Bittersweet Irish Cream Ch. 20

Ethan hesitated, then said, "I know you do, Jack. And I love you. I just need to figure out if love really is enough to cover a multitude of sins."

Jack nodded again. "Okay. You go do that. I'll be right here waiting for you. However long it takes."

Ethan felt his heart melt for his husband. He turned around quickly and got in his car. Jack watched him drive off. He felt his chest squeeze and his heart ache, but knew he had no choice but to accept the consequences of his actions, and pray that it wasn't the beginning of the end for them.

Jamie melted into him, as if he knew Jack needed the extra comfort. Jack whispered into the night air, "Just come back to me, E."

~~~

Ethan texted Carlos: [Are you home?]

[Carlos: Yea just got in.]

[Ethan: Are you alone?]

Carlos: Yea. What's up? Need to talk?]

[Ethan: I'm coming upstairs.]

[Carlos: You're here!?]

Ethan didn't answer, just exited his car and rang the bell. He was immediately buzzed in. When Ethan made it to Carlos's door he only had to knock once and the door was yanked open. "Mi Amor! What brings you to the city this time of night?"

"Just wanted to see you, 'Los," he said as they hugged. "I've been going through a rough time with the separation with Jack and arguing with EJ. I needed a break from it all."

"Well you've come to the right place! Want a drink? Or an edible? That'll relax you." Carlos held onto him a little longer than usual. It felt awkward to have Carlos hold him like that.

Ethan smiled at him and pulled out of his arms. "A drink is fine, but I'm not getting high. I don't even remember the last time I was high."

Carlos kissed him on the cheek. "Yea, it's been a while," Carlos said as he went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of scotch. He gave one to Ethan and held his cup up. "Salud."

"Salud," Ethan repeated. They tapped glasses and sipped. Ethan took off his sweater and sat down on the couch. Carlos sat next to him.

"I'm really sorry about you and Jack," Carlos said. "I know you don't need all that drama in your life. And Jack just always seemed to come with a lot of drama. Ever since you met him. So maybe it's time yall went your separate ways."

"Maybe," Ethan mumbled. "But Jack has also brought a lot of good to my life. Love. A family. He's not a saint, but I married him for a reason. And a part of me thought he would be less... morally ambiguous as the years went on but now I don't know anymore. I still love him, though. That's the one thing that has never changed between us, how deeply we love each other."

"I get it," Carlos said. "And he loves you too. I reminded him of that when he tried to take my pants off." Carlos moved closer on the couch and began to touch Ethan's hair softly. "But I would never do anything to hurt you like he did. You know that, right?"

"Then why didn't you tell me where Trish was all this time?" Ethan asked back.

"I was just trying to protect her."

"Protect her feelings over my own?"

Carlos continued to run his fingers through Ethan's hair. "I was there for you too. I'm still here for you. Trish needs space when she is going through her shit. You need closeness. I was there for her. Let me be there for you."

"You still should have told me," Ethan said, trying to ignore Carlos's obvious advances. "It shouldn't have taken Jack coming all the way down here to try to seduce you and threaten you for you to give up her information."

"I know, and I'm sorry," Carlos said quickly. "But look at all that's come out of it. You have another son. And now you know the type of man Jack is. You don't need that in your life."

What I need," Ethan said as he moved Carlos's hand from his head, "is honesty and respect. And I don't feel like either of you gave that to me."

"Hey, I tried," Carlos lied. "I said, 'What about Ethan?' And he said, 'what Ethan doesn't know won't hurt him. It's just sex.'"

Something clicked in Ethan's head. He asked, "Just sex? Jack said it was just sex?"

"Yea, he said it would be our secreto sexy. Can you believe that?" Carlos said with a chuckle.

Actually no, Ethan immediately said to himself. Nothing in what Carlos said sounded anything like the Jack Ethan knew and loved. It sounded so convincing when Carlos called him last week, but now...

"Jack spoke in Spanish to you?" Ethan asked.

"Yea. I think he thought it was his way of getting close to me." Carlos tried to touch Ethan's hair again.

But Ethan turned to face him. "How far would you have taken it, Carlos? Be honest. Would you have fucked my husband?"

Carlos smirked, then said, "Nah." Ethan stared at him. "Okay maaaaybe I would have let him suck my dick. But just to see if he would have gone through with it." Ethan scoffed and stood up. "E, what's up?" Carlos said, also standing up.

Ethan looked at him. "Did you ever sleep with Trish?"

Carlos smirked again. "Why would you even ask me that? We were talking about Jack trying to fuck me."

"I know. But if you slept with Trish, you would have absolutely slept with Jack."

They stared at each other again. Then Carlos said, "Well I didn't sleep with either of them. And both of them tried to sleep with me. So maybe you need to pick your partners better." He shrugged nonchalantly.

