Mulvaney's- The Teen Years-Jake the Snake (Patreon)

  MulvaneyMedia on IG inspired me to write this minii-fic. If you like it, I might start doing more of the Mulvaney teen years. It's unbe

MulvaneyMedia on IG inspired me to write this minii-fic. If you like it, I might start doing more of the Mulvaney teen years. 

It's unbeta'd and unedited as always. Sorry for any typos and whatnot.

Thomas

Thomas heaved a sigh as the twins entered his office. It was the day before spring break started. They were both dressed in similar fashion, wearing jeans and the hoodies from their prep school, Asa’s for varsity rugby and Avi’s for JV Lacrosse. Thomas looked at his watch, surprised to see it was late afternoon. They must have just come from practice.

They had grumbled when Thomas had insisted they play a sport and truly had a fit when he’d insisted they play different sports. But he worried about their codependence. It wasn’t a concern at fourteen, but it might be at twenty-four. He’d let them know it was for their own good, but they had protested loudly, obnoxiously.

So obnoxiously that Thomas had almost lost Shira, nanny number two of the three that routinely rotated through the mansion. These boys had no idea how hard it was to find one nanny, much less three who could keep their mouths shut about the things that happened there, and they definitely didn’t understand the trials of finding nannies with not only child rearing experience but the clearance but the training necessary to handle them.

Shira was former mossad and still they’d almost scared her off with their antics.  In the end, a bonus and a vacation had smoothed things over, but just barely. Thomas had  learned the hard way that there could be no less than three highly trained nannies on staff around the clock or chaos ensued.

Before he’d hired nanny number three—a mercenary from a private military installation in Iraq—every day had been chaos. Between August’s meltdowns, Atticus’s volatile science experiments, Adam’s frequent and often violent outbursts, Aiden’s teen sarcasm, Archer’s illegal gambling and the twins' love of hurting and being hurt, Thomas was living every day on edge, unable to run his business or even get a good night’s sleep.

Now, with three of his children in college, there was far less chaos in the house, but not enough for Thomas to dismiss any of the nannies. Not yet. Maybe when Archer went to college next year and it was just Adam and the twins.

Maybe.

Thomas pulled himself from his thoughts, studying the boys as they crossed the room, stopping a good distance from his desk, their  longish brown hair flopping into their blue eyes. They were so mirrored even their hair parted in opposite directions. Thomas sat up straight and readied himself for whatever was about to fall out of their mouths. They only came to him like this when they were going to ask for something or when they were going to ask forgiveness for something.

Last time, they’d asked if he could get them nitric acid so they could practice dissolving the dead animals they found in the woods. While Thomas had admired their initiative, he wasn’t about to hand over a dangerous and deadly corrosive to two fourteen-year-olds. However, when he’d told them they weren’t ready, and had offered them a safer alternative to start, a nuclear level tantrum had ensued.

As always, Asa had been their official spokesperson, pleading their case until the bitter end. They’d ended up spending three hours in the quiet room before they’d been allowed to return and even then Asa continued to argue.

August gets to play with chemicals

August already holds several advanced scientific degrees, Thomas had reminded.

You don’t trust us.

Of course, I trust you. It’s just not safe. You’re still children.

You don’t love us as much as the others

I love all of you equally.

You taught Atticus how to get rid of a body in water.

That was an emergency situation and he was seventeen and one is not even remotely similar to the other.

They were impossible to reason with while in meltdown mode. Puberty was hitting them hard. Fourteen, for people with normal brain chemistry, was taxing on parents. Guiding six psychopaths through the hormone shifts associated with this particular time in their lives was an exercise in time and patience.

Whenever he refused the twins anything, he had to prepare himself to weather an emotional tsunami of rage and manipulation that followed. While each of his children dealt with disappointment in different ways, the twins had an advantage that was wholly unique to them. When it came to getting what they wanted, they were criminal masterminds, working in tandem. Even when they hunted. They were like velociraptors; one distracting while the other went in for the kill.

Thomas had tried to separate them for their assignments—another attempt to diminish their obsession with each other—but they’d proven too distracted, endangering both themselves, the assignment and Thomas’s mission. Part of Thomas wondered if that had been a manipulation tactic as well. He’d recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal where the author had used the term weaponized incompetence. Is that what they’d done? If so, Thomas had fallen for it.

