Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (10 page)

"Fantastic," Axton said. "I'll be sure to slit my wrists before sundown, then."

"Given that you tried to hunger strike your way to death not too long ago, that ain't fucking funny," Dana said sharply.

"It wasn't meant to be," Axton said as he went back to sink, determined to finish washing the dishes and not be disrupted from his chosen task, however banal.

"You're not dying under my watch," Dana warned, stalking off.

"Hooray," Axton said. "Lucky, lucky me."

"You are
such
an asshole sometimes," Dana informed him, and then he was out the door.

The fire was big, and it was too fucking hot for a fire, and Axton was drunk and upset at everything.

"Your booze fucking sucks," he told Dana, because, yeah, Axton was that kind of asshole right now.

"Maybe if you weren't drinking it by the goddamn gallon," Dana shot back, pissed.

"Whatever," Axton said. "That wasn't even a comeback. Fuck you, fuck your Jim Beam, fuck your--what even is this." Axton squinted at the bottle in the firelight.

"Don't make me kick your ass," Dana said, taking a swig from his own bottle. "I will go over there, and I will kick your ass."

"Fuck you and your macho bullshit," Axton said belligerently, but then he slumped over to lie down in the dirt and stare at up the slightly spinning stars. It was so annoying, trying to get blasted as a werewolf--if he wanted the most of out the booze he had to concentrate a little on keeping his body from metabolizing quickly.

"I mean, I realize 'over there' is like three feet away," Dana rambled, gesturing at Axton, "but still. I will go over there."

"How long are we going to be in the woods in the middle of fucking nowhere with our thumbs up our asses," Axton said speculatively, still staring at the sky.

"What, like you haven't spent years at a time in the woods in the middle of fucking nowhere," Dana said. "Shit, Ax. You think I want to be here forever? If you weren't being such a melodramatic bitch princess I could drop you off and then start doing shit with my life again."

"Oh, like your shit is so fucking urgent," Axton said, pushing himself up on one elbow. "Fuck you and fuck your mother," he added for good measure.

Dana flipped him off automatically and then they both drank more.

"I have stuff to do," Dana said afterwards, sounding pensive. "Like, I have
so
much shit to do and I am gonna have to tell so many fucking lies to explain why the fuck I've been gone for so long."

"Witness: my complete lack of sympathy," Axton said.

"One day you are going to thank me for this," Dana said, pointing at Axton unsteadily. "If it takes fifty fucking years."

"Good thing we have the rest of our unnatural lifespans to get there," Axton said.

"Yeah well some shit is time sensitive," Dana snapped.

That made so little sense in context that Axton cocked his head to the side, like a confused dog.

"What?"

"Not everyone lives forever," Dana said.

"
We
don't live forever," Axton pointed out. "Just a long bloody time. What the hell do you have that's time sensitive?"

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, because thinking was hard.

"Well, there's those wolf murders," Dana said eventually. "Like, it's time sensitive in that the longer we take, the more of us die."

"That's not what you meant," Axton said, sitting up a little more.

"Might have been," Dana said, with great dignity.

"Was not," Axton insisted, taking another long drink.

"Was too," Dana said suddenly. "Jesus. You're worse than that hunter bitch I drank with that one time."

"
You
went drinking with a hunter?" Axton demanded, sitting up straight. "The fuck?"

"Well, you know," Dana said, gesturing clumsily. "She shot me a bunch of times, I kicked her off a balcony once, shit's complicated when you're enemies for a long while, and we were both real beat up from chasing down a feral wolf for our own separate reasons, so..."

"Oh my god, you
do
like her," Axton said. "This is so stupid."

"I do not," Dana said sulkily. "She was just very--dangerous. So very useful to work with, when we both had the same goal."

"Jesus," Axton said. "Me and my thing for bisexual boys. Why am I so terrible at this?"

"I don't fucking want her," Dana said, too fast and loud to sound honest. "Fuck you."

"Oh my fuck," Axton muttered, bringing his legs up to knock his head against his knees. "This is the stupidest. Dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Shut up," Dana said, and he finished off the bottle he'd been working on. He tossed it vaguely towards their shared pile of broken glass. "Least I didn't fuck her. Move in with her. Wear a fucking necklace around my neck like a goddamn collar, what the fuck."