"You're a fucking liar, Carlos," Ethan said plainly.

"What? No, I'm not. I-"

Ethan cut him off and said, "Here's what I know about you. You use sex to manipulate those around you. You'll do what you have to do to get what you want, and you don't give a shit who you hurt in the process. That's why you and I never worked. Because you've always been about taking until you drain the life out of someone, then you move onto the next. And at one point you loved me enough to not make me one of your casualties."

Carlos scoffed. "I just like sex, Ethan. I like to have sex without any emotional ties. That doesn't mean-"

"Here's what I know about Trish," Ethan said, interrupting him. "Sex is transactional for her. She does it to get something out of it, even if that something is a place to sleep or to forget her shitty life for a little while. So it makes sense that you and Trish would have slept together, whether I was married to her or not. Which is fucked up, by the way, if you did sleep with her when we were married."

"I didn't-"

Ethan cut him off again. "But here's what I know about Jack. Sex is part of his love language. I can count on one hand the amount of partners he's had before me. He had one hookup partner, the same one he had for years before he met me. The rest were all relationships. Sex is never just sex for him."

He stepped closer. "Wanna know what else I know, Carlos? Jack hates you. Like, a burning passion kind of hate. He hates you so much that he has an aversion to the Spanish language. Imagine hating someone so much that simple words like 'claro' gives him a visceral reaction. He would have never said anything like 'secreto sexy' to you. Jack would have shot you in the face before he said any words in Spanish. But that does sound like some shit you would say."

Carlos continued to stare at him, not speaking. "You just told on yourself, didn't you, 'Los?" Ethan said, feeling his anger rise.

"Iight," Carlos said with a shrug. "Trish came to me after she left you in the hospital. Stayed here for a few weeks. She wanted to fuck so we fucked. After she got her car she left."

Ethan was astonished. "She just had a baby, Carlos. Do you have any idea what her body went through? I promise you she didn't want to fuck, even if she offered it in exchange for having a place to stay."

Carlos said smugly, "You know I'm not turning it down if she is offering it."

Ethan was beyond pissed. "And Jack? Did Jack offer it? Or did you offer him the dick in exchange for giving him her information?"

Carlos shrugged again. Then he grinned. "Maybe I thought it would bring him and I closer-"

Ethan reacted before Carlos finished his sentence and punched him in the face.

"Fuck!" he yelled, the pain in his knuckles immediate from crashing into Carlos' jaw. Ethan groaned and shook out his hand. He quickly remembered that he was not a fighter, as the sensation traveled through his hand.

"Fuck!" Carlos also yelled as he stumbled backward, holding onto his face, his bottom lip bleeding.

Ethan grabbed his sweater and put it on. Carlos called out, "Wait!" He tried to reach out to Ethan but Ethan pushed him away with his other hand.

"Don't ever fucking touch me again!" Ethan yelled at him. "I should have ended this friendship the day you kissed me and Jack beat your ass. That will always be my biggest regret." He walked toward the door.

"You don't mean that!" Carlos said, with his hand still over his mouth. "You love me, EB. Even Jack knows it." Ethan turned around to him again.

"Cuando esto mierda con tu y Jack termina, y algún día, usted vendrá a encontrarme como tu lo hizo hoy. Porque al final del día, todo lo que tenemos es uno al otro. Al final, voy a ser yo y tú, ¿entiendes?"

(When this shit with you and Jack ends, and it will one day, you'll come find me like you did today. Because at the end of the day, all we got is each other. It's gonna be me and you in the end. Understand?)

Ethan's thoughts were spinning: The lies, the betrayal, the utter disrespect for him, his family, even for Trish. But one thought dawned on him brighter than any other thought:

Carlos would never stop trying to come between him and Jack. He truly believed that he and Ethan were meant to be. Carlos was like a snake waiting in the darkness for any sign that it was time to strike. And the only way to stop the snake was to cut it off at the head.

"Don't call me, Carlos," Ethan said in English. "Don't call me, don't text me, don't write me, don't step foot in my state, don't reach out to my parents or my brother, don't try to send messages through our mutual friends, nothing. I never want to see or hear from you again. We're done, for good."

"You don't mean that-" Carlos began to say again.

But Ethan said angrily, "If you do, I will give Jack full permission to blow your fucking brains out. And you and I both know he won't hesitate. ¿Entiendes??" Carlos glared at him. "Say you understand, Carlos. This is your one and only warning. Say it."

Carlos finally said, "I understand."

Ethan turned around and opened up his door, saying, "Have a great rest of your life, cabron." He slammed the door behind him.

