each leg of the wooden chair he sits in, and there’s no way out of that, not for him.
He’s there for what must be hours; it’s hard to track time in the tiny room, and he’s pretty sure he fades in and out of consciousness a few times, because the light through the window seems different every time he remembers to look for it. He wonders why he’s still alive, from time to time – they’ve kidnapped him, there’s no point in keeping him alive. Deran and his family will come for them either way, and at least they’d only have to hide from the Codys if they fulfilled their obligation to the gang who’d sent them in the first place.
At some point, Miguel charges into the small room, mask still in place, and shoves a cell phone to his face. Adrian blinks, trying to figure out what’s going on, but Deran’s voice is tinny and familiar in his ear, and that’s all he needs to know.
“Adrian? Adrian! Are you there?”
He clears his throat, trying to ignore the embarrassing lump building there at just the sound of Deran’s familiar fury. “Hey,” he says, and finds his voice hoarse. “I’m – yeah, I’m here.” He doesn’t know what to say, or why they’re allowing him to talk to Deran, but he’s not stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. “I messed up, Deran,” he manages finally, his breath turning ragged. “Fuck, I messed up so bad, and -”
“Where are you?” Deran cuts him off, the words harsh and implacable. He’s in work mode, now; Adrian can tell it by his tone even without seeing the cold, thoughtful expression on his face. “Tell me where you are, and we’ll come get you.” The royal ‘we’ where the Codys are concerned isn’t surprising, but the rush of relief that Adrian feels to know they’re all involved is. He’s never known the Cody’s to fail in their end goal when they’re all working together, and if they’re all coming to get him – well, he might live through the night after all.
“I don’t know,” Adrian says, the words a croak in his sore throat. Fuck, how long has it been since he’s had something to drink? “I don’t know, Deran, I -”
“Adrian, listen to me.” Again, Deran interrupts, stopping him from an embarrassing emotional display. Miguel is listening, watching him with beady black eyes through his ski mask, leaning in close enough to hold the phone that Adrian can smell the beer on his breath, and Adrian doesn’t want to break down in front of him. “I’m coming to get you. Everything’s gonna be fine – but you gotta keep your head, all right? This is just one giant, scary fucking wave trying to drown you, but you always come out on top, right? Breathe. Trust me – I got this, okay? I got you. Always. So tell me you’re with me, and get the jackass back on the phone. I’ll get a location from him.”
I got you.
The words are the closest Deran’s gotten to ‘I love you,’ at least in the sense that Adrian understands love. Deran’s begged him to stay with him, tried to manipulate him with tears and begging, but this is something different – this is an exchange of trust. This is Deran, coming for Adrian when he’s fucked up and put them all in danger. This is Deran being reassuring and supportive, and Adrian is so overcome that he barely manages a coherent response.
“I trust you,” he says, because he’s not saying anything else with Miguel’s rancid breath in his face. He’ll save those words for later, when he can be sure, when he can look in Deran’s eyes and see the truth there, when he’s come clean and knows that Deran can accept the shit he’s done.
Because his words are true. Adrian trusts Deran, and because he does, he knows he has time to wait for the perfect moment.
*******
Adrian makes an effort to stay aware after Miguel disappears with the phone, already arranging a dollar amount and a meeting time for the exchange to happen. He sounds smug, like he really thinks this has all worked out in his favor - and hell, maybe it has. Adrian has no idea what’s going to happen next, if this will be the end of his association with the smugglers or not, but he can’t think about the future just yet. He’s stuck on the lack of circulation in his hands, on the ache in his side – and on the fact that Deran is going to see it all when he shows up, and he’s damned sure to have questions. There’s no way Adrian will be able to hide the fact that he’s been talking to the Feds, now, and –
All panicked thoughts flee as soon as the fighting starts outside. Adrian would’ve had to have been deaf to miss the thuds and clatters, the smack of fist on skin. He recognizes Craig’s laugh and Pope’s irritated reminder to watch his fucking back– god, that guy enjoyed brawling way more than could possibly be healthy. J is as quiet as always, but Adrian catches him telling someone to, “Go get him, dumbass!” in a particularly exasperated voice.
And then Deran is there, illuminated in the suddenly-opened doorway. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt, the kind that bougie idiots wear under suit jackets, and it’s torn in a couple of places and spattered in brown-red stains that Adrian hopes very much belongs to someone else, but his black slacks and shoes are unmarked, which either means he wasn’t involved in much of the fight, or that it was a fairly easy one.