Axton growled softly.

"No, I know you're still wearing it," Dana groused, wriggling and stretching his way up to grab a new bottle, tossing one over when Axton made demanding sounds. "You think I need to take that from you? I'll wait you out, motherfucker. Do it legit."

"It's like homophobes," Axton said promptly, taking a swig from his new bottle. "That's why you're such an asshole."

"Oh,
I'm
an asshole," Dana said. "Not the guy running around just fucking
telling
people he's a fucking werewolf and threatening all of us with another potential genocide."

"As if Leander would have--"

"I don't even want to hear his fucking
name
, thank you so fucking much."

"
Leandero Antonio Avilez Solano Delacruz
," Axton said defiantly, making sure to get his pronunciation right.

"Fuck," Dana said. "Five names? You memorized all that? When the hell did you learn to roll your Rs?"

"Yeah," Axton agreed. "Five names. Latin people, man. I don't even know."

"Useless human shit," Dana said.

"No!" Axton said suddenly, reminded. "Fucking right. I was gonna say. Fucking homophobe bullshit."

"What in fuck are you on about," Dana asked, exasperated.

"Homophobia is associated with a strict upbringing and repressed homosexual urges," Axton said. "Like that study where they show a bunch of straight guys gay porn but only the homophobic ones get boners. That's why you're so angry about me and Leander. You want this girl."

"Go drink yourself to death already," Dana sighed, sounding tired. "Fucking fuck you so fucking much.
Yes
, I want her. In my dreams I take her and hold her down and smell her hair, savor her sweat and fear and growl as I sink my teeth into her neck," he said, "And then I bite oh so fucking gently, and then I fuck her all tender like. Is that what you wanted to hear, motherfucker?"

Axton was surprised to find out that he didn't know how that made him feel, but he was showing his teeth anyway.

"Is that all you'd do?" he asked, voice low. "If you had her?"

"No," Dana said flatly. "I'd fall on my knees for her and let her hurt me as much as she wanted as long as she let me lick my way up her thighs. I'd ask her to hurt me and I'd bleed for her and I'd beg her for more." He paused. "Satisfied, asshole?"

"Ugh," Axton said, which he felt covered all his bases. "Ugh."

"Oh, like you didn't let your pretty boy tie you up and hit you," Dana said. "I know your taste."

"Not like that," Axton said. "Never to actually
hurt
me like you're implying you'd let this hunter do--"

"But it turned you on that he
could
, didn't it?" Dana said sharply. "I know you, sugar. Blah blah, 'oh, that time you kicked me off the mountain, Leander,' blah blah. 'Ooh, you stabbed me in the heart,' blah blah."

Axton closed his eyes and rubbed his brow bone.

"How much did you spy on us?" he asked.

Dana scoffed.

"If you couldn't tell when I was around then you don't deserve to know," he said. "You'd gone so soft."

Axton growled low and long.

"Yeeeah," Dana said, gesturing vaguely, unsteadily. "You got sharp again. Can hardly sneak up on you now. Got lucky when I managed it earlier today. First one in a long while."

Axton gave up and flopped back down in the dirt to drink silently.

"You know," Dana said, sounding drunk and fond, "I could hardly ever sneak up on her, neither--she used to always figure it out."

"'Used to,'" Axton muttered.

"Yeah," Dana said, with a breathiness in his voice that sounded satisfied on the surface but rang with longing.

"And you say 'was' about her a lot," Axton went on. "This girl--this woman--that you won't even dignify with a name."

"Ain't telling
you
her name--you crazy?" Dana laughed. "Never, sweetmeats."

"Afraid of payback?" Axton murmured, sitting up again, eyes sliding over to Dana. He looked sly and sullen suddenly, more coyote working out how to steal a meal than wolf nursing a broken heart.

"No," Dana sighed. "No."

"Did you kill her?" Axton asked, sharp in the firelight, shadows stark and splitting on his skin.

"Is that what you think of me?" Dana asked in the voice of a wounded drunk. "I just go around killing people?"

Axton said nothing. The silence spread out, crisp and brittle and filling their world.

