Psycho by Onley James

August was up early, per usual. He did his time on the treadmill, then took a shower, smiling when he saw Lucas hadn’t moved an inch. He was still on his back, naked, arms thrown up over his head like he’d surrendered to sleep, snoring deeply. After yesterday, he’d clearly needed the rest.

Once August dried off, he carefully settled over him, kissing his slack mouth. Lucas didn’t even open his eyes, just his legs, letting August settle between them, wrapping his arms around August’s neck. He let Lucas feel how hard he was. He moaned at the sensation of August’s hard cock against his own.

“Morning,” Lucas rasped against August’s ear. “You smell good.”

“So do you,” August promised, burying his face against Lucas’s neck to rock against him with intention.

“I sincerely doubt that,” Lucas countered, opening his legs wider to get August closer, as if letting him know he was on board with whatever they were doing.

“Did you sleep okay?” August asked, continuing the slow roll of his hips.

“Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I slept so hard.” Lucas brought his legs up to hook around August’s thighs, heels brushing the backs of his legs with each lazy movement.

If this was what having a person of his own felt like, August could see why Adam was so protective of Noah. August couldn’t get enough of Lucas. He was warm and sexy and—despite his claims—smelled incredible. Just his scent drove August crazy. “I like you in my bed,” he managed, hating that he couldn’t better articulate how much of an understatement that was.

“I like me in your bed, too,” Lucas said, breath hitching as he rose up to meet August’s downward motion. He ground himself against Lucas, harder this time, just to hear his low moan. “Mm, fuck. Do that again.”

August chuckled, gently tugging on Lucas’s earlobe, repeating the motion. “Like that?”

“Just like that,” Lucas gasped, his words almost a plea.

August captured his mouth in a kiss that lingered, his arms coming around Lucas’s shoulders to hold him steady as they lazily worked against each other. “Do you have classes this morning?” August asked against his lips.

“One this afternoon. You?” Lucas asked.

“I have one this morning and another this afternoon, but I’ll have my TA teach it. Let’s just stay in bed all morning.”

“We can’t. Can we?” Lucas asked, breathless but hopeful.

“Oh, we definitely can.”

After that, there wasn’t any more talking. There was nothing frantic about their movements until they were moving faster, panting harder, working against each other until they came one after the other.

Even then, they made no effort to move. August lay collapsed on Lucas, cum drying uncomfortably on their skin. He definitely needed another shower, but he was just going to bask in the afterglow a little bit longer, then talk Lucas into joining him.

“Do you want to order breakfast in?”

“Meh,” Lucas said. “Let’s just stop by Cricket’s on the way to class later. I don’t want to move.”

August’s phone began to chirp and vibrate along the side table. He groaned, extending his arm to snag it, swiping to answer without looking. “Yeah?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “Are you okay?” Calliope asked. “You sound out of breath. Did I catch you on the treadmill?”

August could feel Lucas shaking with laughter beneath him. “Yeah. Just finished. What’s up?”

“Kohn arrived at work, so he’s not out murdering any helpless women. But that guy you asked me to look into last night, Devon Nicholls, I got the info you asked for.”

“Go ahead,” August said, rolling off Lucas when he gently pressed a hand to his chest.

Calliope made a terse sound before saying, “So, this guy is the opposite of clean. He’s been in and out of jail since he was twelve years old. Started with petty crimes, shoplifting, boosting cars, then he graduated to bigger stuff, like assault, domestic violence, and arson. He appears to be part of some street racing gang, which I didn’t know was a thing. An offshoot of the Aryan Brotherhood. And we all know how great those guys are. But he and his little band of thugs are local, involved in everything from drug dealing to gun running. And they are super unapologetic about it, if their social media accounts are anything to go by.”

“So, why is a Nazi gangbanger driving the car of a squeaky clean Russian import/export guy, and why is he meeting with Kohn in the middle of the night?” Lucas asked loud enough for Calliope to hear.

“Oh,” Calliope said, as if putting the pieces together. Her tone perked up at Lucas’s presence. “ Morning, Lucas.”

“Morning,” Lucas said, a small smile forming on his lips when August rolled his eyes. Calliope treated Noah like that as well. Like they were instantly a new addition to their little ‘people with feelings’ clique.

“As to your question, my guess is Mr. Russian isn’t as clean as he wants the world to think he is. These guys usually like to keep themselves six degrees from the action,” Calliope said. “They usually pay well, though, and Devon Nicholl’s has a lot of money going in and out of his accounts despite not having paid taxes in years.”

“That’s a dangerous game,” August said.

“Nah, federal time is a country club to these types. They’re just as comfortable in jail as out. But what does that have to do with Kohn being a serial killer?” Lucas asked.

“I don’t know…yet.” Calliope continued to type as she talked. “But Nicholl’s has a bunch of sock puppet accounts.”

“Sock puppet accounts?” August echoed.