“Deran,” Adrian breathes, raising his battered face to get a better look at the other man, who seems to be frozen in the doorway. “Is it – is everyone –”
Finally, like the sound of Adrian’s voice had broken whatever spell was keeping him frozen, Deran surges forward and drops to a crouch at his side. Adrian moves his head to look at him, taking in the way his hair has fallen out of the attempted ponytail and the sweat dripping from his brow even as Deran slices through the twine binding his wrists with a knife he’d pulled from the back of his waistband. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, and Adrian wonders what his wrists look like to evoke a reaction. Judging by the fact that he can’t feel his fingers, he decides he doesn’t want to know. His ankles are freed next, but Adrian doesn’t notice – the silence from Deran is starting to freak him out, and he’s already pretty fucking shaky. Would it be too much to ask for a little reassurance? Or a kiss – or even just a fucking touch?
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong? What hurts?” Deran’s standing over him, and it takes a moment to register that there’s a tear making its way down Adrian’s cheek. Fucking damn it. “Adrian, talk to me, man, what’s -”
Adrian shakes his head, because he’s not admitting that he’s crying because Deran’s acting coldly toward him – but he’s not willing to lie, either, not when lies are what got him into this mess in the first place.
There’s a quiet moment, broken only by the sound of someone begging in the living room for someone else to stop – Pope, if the sound of Craig’s reminders not to kill anyone are any indication – and then, finally, Deran cups Adrian’s chin in one calloused palm, making him look up with care. After an instant of shock at the contact, Adrian pushes his cheek into the touch, noting with some incredulity that Deran’s hand is shaking.
“I need you to tell me that you’re ok, man,” he says, and Adrian’s brows lift at the urgency in the statement. “I need to tell me that you’re okay, and I need you to mean it, because if you’re not, I’m going back out there to kill those motherfuckers.” There’s a dark sincerity to the words, and though Adrian knows Deran is not a killer by nature, he will follow through on that promise if Adrian gives him a reason to. It’s a heady sort of power, and Adrian has no idea what to do with it. As much as he wants this problem to disappear, those guys are grunts – they’re not the real problem, and really, they’re just stupid. Killing them won’t help anything. It won’t make Adrian sleep better at night.
But it settles him a little, to know that Deran means it. That might make him a sadistic son of a bitch, but Adrian doesn’t care. Acts of violence and stacks of cash are the best ways that Deran – and his entire fucking family, really – know how to show affection, and Adrian is fluent in the Cody language.
“I’m okay,” Adrian says, and he leans forward, into Deran’s chest to press a clumsy kiss against the side of his neck. Blood smears over his white shirt, but Deran just wraps an arm around him and holds Adrian there, gently enough that his ribs don’t protest, and tightly enough that his need for skin-to-skin is almost satisfied. The itch won’t go away until he’s had the chance to get rid of the stupid shirt Deran’s wearing, but it’s enough for now, when the rest of the Cody brothers are in the other room. “Don’t kill them. It’s not really them that’s the problem.”
Deran pushes sweat-lank hair from Adrian’s forehead with one hand. “This have to do with whatever’s had you acting so weird, lately?”
Adrian nods reluctantly. “I fucked up,” he admits, biting at his lower lip until he remembers that his face aches, and more movement is not the way to help it. “I needed money, and I hate taking yours, so I –”
“Not tonight,” Deran says with a weary sigh, rubbing his hands over his face. Adrian can read the frustration in the tension of his back and the roughness of the gesture, but when he helps Adrian to his feet, his touch is careful. “Let’s just get you to Mexico. We’ve got a doc there who can fix you up, and we’ll – go from there.”
They’re two steps from the door to the closet when Deran stops abruptly and pulls Adrian in against his chest. The latter winces as his ribs protest, but he’s happy to accept the searing kiss that he’s given. His fingers are still numb, but he wraps his arms around Deran anyway, clinging to his solid strength and familiarity as the world shifts and rocks around him. He’s never been part of the criminal part of Deran’s life before. He’s heard the plans, he’s been an alibi – but this, this is different, and he knows that there’s no going back. His surfing career is over. There’s no fallback plan, no way out, but it’s hard to panic when Deran’s mouth is hot against his own, almost bruising in the intensity of the kiss.
Deran’s not walking away. Deran came for him.
And Adrian’s damn well going to show up for him in return. So he holds him as best he can, shows him that he’s alive, that his heart is still beating, until they’re both ready to leave that room and face the music.