~~~

Jack laid on his back with his eyes open in the darkness, watching the brown leaves of his ceiling fan go round and round like he used to do when he was a child. He was lonely and sad. He was worried about Ethan and their relationship. He was angry at Carlos for once again coming between them. He was angry at Ethan for not believing him. He was angry at himself for going behind Ethan's back, giving Ethan a reason not to believe him.

Maybe Ethan was right, he thought sadly. The consequences were too high if trust was broken between them. He wished he could take it all back. He thought to call Liam, knowing he was probably up with Julian so that June could get some sleep. As he thought about reaching for his phone, it buzzed on the dresser. He quickly picked it up.

[Babe: You up?]

Jack stared at the text from Ethan. He wanted to feel elated that Ethan was ready to talk, even if it was almost two in the morning. But he was also scared that Ethan wanted their separation to be permanent. He decided to use humor to deflect how he was really feeling.

[Jack: Depends. Is this a booty call? Because if so, hell yea.]

[Babe: It's not a booty call. Did I wake you?]

[Jack: Haven't been sleeping the last couple of days. You're back home?]

[Babe: I'm outside the farmhouse. Let me in.]

Jack sucked in all the air around him, then breathed out slowly. He went downstairs and opened the door. Ethan was at the bottom of the porch steps. His arms were folded across his chest and at first glance Jack thought he was cold, even though it was mid 70's in August. But then Jack realized he was hugging himself. And his right hand was bandaged around his knuckles.

"Come inside," Jack said quietly. He held the door wider and left it there as he walked to the Den. Ethan came inside and followed him.

They didn't turn any lights on, only the soft glow of the outside porch lamp dimly lighting up the room. Jack sat on the couch, but the far end, and put one knee up and the other leg on the floor. Ethan sat on the other end of the couch, still not looking at him, still holding onto himself.

They sat in silence for a full minute. Then Jack decided to move closer, until he was right up on him. Still, Ethan wouldn't look up. "What happened tonight?" Jack asked.

Ethan took a few more moments to answer. "I punched Carlos in the face," Ethan mumbled. "We're done, for good."

Jack didn't mean to laugh out loud but it came out anyway as happiness flooded through him. "Took you long enough."

Ethan found himself laughing too. Then he choked out a sob and began to cry.

Jack pulled him to his chest and Ethan sobbed on him. He wrapped his legs around Ethan sideways and held onto him, rocking slightly back and forth. He understood how important Carlos was to Ethan's history and that to truly let Carlos go, no matter how awful he was, was still a huge loss for him.

"I know that was hard. I'm really sorry, Ethan," Jack said softly.

"I don't think you are, Jack," Ethan said with a sniff. "I think you've been hoping and praying for this moment since the day you met him."

Jack made a face that Ethan could not see, since he was still sideways, buried into his neck. "I'm not sorry that Carlos won't be in your life anymore. Even in the background he was like a leech. But I am sorry that he betrayed you. And I am so sorry that you're hurting. And I am extremely sorry for my part in this."

"Why didn't you tell me, Jack?" Ethan asked. "I thought we had reached the stage where you tell me before you do these things."

"Because the one time I tried to tell you that I knew he knew where Trish was, you shut me down. So I knew you wouldn't have been okay with me making him talk, by any means necessary. You had blinders on when it comes to Carlos."

Ethan turned to him. "That's not a reason not to tell me, Jack. Even if you think I would disagree with you, and I probably would, we would still have talked it out, maybe come up with a different plan."

"But would you have let me go through with it?" Jack challenged him. "Because I didn't see any other way. Carlos was not going to admit to anything. He loved having something over you that he could use later."