But there was nothing to be done about that now.

“Hey, dad,” Avi said, his expression a mask of innocence, an affable smile on his face.

Dad. Not Thomas. His lips twitched in an aborted smile. They wanted something. Something big. They often called him dad in public, but it was usually Thomas in private, but if they were calling him dad where nobody could hear them, it was a targeted attack and it was already under way.

Thomas narrowed his gaze. Of all his children, Avi seemed the most at home with his situation. He had a genuinely pleasant demeanor, was casually efficient in his training and seemed truly happy all the time. He lacked the drive to stalk, to torture, to kill. The same could not be said for Asa. Like August, Asa was a true hunter. He had a need to control and dominate that was especially heightened at this age.

“What’s up?” Thomas asked, pulling his glasses off and rubbing at bleary eyes.

They looked at each other, silently communicating for a long moment. This is why they worked so well together. This twin telepathy that Thomas had long since given up trying to understand. This ability to read each other’s minds was why he’d already allowed the twins to make their first kill.

He’d wanted to wait, he’d forced the others to wait until their sixteenth birthday, but he feared attempting to control Asa’s urges would only lead to him veering off course. And since Asa wouldn’t hunt alone, the boys made their kill together. At first, Thomas was disappointed in the deviation from his plan, he had a regimen, a structure to their training, but now he realized it was just another facet for him to study.

“You know Jake?” Avi asked.

Jake was the twins pet snake who was currently living in a very large terrarium in the basement. A basement which also housed Atticus’s spider and reptile collection and was currently tended by a specialist who came several times a week to ensure their proper care now that the boys were away at school.

He sat forward, steepling his fingers on his desk. “Please do not tell me there’s a sixteen foot reticulated python loose in our house.”

Thomas’s stomach churned at the thought. A snake that big might be easy to spot in most houses but could easily go unnoticed in their home for days, weeks maybe. These snakes had been known to kill. And as difficult as his children’s teen years were proving to be, Thomas wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of them to be the dinner of an impulsive birthday present.

He fought the urge to heave another sigh. He was far too young to feel this tired.

The boys exchanged another long look, then they, as one, stuffed their hands into the pockets of their jeans and shook their heads.

Sometimes their synchronicity still spooked him. But at least the snake wasn’t on the loose. “Is he okay?”

The only thing more terrifying than a snake loose in the house was the twins harming an animal for sport. That was a violation they couldn’t come back from. Avi nodded, chewing on his lip for a moment before he said, “He’s hungry.”

Thomas raised his brows. To the casual observer, they would look innocent, sheepish even, but he could see the knife’s edge of excitement in their shrewd gazes. He often found it amusing that they still attempted to manipulate him after all these years. They probably thought they were nailing their performance. Today it wasn’t quite so funny.

“Did you not feed him?” Thomas asked.

“We did…but we don’t think it's enough food.”

Asa nodded. “He’s, like, really big.”

“So he needs something really big to eat,” Avi said.

Asa gave his twin a pained look and an elbow to the ribs.

Thomas narrowed his eyes. “What are you two up to?”

This time it was Asa who sighed as if the jig was up. “Remember how you said we couldn’t play with acid?” he asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before scratching at the bumpy skin of his cheek.

They were currently being ravaged by hormone based acne, leading to nanny number one threatening to put oven mitts on their hands to keep them from picking.

Thomas tried to keep up with the rapid shift in the conversation but he was having a hard time making the leap from their pet snake to acid in any way that didn’t make his skin crawl. “It was only two weeks ago. Of course, I remember. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Yeah, we know. We’re not stupid,” Asa snapped, then immediately clamped his mouth shut. Thomas caught and held Asa’s gaze, giving him what the boys called ‘the look’. Asa deflated, muttering a sorry that he clearly didn’t mean.

Thomas let it go for the sake of getting to the point quickly. “It’s alright. What are you asking me for? Just drop the act and tell me.”

“Can we feed our next kill to Jake?” Avi said in a rush, clapping his hands together the way he did when he was having a hard time emotionally regulating.

