Maniac - Necessary Evils #7 - Ch. 6 (Patreon)

Here's your usual caveat. Loosely edited and subject to change. Yes, you will get more answers in ch. 7.

Aiden

Aiden left Thomas before he’d even fixed his towel back into place, escaping to his own room and dropping down onto the bed. He covered his eyes with his pillow, almost instantly assaulted with flashes of what had just happened between them. Just those brief glimpses had his skin burning.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Every time. Every fucking time Thomas so much as crooked his finger in Aiden’s direction he folded like a cheap lawn chair.

Every. Time.

But how could he not? It was in his nature to crave instant gratification. He had zero impulse control on his best day and when something he wanted, craved, feened over, was right there, willing…begging even, he lacked the ability to say no.

Even when he knew it was going to hurt like this as soon as it was over. But he couldn’t even muster up the energy to be mad about it. Talking about his family had mentally broken Thomas. It was written all over his face. The story Aiden dragged out of him—whatever it was—had its claws in him all the way out. His suffering quelled Aiden’s fury, leaving a deep ache that was a hundred times harder to ignore.

His phone began to vibrate along the side table, snagging his attention. He frowned at it for a moment, then answered it without looking, expecting Lola’s sarcasm laced voice.

“Hello,” he grunted.

“What the fuck, Aiden? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Nope. Not Lola.

Aiden sat up, heart dropping. “Noah?”

The anger in the younger man’s voice was immediately replaced with confusion and a bit of indignancy. “Yeah, didn’t you look before you answered?”

No. He hadn’t. He’d forgotten that not only Thomas had this number. Noah was Thomas’s second in command so it was only logical that he would have Aiden’s emergency contact. He ignored Noah’s comment, assuming it was rhetorical. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Noah snapped, instantly angry once more. Aiden winced as his voice rose an octave. “What’s up? Are you fucking serious right now, Aiden? You kidnapped Dad. What do you mean, what’s up?”

Aiden rolled his eyes, his misery temporarily paused by Noah’s sulky tone. “I didn’t kidnap your father, you drama queen.”

Noah made an indignant sound. “Did you or did you not abscond with our father in the dead of night?”

Adam’s garbled voice could be heard in the background, like he was talking around a bite of food. “A thousand dollars says they ran away and eloped…finally.”

Noah must have him on speakerphone. “Tell Adam to fuck off. And who say’s abscond anymore?” Aiden asked, doing his best to deflect, hoping they would just let this go as something innocent and easily fixed. “We left pre-dawn at best.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Aiden,” Noah muttered.

Aiden smiled in spite of himself. “It’s kind of my default setting, Noah.”

Noah fell silent forcing Aiden to listen to the sounds of their domesticity as Adam could be heard rough housing with their dogs. Aiden wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say something more, but just as he was about to say Noah’s name, the boy spoke. This time sounding ten years younger and more than a little afraid.

“What is going on, Aiden? Seriously. Who is blackmailing him and why? What do they think he did? Are they implying he killed his family? Because you know that’s fucking insane. Why did we not know about this? Why did he call you and not us? Why didn’t you tell Calliope the whole story? What are we doing about this? How do we—”

Aiden pulled the phone away from his ear as Noah became progressively more upset, finally interrupting to say, “Jesus, kid. Breathe. Just…just breathe, man.”

Aiden wasn’t sure if he was talking to Noah or himself. He’d obviously expected them to know Thomas was gone, that’s why he’d told Calliope. But how had they known about the video? Or had something else happened? Had the blackmailer contacted the family? Sent more copies of the message?

“What are you talking about?” he asked, just in case Noah was fishing somehow.

Noah scoffed. “I’m talking about the blackmail video sent to Dad. Why didn’t you tell us about it? Why did you just kidnap Dad and tell Calliope not to worry about it.”