"I don't," Dana slurred, trying to rush to fill the empty space with words but still slow with heartache. "God, no, I don't--sugar, how could you even think that? I'm not, what, some serial killer, some mass murderer, spree killer--there's always been
reasons
."

Axton laughed, loud and ugly and raw.

"Oh,
reasons
," he said. "That makes it all better, huh? As if serial killers and all else don't have their reasons."

"I'm a soldier in a very old war," Dana said. "I can't fucking expect you to understand, Ax, but I wish like hell that you would anyway."

"What's there to understand?" Axton seethed. "You only kill people you don't like?"

"Killing ain't easy," Dana said. "Even when it's the weight of our--"

"Then why do it?" Axton demanded. "Why kill, why maim? Why intimidate? Why did Leander end up in a hospital while you spared your hunter?"

"We're a dying breed, Ax!" Dana shouted. "There's fewer of us every fucking day! We never
stopped
being hunted, it gets harder and harder to hide, and we're dying faster than we're being born!"

"Then maybe there
should
be fewer of us," Axton hissed. "Maybe we should have a smaller, more sustainable population, if we can't stop fucking slaughtering each other whenever territories overlap."

"I'm mighty fond of you, sweets, so I'm just gonna go ahead and pretend you didn't mean that," Dana warned. "But I swear to god, you keep on saying that kind of shit, and I'll--"

"And you'll
what
?" Axton hissed, standing up. "And you'll fucking
what
, Dana? What fucking exactly do you think you can do to me that's worth a damn?"

Dana pushed himself up to his feet as well.

"Don't forget who's running this whole show," he said.

"I'm not starved anymore," Axton said with quiet threat, "or too heartsick to move, or too depressed to want anything but death. I haven't forgotten shit. But I think you've forgotten
me
."

"Please," Dana smirked. "As if your scrawny faggot ass could ever really--"

Axton dove in, throwing himself at Dana's legs and knocking him to the ground. Dana tried to post off his hip to scramble away, but Axton climbed up him with grim determination, planted himself firmly, and started punching Dana in the jaw repeatedly. Even though Dana bucked up wildly to try and throw Axton off, Axton kept the grip of his thighs tight. When Dana collapsed from the effort, Axton used the momentum to slam his head against the ground. There was blood and dirt on his knuckles but Axton didn't stop.

It was funny--the flashes of expression on Dana's face, between blows. He looked comically surprised. It made Axton laugh--an ugly, loud sound.

"Oh, love makes you
weak
, Dana," Axton taunted breathlessly. "Weak, weak, weak. You're making this so easy. It's never been this easy before."

Proving his point, Axton mocked Dana by throwing his hands up for a second, letting Dana get a punch in--but the angle was all wrong for power generation, and when Dana's fist connected with Axton's cheekbone, he didn't flinch. But he did rapidly shift his weight, and then slammed Dana back into the ground again.

"Makes me sick," Axton panted, back to punching Dana in the face, "hearing you wax fucking poetic," Axton knocked Dana's arms out of the way without missing a beat, "About this bitch who'd probably kill you sooner than look at you."

Dana turned onto his side, giving up on fighting back from the ground and just fighting to get upright. Axton adjusted his position with hardly a wobble, and smashed Dana's head into the ground yet again. "I was in love with someone who was good to me, and oh, fucking no, that's unacceptable. But you? Oh,
you
can have a hard on for someone who wants you dead because of what you are."

Dana pushed away and stumbled and fell when he tried to stagger to his feet.

"Take your death wish somewhere the fuck else," Axton said, standing up and picking up one of their empty whiskey bottles, "because I am
tired
of your shit, Dana."

He took two steps forward and swung the bottle just as Dana was turning around. The glass knocked against Dana's face and shattered.

"Jesus FUCK!" Dana screamed, falling down to his knees.

Axton stood above him, chest heaving. He'd hit with the bottle the wrong way and done nearly as much damage to his hand as he had to Dana's face, so blood dripped down from his clenched fist.

"This is how we live now," Axton said. "Fine. I'm a wolf of my word. I don't run. But you are not in charge of this show, you and you sure as
hell
aren't the boss of me. We clear?"

Dana, hand clutching his face, growled.

"Are we fucking CLEAR?" Axton yelled, taking a warning step forward.