Thomas was sure his own jaw had unhinged in shock.

Avi didn’t notice. Now that he’d blurted out the question, he was practically vibrating with anticipation.

Thomas blinked at them. “What?”

Asa rushed forward, then stopped abruptly. “Okay, look. So in science class today, Mr. Pierce let us watch a documentary about snakes in the Everglades ‘cause it's the day before break and he said that a reticulated python could digest an entire human in just a couple of hours. We…we wanted to see if that’s true.”

Thomas stared blankly, attempting to process this information, then closed his eyes, digging his palms in like he could somehow wipe away this conversation. “Your science teacher told you that pythons can swallow an entire human body?”

They nodded in unison.

“Why did your science teacher tell you this?” Thomas asked. He wasn’t paying two hundred thousand dollars a year to this school for teachers to spontaneously give his impressionable sons advice on getting rid of a body. He very much doubted Mr. Pierce had more expertise in the matter than Thomas. When they both exchanged another long glance, he did sigh. “Please tell me you didn’t ask him this.”

Their gazes snapped back to him, all wide eyed innocence. “No, Dana Culligan asked,” Asa hurried to say.

Too quickly.

“Why did Dana Culligan ask this question?”

“Cause she’s weird?” Avi hedged, looking at Asa.

Thomas knew he wasn’t getting the whole story. He leaned back in his seat, staring, saying nothing, watching as the silence started to eat away at Avi.

Asa, as always, remained steadfast.

“We asked her to ask Mr. Pierce,” Avi finally blurted.

Asa shot him a look of betrayal that had Thomas worrying if Avi was going to need another trip to the emergency room to make this confession up to Asa. As much as Thomas had tried to quell their bizarre fascination with hurting and being hurt, Asa still hurt Avi, and Avi not only let him, but encouraged it. Thomas had finally managed to convince Asa that hurting Avi too often caused people to ask questions. For a while, Thomas had thought they’d stopped, but then he’d realized they’d just gotten far more creative with their…playtime.

“What the fu-heck, dude?” Asa said to Avi, exasperation obvious.

Avi took the steps necessary to stand beside his brother, then grabbed his arm tightly, as if trying to make amends. “But we didn’t start the conversation. David did. He said he’d watched a National Geographic documentary that said a reticulated python could get to over twenty-six feet and that they killed people…a lot of them and then, like, swallowed them whole and there was nothing left cause their stomach acid dissolved them. Even their bones,” he said as if it were witchcraft.

Asa nodded. “And then Chris said that was bullshit–uh,bullcrap–and that snakes couldn’t eat humans and then he was going to ask the teacher, but then he chickened out because his dad already thinks video games and stuff are making him too violent and he was worried Mr. Pierce would like tell his dad ‘cause they golf together sometimes.” Asa rolled his eyes at that. “So he said we should ask Dana to ask him ‘cause she’s got this weird goth thing going on and she talks about dead shi-stuff all the time.”

“She was totally excited to ask,” Avi said, nodding his head rapidly like he was trying to Jedi-mind-trick Thomas into believing him.  “She has a big crush on Asa,” he added, like it was the funniest thing in the world. Once more,  Asa gave Avi the look. Avi shrugged, flushing. “What? She does.”

“And why should I let you feed a human being to your snake?” Thomas asked.

He could say no outright, but he didn’t want to discourage their independence too much and this was a far safer option than the acid, lye or any other caustic chemicals. And he wanted them to be able to not only make a case but defend it with logic. It might come in handy if there was ever a criminal trial one day.

“Because it’s like a science project?” Asa tried.

Asa’s hand came up, pointing a finger. “Yeah, It’s, like, totally  educational.”

When Thomas said nothing, they kept trying.

Avi floundered. “Cause we got straight A’s last semester?”

“Cause we stopped hiding Mr. Capra’s shoes when he came for our fencing lesson?” Asa said.

Thomas had to bite his bottom lip to keep a straight face as Avi nodded along. “Adam and Archer could watch too. Oh. Oh. We could do it for family night. That’s only two days away.”

“I don’t really relish the idea of us bringing a dead body into the house…” Thomas said.

“Please?” Avi said, dragging the word out. “Please. Please. Please. It would be so cool.”

