home

Officer and Gentleman: Interlude 7

A/N: The following is an expanded version of the following drabbles in Part 6. For Mellyflori's bairthday. Not quite as nice as peppermint crackacino, and considerably more angsty, but I hope you enjoy anyway. *Loves*

Dominic can recall better evenings.

He’s caught in darkness, unable to see the thief with whom he’s just grappled, and he’s in pain.

Dominic cannot take another beating tonight.

His only consolation hides in his pocket, its twin blades concealed by denim.

“It’s a reasonable request, Monaghan. Take him down.”

Dominic is shoved to his knees.

“Never. Never, I won’t—” Another knife, another nearly silent movement, and Dominic gasps, clutching his chest. Wetness slowly begins to seep through his shirt.

The thief kneels to face him, again touching his cheek.

“Then we’ll just have to keep doing this, won’t we?”

---------

Billy senses Dominic’s return before he hears him.

He staggers to the bathroom, where Dominic is leaning over the sink, his body shaking with convulsions. Billy gasps at the blood on Dominic’s chest and face.

Surprised, Dominic cries out, flipping Billy so the inspector’s back is caught against his chest, the knife he’s stolen from the other thief pressing against Billy’s throat.

“Dominic, no ...” Billy whispers, trembling. “Don’t do this ...”

He murmurs, soothes, caresses, calms—until Dominic’s knees buckle, and they fall to the floor.

Billy waits for Dominic’s ragged breathing to slow before he turns in the thief’s arms.

---------

Billy works quickly while Dominic sleeps. He bandages the wounds, ignoring the knife on the floor. Dominic stirs when Billy touches his face, and he catches Billy’s wrists..

Billy knows better than to fight a frightened thief.

But when Dominic tips him backwards, Billy struggles. He wants to help Dominic, not fuck him, not now.

Not like this.

His resistance is irrelevant. Dominic’s terrified desire blows across Billy like an electrical storm, and Billy cannot look away.

When it’s over, he rises, shaken, and helps Dominic to bed.

In the morning, Billy knows better than to stay and face him.

---------
---------

Dominic can recall better evenings.

He’s never been much of a fighter—even in school, Dominic used his mouth and his charm, hardly ever his fists, to get out of scrapes—and he cannot believe he’s put himself in this position, even for the inspector. Already today he’s suffered greatly at the hands of the detectives, intent on beating some truth out of him until Billy intervened. His chest and back are bruised, and the cuts on his face have opened yet again.

Dominic believes now that the mottled purple bruises on his body will fade, but the scars on his cheek are permanent. They will forever remind him of the risks he took, the full consequences of just sitting next to a man in the pub, a man with soft green eyes and softer, warmer lips. But that feels like so long ago now. Now, he must deal with the consequences of his latest overimpulsive action—one for which he had no real reason beyond trying to help Billy, trying to make the killings stop.

It had been dark, so dark in the alley, and the thief so much bigger, stronger. But Dominic had been quick enough and his hands smart enough to retrieve the long knife from inside the thief’s pocket and slide it blade–first into his own before the man had a chance to stop him.

Dominic expected the thief to attack, and was prepared for the first few blows. But confusion set in the moment the thief threw him against the brick wall and backed away, staring at Dominic as if he were weighing his options. Choosing how best to dispose of the obstacle Dominic has become on his way to destroying the inspector.

The thief knows—must know, must have felt it—that Dominic now has the knife. That he will take it to Billy. But he neither acknowledges its loss nor demands its return. Instead, he now places his hands on the wall on either side of Dominic’s head, trapping Dominic, and his breath is hard, fast—made humid by Newcastle Brown. When he speaks the words are laced with cold, controlled anger.

“It’s a reasonable request, Monaghan.”

“No.” Dominic grits his teeth. “No. Please, you have to stop, you can’t keep doing this, you’re hurting my friends—”

“Then give him to me,” the thief says gently, stroking Dominic’s cheek. “Bring me your inspector and you can go back to your kindnesses, lad. You can take care of your friends and keep them safe. I won’t lay a hand on another little one like you if you bring Boyd to me.”

“Can’t ...” Dominic whispers. “You’ll kill him, you’ll use that—” Dominic catches himself at the last second, swallows his words and looks into the thief’s eyes for the first time. They are green, like Billy’s—but cold, where Billy’s are warm.

“What will I use?” the thief smiles. “Certainly not what you’ve taken from me ... your gift to the inspector that you think will make up for everything you’ve done wrong in your life. You will be lucky if he doesn’t give you that same gift in return—with none of your good intentions.”