Aiden frowned. How did they know about the video? He shook his head. Fucking Calliope. She must have been monitoring Thomas’s emails. Did she read all his correspondence? His heart galloped as he thought of some of the heated emails he and Thomas had exchanged over the last twenty years. Fuck. She was so nosey.

“I took Thomas with me to get him away from the family. If someone is after him, you’re all safer with us gone. I’m…figuring it out.”

“Figuring it out?” Noah echoed, his exasperation obvious. “Without us? Without his family? Our family? Without Calliope? How?”

“That’s no way to talk to your future step-father,” Adam called from across the room. Aiden huffed out a sigh. The next time he saw Adam he was going to punch him in the face. That was a promise.

“Adam,” Noah snapped. “You need to fucking take this more seriously.”

“Why? Dad didn’t kill anybody. I don’t care what some rando perp says. We’ll find this guy and rip out his insides and everything will go back to normal. You need to just relax. You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm before the wedding,” Adam said.

“Did you finally set a date?” Aiden asked.

“I meant yours and dad’s,” Adam said, then cackled like a super-villain.

“I’m going to kill your fiance before you ever make it to the alter,” Aiden promised Noah.

Noah gave a long-suffering sigh, then asked, “How serious is this? You know you can’t do this without us. Right? You need the family. You need Calliope.”

Aiden huffed a breath out through his nose. How did Thomas tolerate these kids every goddamn day? “I have connections too, you know. I do this for a living, remember?”

Adam’s voice was suddenly blaring in his ear like he was suddenly lying on top of the phone…or his fiance. “You bust cheating husbands, bro. You’re not the FBI. Even Calliope hasn’t been able to find anything in that video and she’s searching frame by frame.”

Well, that was disconcerting. He didn’t tell them that he wasn’t working on tracking down the blackmailer yet and hadn’t even started going over the video.

“What’s the game plan here?” Noah asked.

When had Noah grown up so much? He sounded just like Thomas. The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. Somehow in Noah, Thomas had managed to get the devoted acolyte and son he’d so desperately wanted. Noah believed in Thomas’s vision. He truly saw the benefit in turning villains into anti-heroes.

“We can’t even begin to break this down until I know what Thomas knows. I have someone looking into Thomas’s family’s death. I’m hoping we can see who was on the case and work our way forward. If Calliope has her hands on the video then I’ll leave that analysis to her.”

There was the sound of something brushing over the speaker and then Noah said, “Did…Did Dad say anything? About…what the video implied? Do you really think he did it? Do you think he killed his own family, Aiden?”

“He didn’t do it, babe. He’s not like us,” Adam said before Aiden could answer.

Aiden wondered how much of Adam’s confidence in Thomas was faked for Noah’s comfort. But maybe Adam really didn’t think his father capable of committing murder. Of course, Adam would see that as a weakness. But it was clear Noah’s confidence was wavering. The last thing Thomas needed was Noah and the rest of the feelings faction losing faith in him.

“Of course, not.” Aiden reassured him. “Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Whatever happened to his family is bad. And he clearly feels guilty about it. But your Dad would never hurt an innocent person.”

“Parents are rarely innocent,” Noah said bitterly.

“But his siblings were killed too,” Aiden reminded him. “They were children. Tommy would never hurt a child. You know that.”

The sound of Adam choking on something, alerted him that he’d said something shocking.

“Did you just call him Tommy?” Noah asked, sounding stunned.

Aiden felt his face flush. He had. He really fucking had. “Noah,” he warned.

He didn’t need his nickname for Thomas hitting the feelings faction group chat. The one that didn’t include Aiden.

“What? You’re the one who said it,” Noah said, his voice filled with mock innocence.

“Don’t you dare tell the others,” Aiden muttered.

Noah snickered. “You think Adam isn’t texting your brothers as we speak?”

“We’re not his brothers. He’s our new step-dad,” Adam called.

“Adam, stop being a dick,” Noah snapped.

“It’s kind of my default setting, Noah,” Adam said, mimicking Aiden’s earlier statement in a crude mockery of his own voice.