“Dozens and dozens of fake online identities. Some of them are taking me pretty far down the rabbit hole of the darknet. I’m going through them all looking for any kind of slip up. These douchebags eventually get lazy. Hopefully, I’ll find something to connect the two.”

August looked at the sudden worry etched on Lucas’s face, squeezing his thigh before saying, “Let me know when you do.”

As soon as they disconnected, August rolled towards Lucas, dropping his head on his chest. “I swear, sometimes, it’s like she’s speaking another language.”

Lucas’s hand found its way into August’s hair, scratching blunt nails over his scalp in a way that had him pushing up into his fingers like a cat. He never liked touching, but he couldn’t get enough of Lucas’s hands on him.

“Why don’t you just read a book on coding and become a master hacker in an afternoon?” Lucas asked. “Then you’ll speak her language.”

August smiled. “It’s already too crowded in my head. Besides, I still haven’t figured out this whole love language thing. It’s confusing. And that’s coming from somebody who learned to speak Russian in a week.”

Lucas’s heartbeat accelerated beneath August’s ear. “You don’t have to keep stressing over my love language, whatever that is. You seem to speak fluent me.”

August shook his head vehemently. “I don’t, though. That’s the problem. I am not like Adam or Atticus. My autism makes it impossible for me to pick up on the context clues like they do. That’s why people think I’m…weird. I need a book, a manual, a guide. I don’t want to screw this up.”

“You’re not screwing this up,” Lucas assured him. “I’ve… I’ve never in my life felt as comfortable as I do around you. Do you know what it’s like to live in constant fear of touching people? It’s exhausting. I don’t have to be afraid with you. There’s no deep, dark secrets.”

August dropped a kiss on Lucas’s chest. “I just want to make you happy.”

“Why?” Lucas asked.

August frowned at the abrupt question. “What?”

“Why do you care so much about screwing this up? Psychopaths can’t love, can’t form love matches. Wouldn’t you forget me eventually or, at least, become indifferent?”

August hated the strange shock of fear that rocketed through him at the thought. It wasn’t said with any malice, more an academic curiosity with a tinge of anxiety.

Still, the thought of losing Lucas was something August couldn’t quantify. “I would never forget you. And I certainly wouldn’t become indifferent. I’ve spent just a few days with you and the thought of not seeing you every day is… It makes it hard to breathe.” August swallowed hard, squeezing Lucas tighter. “You can’t leave.”

Lucas gave a heavy sigh, and then his lips were brushing the top of his head. “I’m not leaving.”

“Ever,” August said bluntly.

Another kiss landed on his head. “I’m right here.”

Silence stretched between them for a long time before Lucas asked, “Did you really learn Russian in a week?”

“I learned to speak it in a week. Mastering writing it and speaking it conversationally took me almost a month.”

There was another long pause before Lucas pressed, “Why Russian?”

August shrugged. “When I was nine, I became obsessed with Tolstoy. I wanted to read his works in his native tongue.”

“You wanted to read Tolstoy at nine?” Lucas said, voice filled with wonder.

“I had already read Tolstoy. I wanted to read it again, in Russian.”

Lucas snorted. “Wait? Didn’t Tolstoy write in English?”

August smiled at that, tipping his head slightly to look up to where Lucas reclined on his pillow. It was so nice talking with somebody who cared about these things. “Yes. Tolstoy was a polyglot like me. He spoke English, French, and German, in addition to Russian. But he could read in a dozen other languages. I just fixated on this idea that I should read his books in Russian. I get hung up on these thoughts sometimes, and I can’t let them go until I’ve done it. So…Russian.”

“Is that why you have a degree in Russian Literature?”

August smiled. “No. I have a degree in Russian Literature because my father said I needed to look more well-rounded. To look like I had interests outside of the hard sciences.”

Lucas snickered this time. “So, you thought you’d just minor in Russian literature. You couldn’t just take, like, a film class or something?”

August shrugged, putting Lucas’s hand back onto his head, hoping he would get the message. “I spoke Russian. It seemed easy enough.”

His lids fluttered as Lucas’s fingers once more began to comb through his hair.

“Did you really get inducted into MENSA when you were six?”

August hesitated before saying, “No.”

Lucas’s fingers paused. “No?”

August sighed. “No. I was four. My father told people I was six.”

Lucas’s fingers slowed. “Why? Wouldn’t that have been more impressive at four?”

“It’s a long, convoluted story, most of which isn’t mine to tell.”

Lucas’s fingers went back to scraping over August’s scalp. “I have time. Tell me what you can?”

August only hesitated for a moment. “My father is like me in a lot of ways. He came from an…unstable home environment. Only, when they learned he was gifted, they brought in tutors to homeschool him, locked him away from his friends and siblings so he wasn’t distracted from his studies, used him to impress their rich friends. He was attending college in Scotland when they died. He was fourteen.”

Lucas curled in closer. “What does that have to do with your age?”