“Yeah, and it's not like it would be the first dead body we’ve ever had in the house.”

“But that body wasn’t missing. That was a body from the morgue used to teach you disarticulation, just like if you were a medical student. This would be a fresh kill.”

Now it’s Asa’s expression that was pleading. “I mean, you say that our kills should suffer. Like…being crushed to death by a python and then eaten seems like a pretty fuc-sick way to die…no?”

It was a bad idea. The worst idea really, but they made valid points. It wasn’t without risk but with Thomas’s connections, it was minimal and keeping it at home kept it contained. But the twins weren’t on the roster to perform their next kill for weeks. It was their reward for acing their finals.

“I’ll tell you what. August is next on the list. If you can convince him to bring his mark to the house, you guys can feed him to Jake.” Their eyes lit up and they high fived each other as if August had already said yes. “But this is a one time thing. And I don’t want to hear another word about you talking about this sort of thing to your friends or your teachers. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, dad,” they said in unison.

“Good, now let me get back to work.”

###

“I thought there’d be more screaming,” Adam said, voice dripping with disappointment.

He sat in front of the terrarium, legs criss-crossed next to the twins.

“He was screaming before you got here,” Asa said, distracted, face pressed against the glass like a kid in a pet store. “When Jake first bit him.”

Thomas had felt odd having to strip the victim before throwing him in with the python, but the clothing would have killed Jake before him attempting to swallow the man did. Not that the boys even noticed. More often than not, body disposal required nudity. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before. They were unfazed by most things.

“It was awesome,” Avi said.

All his boys were there. All but Aiden, of course. He never came home anymore. But that was to be expected after their last…conversation. Thomas’s heart twisted.

While this was hardly the best use of family night, it was the first one Thomas hadn’t had to bribe anyone to attend.

“Once he started to wrap around the guy, he started making these sort of pathetic whimpering sounds, then the bone crunching started,and then everything just sounded…wet” Archer said, leaning against the far wall, occasionally glancing up from his phone to watch the process.

Thomas was already regretting getting them phones, but especially Archer. He’d thought it would keep him off the gambling sites that he swore he wasn’t on, but he’d been wrong. He’d just figured out how to use his phone to gamble.

The thing was, the boy won more than he lost. By a large margin. And he didn’t seem addicted, just focused. Archer was, by far,  his most trusted, most level-headed child. Even over Atticus. Archer had no real interest in torture or even murder, but did what was asked of him without any fuss or fanfare. And without any guilt or remorse. To him, it was just like any other after school job, but with better hours. So as long as Archer didn’t let it interfere with his other tasks, Thomas was choosing to pick his battles.

“Why are his eyes turning red like that?” Adam asked.

“Petechial hemorrhaging,” Atticus said, taking on that authoritative tone. “As the python tightens its coils around him, it's cutting off the blood supply and crushing his lungs. It won’t be long now before he’s dead.”

“Cool,” Avi said, awed.

Archer rolled his eyes at Atticus’s tone. “We get it, you’re a med student.”

Atticus sniffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry you don’t have any life’s goals, but don’t shit all over the rest of us for not being slackers.”

“I’m not a slacker,” Archer said, tone still dripping with disinterest. “I have plenty of goals, mine just don’t revolve around being an asshole.”

Adam and the twins snickered at the swearing, something it was near impossible to regulate in his older children.

“What are these goals?” August asked from where he leaned against the same wall as Archer, splitting his time between watching his victim slowly suffocate and covertly watching his younger brother’s phone.

“I’m going to be a pro poker player,” Archer said with all the confidence in the world.

Atticus scoffed. “That’s not a real job.”

Archer flicked his gaze upwards. “You know, you don’t have to come home for every holiday break.”

“Boys,” Thomas said through gritted teeth, a throbbing beginning behind his left eye.

This was how every family night went when they were all together, though with far less bloodshed and threats than the last time they’d played monopoly.

“Look,” Adam cried, grabbing everyone’s attention back.

The python had stopped squeezing their victim who was now very dead, his body misshapen from numerous broken bones. Jake unfurled himself from the body and slithered along the enclosure. Thomas watched, as fascinated as his children, as the python unhinged its jaw to a degree that didn’t seem physically possible and began to swallow their victim, feet first.