“Adam,” Noah said, tone terse enough to cause Adam to make a whining noise like a dog.

“Are you sure you didn’t kidnap Dad for another reason?” Noah asked

“Noah,” Aiden snapped.

Adam’s voice was in the speaker again suddenly. “This is your problem, Aiden. You never take the opportunities presented to you. You’ve been in love with him for forever. You two are finally alone together after all this time. Maybe you should, like, you know, use this time to your benefit?”

You’ve been in love with him forever. Was he that obvious? Were they that obvious? Was it when he’d reversed the adoption? Before that? The night in the library. Right after Adam met Noah. That’s when things had changed. Before he’d made it legal. He wasn’t sure if he was pissed or embarrassed. Maybe a little bit of both.

“What are you talking about?” he mumbled.

Noah was back. “You guys aren’t subtle, dude. Everybody knows. We all know. We all support you. We all want you two to figure your shit out so you can come home once and for all and stop living in the woods like some kind of antisocial survivalist nut-bag.”

“I don’t know what you mean?” Aiden lied.

“Oh my God. Do you really think we don’t see it?” Noah asked. “You guys have secret meetings we aren’t supposed to know about. He bought a house near you, has cars near you, keeps a jet at the airport closest to you.”

“It’s for work,” Aiden managed.

Noah continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Gives you more jobs just as an excuse to talk to you. Pouts when you go out of your way to avoid him—Do you know you’re the only one he insists on handling personally. Just you. Oh and even though you’re never home, Dad finds a million reasons to bring you up a hundred times a day.”

“You’re reading into things,” Aiden said.

“You cut your hair every time you Facetime him.” He did not. Did he? “You never bring Dad up in conversation. You go out of your way not to bring him up, go so far as to pretend he doesn’t exist, but, on Facetime—in front of God and everyone—you stare at him like he’s the only person in there and so does he. It’s…awkward.”

Aiden opened his mouth and closed it again, unsure what to say to that.

“Yeah, you two are so fucking weird we had to call a meeting to discuss it,” Adam said.

Noah snorted. “You had to call a meeting to discuss it.”

“You were the one who pointed it out in the first place,” Adam countered.

Aiden ground his teeth, tired of their bickering. “You what?”

“Called a meeting. Keep up, dude,” Adam said. “Everybody just wants Thomas to be happy. You make him happy. Well, when you aren’t making him a short-tempered, day-drinking lunatic. But I think you and him being together forever would fix that.”

This conversation was killing Aiden. Of course, he wanted that. He’d wanted nothing but that forever. But it had been dangled and snatched away so many times over the last two decades, he definitely didn’t have the strength or courage to reach for it again. Just being alone with Thomas was masochistic enough.

“Whatever he did…whatever happened to his family…its convinced him that he doesn’t deserve happiness. He’s going to spend the rest of his life torturing himself, and by extension me, if I don’t break this off. We’re not leaving this cabin until I get to the bottom of what happened to his family and why he’s let it shape his entire fucking life. Once we find this blackmailer and punish them, I’m going back to my life…alone. Once and for all. Thomas can do whatever he wants after that.”

“Aiden-”

Aiden cut Noah off. “Have Calliope call me if she gets a break on the video. Otherwise, leave us alone. We’ll be back when we get back.”

He disconnected before Noah could keep the conversation going. He stood, trudging down the stairs to the bar tucked into the corner of the living room. He poured himself two fingers of whiskey and sprawled into the large chair in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames.

How long had he and Thomas been public knowledge? A while it seemed. Aiden didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, at least Thomas could no longer hide behind the family as an excuse not to be together. But on the other, the amount of ribbing they were going to take over this was going to be beyond painful.

If they made it past this. Adam seemed to think there was nothing to worry about. That this was some garden variety bad guy but it didn’t make any sense. Who knew any of this. Thomas had said those photos of the crime scene shouldn’t even exist. Yet they did. They did and someone had sat on them this entire time…for what? To what end? Who were they trying to avenge?