“Thomas had his doctorate before he was old enough to drink. He was obsessed with psychology, like you. When he met a woman doing groundbreaking research on sociopaths, he wanted to test her theories, wanted to know if there was a way to…fix people like me. But he knew, to do that, he’d have to have total control over our environment like she had, and no review board was going to give approval of a study like that. And he didn’t want us to feel like we were growing up as actual science projects. He wanted us to feel…supported, to have the affection he never got.”

“Makes sense,” Lucas said, though his tone was hesitant, like it didn’t entirely make sense.

“As you can imagine, no adoption agency was going to hand a bunch of damaged children to a man who was barely more than a child himself. So, he went about it through slightly shadier means. His money bought him access to people who had an interest in his research and who also weren’t fond of committee oversight. Kids disappear from the system all the time. My father helped us reappear without questions.”

“So, how old are you, really?”

August shrugged. “Thirty, I think. Maybe thirty-one. I never knew my actual birthday.”

“Do you remember anything about your original family?”

August nodded. “That’s the curse of an eidetic memory. I remember everything. My mom was…very sick. She was schizophrenic. She thought I was some kind of supernatural creature because I was far too advanced for my age.”

“She was unmedicated?”

August ran a finger over Lucas’s belly. “I imagine so. She was truly afraid of me. That much was obvious. She felt bad about it. She didn’t want to hurt me. She just feared me. She gave me books and food, a lamp to read by, but other than that, she tried to forget I existed. Sometimes, I could hear her sobbing outside my door.”

“How are you so calm about it? That sounds like a horrible experience.”

August smiled at the distress in Lucas’s voice. “I’m sure, from a psychiatric standpoint, had Thomas not intervened, I’d be on the other side of one of your investigations. But I never felt sad or scared. Understimulated, tired of reading the same thing over and over again. Tired of being dirty. But the silence was actually nice compared to all the sights and sounds I deal with today.”

“Still…”

“By the time she tossed me in that room, I could speak and read. I was barely two. I imagine, for a woman as sick as she was, that was terrifying. She did the best she could.”

“How did you believe I was clairvoyant so easily? Knowing how disturbed your mother was? Did you ever just think I was crazy?”

August shook his head. “There was no faking the terror on your face when you touched me. Besides, I study science that, ten years ago, people had firmly labeled science fiction. I can’t do my job without knowing that just because I don’t understand it that doesn’t mean it’s not real. Truthfully, I was far more willing to believe your amazing solve rate was supernatural versus actual profiling which is, at its core, truly just an educated guess.”

August grunted as Lucas shoved him off and pounced on top of him in one smooth motion. “An educated guess? An educated guess?” Lucas asked, pinching at whatever skin he could reach, as August tried to catch his surprisingly quick hands. “Do you have any idea how much schooling I did to learn how to make those ‘educated guesses’?”

August laughed, finally snatching Lucas’s wrists and holding them hostage as he looked up at him. “I said educated. You guys use predictive modeling. It’s just a combination of statistics and knowledge of the human psyche that allows you to guess what kind of suspect the police are looking for.”

Lucas scoffed. “Our profiles are correct, on average, about sixty-six percent of the time. You can’t fight the numbers.”

August made a face. “True, but they’ve only led to an arrest in approximately two point seven three percent of cases, so...”

“That’s because we can only intercede if we’re invited in,” Lucas said, voice pouty.

August had never heard Lucas sound huffy. He found his slightly sullen expression adorable. It made him want to kiss the pout of his lips. “If you work with us, you’ll always be invited in.”

“Work with you?” Lucas echoed.

“Yeah, my family. I was serious when I said my father is probably already thinking of ways he can use what you do to help us.”

Before Lucas could respond, August’s phone rang once more. Calliope again. August frowned, swiping to answer. “What’s wrong?”

Calliope made a sound almost like a wounded animal. “I found something. Oh, God. I found a lot of…something.”

“What did you find, Calliope?” Lucas asked, still perched on top of August.

“So, remember the sock puppet accounts? Well, I was just going through each one, scanning emails for anything that might be of interest, and I found a link. So, I clicked the link and…” She made another troubled whine. “I think I know what’s going on and it’s so, so much worse than a serial killer.”

“How the fuck is that even possible?” Lucas asked.

“Can you guys just get to your dad’s house? We’re going to need everybody. Or, at least, whoever’s in town. This is bad. Bad. Bad. Really, just so fucking bad. I need to bleach my eyeballs badly. ”

“Can you not just tell us?” August asked, tone sharp.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re so cranky. I’m the one who just had to wade waist deep into the darknet. I’m only explaining this once. So, get to your father’s house and then I’ll tell you what I found. If you don’t like it, too bad.”

With that, she was gone. They both sat staring at each other in confusion for a solid minute before Lucas said, “I guess we’re going to your father’s house?”

“I guess we are.”

“I need clothes,” Lucas said, realizing he hadn’t brought any.

“I need coffee,” August countered.

Lucas climbed off of him. “Stop by my place and then visit Cricket?”

“Deal. But first, shower.”