“Woah,” Avi said, leaning in close to press his face to the glass like Asa.

“How long do you think it’ll take for him to eat him?” Asa asked, breathless.

“Approximately two hours to swallow him. A month to digest.” To Thomas, he said, “Imagine how much you just saved on his food budget.” Then slipped his headphones back in and turned on his music.

August used his headphones not only to silence the screaming, but to signal the others he no longer wished to be a part of the conversation. Usually, Adam and the twins would whine when August tuned them out, but they were too transfixed by the process happening in front of them.

“This is like when that python tried to eat that gator,” Adam said. “I hope Jake doesn’t explode before he digests him.”

Asa’s eyes went wide, gaze jerking to Thomas. “If he explodes you’re not gonna be mad at us, right?”

Thomas chuckled, then touched each of the three boys heads to reassure them that they would not be held responsible if Jake bit off more than he could chew…so to speak. “I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

Avi’s shoulders slumped. “Good. Jakes a good snake…and I don’t want to die.”

Thomas’s heart wrenched at Avi’s casual statement. Thomas had never explicitly stated he would kill them for violating the law, only that there was a line between good and evil and they needed to stay firmly on the side of good or face punishment like the others they’d taken out.

He wished it didn’t have to be like that. He wished he could just trust that they, on their own, would do the right thing, but it was too great a risk. They needed to know that their actions had life altering consequences not just for their victims but for them as well.

August didn’t leave, just joined Atticus and Archer against the wall as the older boys lost interest. Thomas sat on the floor behind the three boys as they oohed and ahhed every so often as the man disappeared and Jake’s body swelled to accommodate a whole person. It took ninety minutes for Jake to swallow him. The boys cheered when Jake’s jaws closed around the top of the man’s head and he disappeared for good.

It was the most patient and attentive Thomas had ever seen his youngest children. “Okay, it's time for bed.”

“But why? There’s no school tomorrow,” Avi whined.

“There’s no school for a whole week,” Adam added. “Why do we have to go to bed at ten like babies?”

“Fine. You don’t have to go to bed but you do have to go upstairs and play quietly. Separately or together. And no fighting,” he tacked on almost as an afterthought.

“Okay, dad,” Adam said, wandering off first, already fishing his cell phone from his pocket. These kids were obsessed with their phones. He hoped the novelty would wear off eventually.

The older boys stood, Archer stretching and Atticus moving to check on his arachnids. August pulled a headphone free and said, “Can I go now?”

Thomas nodded, eyeing the bloated snake for a moment. He was going to have a hard time explaining this to the caretaker, but he’d think of something. It was worth it to see his boys interested in something other than video games and their computers.

Avi and Asa were almost to the door when they stopped and looked at each other, once more silently communicating as they stared into each other's eyes. Just once, Thomas would love to know, for sure, what was going on in their heads.

Just when he thought he’d never know, they both ran back and threw their arms around him. “Thanks, dad. That was really fucking cool,” Avi said.

Thomas stood there, rigid, staring at the top of their heads. Before he could even compose himself enough to remind Avi of his language, they were gone, flinging the door open then letting it slam shut behind them.

“I…” Thomas trailed off, having no idea how to finish that sentence.

Archer came to stand close to him. “You gonna cry?” he asked, voice dripping with amusement.

Atticus pulled a face. “Oh, God. Please, don’t.”

A smirk crept across August’s face, but he said nothing as he headed out.

“I’m not going to cry,” Thomas muttered, glowering at Archer.

Archer laughed, raking his fingers through his long dark hair. “Are you sure?”

No, no he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure at all.

The boys knew to say please and thank you. They understood more than just basic etiquette. But none of his children had ever hugged him without prompting…except for Aiden. And he didn’t count. He couldn’t. There was…he shook the thought away.

The point was, the twins had just initiated affection without prompting. Was it a manipulation tactic? Were they just rewarding him for giving them what they wanted? He wasn’t sure. He needed to think on it.

“I’m going to my office,” he said absently.

Just before the door shut behind him he heard Archer say, “Yeah, he’s definitely going to cry.”