There were no Mulvaney’s left outside of Thomas’s children. No aunts or uncles. No nieces and nephews. They’d all died. That left cops. Maybe a prosecutor. But why would any of them wait this long to blackmail Thomas. Were any of them still alive? The case had happened almost forty years ago.

Nothing made any goddamn sense. He was tempted to harass Lola for more information but she would have called if she had something. She was also picking up his other cases. He couldn’t nag her about this also.

He heard Thomas before he saw him, but when he rounded the corner, it still sent Aiden’s heart racing. He wore gray sweatpants and a pale blue hoodie that made his eyes look the same light shade.

“I didn’t expect to see you down here again before dinner,” Aiden said.

“I tried to sleep but couldn’t.” He took one look at the drink in Aiden’s hand and frowned. “Is this about…” He pointed upwards. “Upstairs?”

Aiden shook his head and took another large swallow. “No. Calliope has the video. She’s analyzing it as we speak.”

Thomas’s brow furrowed. “I thought we weren’t involving them.”

Aiden snorted. “So did I. Do you know she goes through your emails?”

“What?” Thomas said. “Who? Oh,” he said as he seemed to catch up with the conversation.

Aiden didn’t know why he was taking this out on Thomas. It wasn’t his fault his kids were nosey. Or maybe it was. It wasn’t like they’d had much supervision once they’d come of age. Thomas had been super strict with all of them growing up, but he’d softened by the time each of them were eighteen.

All but Aiden.

But to be fair, Aiden was practically eighteen when he’d arrived. Neither of them had ever truly known what to do with each other. While Aiden had developed the world’s biggest crush, Thomas had been trying to treat him like a little brother, like he might someday be his future protege, as Noah was now. It had all gotten so messy, so quickly.

“Yeah, and do you know your kids are hoping we eloped because they think we’re in love with each other?” Aiden asked.

“What?” Thomas said again, looking more bewildered and distressed with every new statement. “Stop calling them ‘my kids’” he air-quoted.

Again Aiden ignored him. “They have clandestine meetings about the two of us. They think we should be together so we’re not…what was it they called us? Oh right, an antisocial survivalist nut-bag and a short-tempered, day-drinking lunatic.”

Thomas opened and closed his mouth a few more times before seemingly settling on saying, “Oh.”

Aiden snorted. “Yeah, oh.”

“Aiden-”

Aiden pointed a finger at him. “Apologize to me at your own peril, Mulvaney. I swear to god, I can’t take it. It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything's fine. Have a drink. Do whatever you have to do to get yourself together, because we’re not done talking about your past yet.”

Thomas seemed to take Aiden’s advice, walking to pour himself a drink before taking the seat across from him. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

Aiden watched him from over the rim of his glass. “You tell me? Someone wants to expose you to the world as a murderer. You are doing your best to act guilty as hell. You are drowning in your own misery. Your kids are already on the case and we’re not leaving this cabin until I know the whole story. So you decide how you want this to play out.”

Thomas gulped down his whole glass in one swallow, then set it on the small table between them. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

“You’ll tell me everything,” Aiden corrected.

Thomas made a noise of frustration. “You have no idea what this is like.”

“What would you say if the tables were turned? Would you let me get away with hiding?”

Thomas clenched his teeth until the muscle in his jaw twitched, shaking his head. He knew Aiden was right. Thomas would have forced the secret out of him one way or another. Aiden would do the same. They needed to know the truth in order to get to the bottom of things.

“I need another drink first,” Thomas said, rising to fill his glass.

“Have two, it helps,” Aiden promised.

Liquor always loosened Thomas’s tongue, usually to both their detriment. Today, Aiden would use that to his advantage.

When he was sitting across from him once more, Aiden met his gaze. “Tell me about Shane. Tell me everything.”