Ethan was thoughtful. "I probably would have said to you, let me do it. It would have been easy, it's me he always wanted, at least to keep me in his back pocket. I would have got him talking, like I did tonight. And then I would have found out for myself what a conniving snake he is on my own, instead of feeling like...." Ethan hesitated. "Like I don't know who you are when you're Red Jackie."

"I never told him that I would fuck him for information," Jack implored. "I never even insinuated that that was on the table. But the truth is..." He sighed. "The truth is Liam made me promise not to kill him before I left his house that night. And it's a good thing he did. With the shit he was saying... Red Jackie probably would have. So you were right about that part." Jack looked down in shame.

"Jack-"

"I'm never going to just walk away when I know someone I love is being hurt," Jack said picking his head back up. "But I'm not a secret vigilante, I'm not out there fighting crime and making all the wrongs in this world right. I'm just one guy that loves his family and would do anything to make sure they are safe and happy. I know that I'm scary to you-"

"You're not scary to me, Jack," Ethan cut him off. "I've never been scared of you. Maybe because I'm the only guy in your life that you haven't punched in the face." He smiled at him.

"That's not from lack of wanting to," Jack said with a smile of his own. "It's that even when you piss me off I would never hurt you, E. Not physically. Not emotionally. Never."

Ethan put his forehead on Jack's. "I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid that one day Red Jackie is going to go out there and Jack's not going to come back to me. That's why I need to know when you're about to do these things. So I can prepare myself for you not coming home."

Jack's mouth opened slightly. "You've been afraid of me dying ever since Ireland, haven't you?" Ethan didn't answer. "This is not about Carlos, is it? It just brought up some deep seeded fears you've always had about me. About my dark side."

Ethan looked at him and still didn't respond. Jack smiled. "That actually makes me feel so much better. Because it hurt me to think you believed I would sleep with Carlos, just to get what I needed out of him. Even if I didn't hate him, I would never, Ethan. Never."

"I know that, Jack," he said softly. "The more I thought about it, the more I knew that wasn't why I was really upset. When Ireland happened I had to be angry at you, so I wouldn't have lost my fucking mind. And when the whole thing with Claire's rapist went down, I thought I finally mastered it, balancing the two sides of you.

"Mostly because you trusted me to tell me beforehand and you listened to me. Because it's my job to make sure you don't make a messy situation even messier. That's what you do when you love someone, right?"

"And I didn't this time," Jack said for him. "I kept you in the dark. That's why you're so upset. I understand now."

"I could have lost you," Ethan said almost angrily again. "You went to New York and Philadelphia on a mission and I could have lost you and wouldn't even have known why. What would I have told your children if you never came home?"

"Ethan," Jack took both of his hands in his own. "I take risks, yes. But I take calculated risks. I don't move unless I have a plan one hundred percent. And if one thing in that plan changes, then I recalculate the whole plan. I was going to kill David Vitalis. But then we talked and I changed plans. And one change had me redo a whole lot of things that night, which ultimately ended up in me being home later than what I planned.

"But I made the change because of you. Because you're the love of my life. I value your opinion and how you feel about a situation. And if these situations make you fearful for my life, even if they are few and far in-between, I will try very hard to find another way. And if there is no other way, I will talk to you about it first.

"I'm not that angry, impulsive kid anymore, but I'm still me. I have a dark side, but there's a lot of light in me now. Because of you. Because of Ethan Junior, and Jacqueline and Suzanne and now even more light because of Jamison. I won't make decisions that run the risk of me losing my life."

"Because you have a family now," Ethan said for him. "You have four children who need you. And a husband who can't breathe without you."

Jack squeezed his hands. "I can't breathe without you either," he whispered. They kissed softly. "I need you. Come upstairs." He stood up and held out his hand. Ethan took it.

They quietly made their way upstairs to Jack's bedroom. Ethan looked around. "Where's Jamie?"

"EJ took him," Jack said. "He said he might as well get used to sleeping with a baby in his room. So he took the whole bassinet."

Ethan looked at Jack seductively. "Then let's make the most of it." He pulled Jack on top of him on the bed.

They kissed, taking off one article of clothing, then kissed some more, until they were completely naked. They moved around together, kissing and touching until their bodies ached to connect.

Jack turned Ethan around first. He prepared him with lube and entered him slowly. Holding onto his wrist, and one hand on his hip, Jack moved in and out of Ethan, breathing in as he pulled back, sighing audibly when he slid deep inside. Nothing in the world had ever felt more satisfying than being one with his husband, being able to protect his heart from the outside world.