Dominic is shoved to his knees, and he gasps at the pain that runs all the way to his spine. He pushes past it, ignores the twinge from the blade in his pocket as it presses into his thigh.

“I don’t understand,” Dominic whispers, trying to stand and falling again under the force of the thief’s hand. “Please—what’s he done—does he know why—”

“The greed of a young thief,” the man laughs. “You steal from me, and you still want more ... And you won’t give anything in return.”

“I can’t!” Dominic shouts, and the thief reacts, pulling Dominic’s hair, yanking his head back until Dominic is staring into the streetlamp, his back arched painfully and his breath coming in desperate, frightened gasps.

“You will, little one. One way or another he’ll have you to thank when I kill him.”

“Never. Never, I won’t—” Dominic’s cries are silenced by the thief’s large, rough hand covering his mouth. Dominic’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head feverishly, terrified. He knows what is coming, but cannot brace himself for it caught like this on shaking legs. He reaches up, intent on nothing but slowing the thief’s other hand, but there is no time.

Another knife appears, smaller but just as well–crafted. Dominic sees the blade catch the weak light of the moon, the streetlamp, but never hears the movement. Dominic inhales, gasps into the skin of the thief’s palm, and clutches his chest, where the wetness is already beginning to seep through his shirt.

“I don’t take pleasure in hurting you, lad,” the thief hisses. “I’m not like your inspector, who’ll take your body before he takes your life, and love both chances equally.” the thief raises Dominic’s shirt and smears the flat edge of his blade against the wound, spreading the blood over the metal before he draws it back, looking at the blade in appreciation. He runs two fingers into the blood and touches them to Dominic’s lips, leaving the coppery taste for Dominic—and by extension, Billy, Dominic knows—to find later. To serve as memory and warning.

“This is all yours,” the thief says softly. “All this blood here, little one. When it should be his. Bring him to me and it can be over.”

Dominic shakes his head slowly, unable to find breath to speak. The thief sighs and drags Dominic to his feet, leaning him against the wall again before he strokes Dominic’s cheek once more.

“Then we’ll just have to keep doing this, won’t we?”

---------

Billy’s dreams are less vivid when Dominic is in his bed.

This comes as a surprise to him, considering that he does dream of Dominic, usually running—usually running from him, as it happens—and Billy can never quite catch him. Dominic evades him, sometimes with a smile on his face, laughing and teasing as he turns and runs backward, beckoning Billy with his hands, but other times dodging Billy with fear in his eyes and a scream caught in his throat.

Still, the dreams are cloudy, vague and veiled when Billy can feel the warmth of Dominic’s skin next to his own in his bed. Always, Billy can reach out and touch Dominic’s back, his arm, and the dreams fade even more.

And sometimes, when Billy is lost to the deepest, strongest sleep of his life, trapped in a nightmare so dark he fears he will never wake, he can feel Dominic reaching for him, taking his wrist and uncurling his clenched fingers from the fabric of his pillow, whispering soothing words that calm Billy’s mind enough for the dreams to disappear entirely.

But there is something different tonight. Billy drifts in and out sleep, half–sated by the strange, urgent but careful lovemaking he’d shared with Dominic, and half–restless from the visions in his dreams. His hands ache from being balled into fists for hours, and his body shakes, chilled for some reason. When he reaches for Dominic, he finds nothing, and Billy forces his eyes to stay closed.

Dominic has not left him. Could not have, not without Billy hearing him—stopping him. True, Billy had not restrained Dominic tonight. He had pushed the handcuffs away, knocking them to the floor when Dominic made to hand them over. No, he had wanted Dominic free and willing for him as he took him slowly, gently. Had wanted Dominic’s hands to roam where they wished, unfettered by Billy’s own demands or fear.

So of course, Dominic must just have wandered to the bathroom, or the kitchen more likely, to destroy another half–day’s worth of groceries in a matter of minutes. He will come back to Billy’s bed as soon as his stomach and his mind have calmed, and then he will wrap himself around Billy’s body.

And Billy will sleep again.

Billy tries to relax, to send himself back to sleep, but there is still something strange, something wrong about how he cannot do so. He is almost ready to give up and rise from his bed when the sense of panic comes over him, just before he hears Dominic’s murmurs in the bathroom.

Billy kicks out from under the sheets, frantic now, and staggers down the hall, bracing his hands against the walls as he moves. The light from the bathroom is too bright, and Billy blinks into it as it leads him forward. He turns the corner and stands half inside the bathroom door and sees him, then, sees his lover leaning over the sink, sweating, his hair matted and damp, his body trembling hard as his hands hold on to the edges of the sink for dear life.

Billy tries to speak, makes to reach for Dominic, but as he gets closer, he sees the blood on Dominic’s chest and face and he gasps. Dominic is hurt—again—and this time by nothing Billy himself has done. Billy takes no comfort in this, though, as Dominic turns, crying out in surprise. His eyes are wild and dark, full of anger and knowledge that he should never have at his age, Billy thinks. Billy tries once more to say something, anything that will make sense to Dominic in this state, but it is pointless.

It happens so quickly: Dominic flips Billy so he is caught in his arms, his back against Dominic’s stained, sticky chest, and Billy struggles at first, fighting back as hard as he can until he sees the knife, the same knife the thief held when he attacked Dominic and scarred him so horribly. Billy freezes, waits for it, and there’s no surprise left when the blade presses into his throat.

For all his youth and vows, his apparent desire to be the kindest, most compassionate thief, Dominic is still dangerous, Billy knows, and made more so by the weapon now in his hands. Adrenaline is running through Dominic’s veins, and Billy feels it as strongly as if he were holding that beautiful knife himself. Yes, either one of them could do grave harm with that blade, but Dominic is unaccustomed to the power it brings him, and that makes him less careful—and far more deadly.

Billy has to stop this. Has to make Dominic drop the weapon before he grows to love it, before it becomes natural to him to hold such a thing and to draw strength from it.

“Dominic, no ...” Billy whispers, trembling. “Don’t do this ... you don’t want to feel it, it will change you ...” Billy raises one hand to stroke Dominic’s arm softly, rhythmically as he speaks. “You don’t hurt people, Dominic. You would never hurt me.”

Dominic’s heartbeat, loud and shaky on Billy’s back, is slowing now, his ragged breaths following. Billy runs his other hand slowly up and down Dominic’s thigh, soothing him. “Let me help you. Let me take care of you, Dominic. Whatever he’s done to you, you can’t make it stop by killing me ... I can’t help you dead ... I can’t protect you dead. I can’t keep you safe if you kill me ...”

Billy continues, murmuring words of comfort, of quiet strength, until Dominic’s knees finally buckle, and they fall to the floor. Dominic is crying now, his energy spent for the moment. Billy can feel Dominic’s tears falling into his hair and down the back of his neck, and he wants so terribly to turn and hold the young thief until he calms, but there is still the knife in Dominic’s palm.

Billy reaches back for it, forcing himself not to look, to admire its beauty as he coaxes it from Dominic’s grip. It slips from Dominic’s fingers easily, and Billy pushes it away, just as he did the handcuffs hours before.

Dominic has quieted now, and Billy turns slowly to face him. It occurs to Billy that Dominic has passed out, exhaustion winning out over adrenaline. Billy would cry with relief—indeed, almost does—but for the wounds that cover Dominic, wounds that must be tended to immediately.

---------

The shirt is not easily removed. Already tight and faded, molded to Dominic’s shape, it now sticks to the wounds, and Billy pulls it away from Dominic’s skin slowly, gingerly, watching Dominic twitch in unconscious pain. He raises Dominic’s arms and takes the shirt from him, holding him steady with one careful hand on his back.

The sight and smell of Dominic’s blood is almost familiar now to Billy, and barely fazes him. But the intimacy of this act, the caring for Dominic in this awful, terrifying situation is not lost on Billy, and he cannot hold down the surge of something soft and tender rising in his heart as he holds Dominic. The young thief, so brash and loud and confident, has disappeared, leaving in his stead this fragile, broken creature bleeding in Billy’s arms.

Billy is not certain which Dominic he cares for more.

He allows himself only a moment to dwell on this, though. Billy knows he has little time to work while Dominic sleeps. Keeping one hand on Dominic’s arm, Billy reaches back with the other to the cabinet underneath his sink, in which he knows he will find what he needs.

Billy peers up at Dominic, searching his face for signs of discomfort as he cleans the wounds. The alcohol must burn horribly, Billy thinks, but Dominic does not blink, does not make a sound. Billy tries to distance himself from his work, to look at Dominic’s cuts with the eyes of a detective—albeit a shoddy one, Billy acknowledges—but it is hard when his hands are touching skin he knows so well. Billy is not gloved, and in his arms is no random, nameless victim of a random, baseless crime.

The part of Billy that is still a criminal himself recognizes, appreciates the fine, nearly fatal precision behind what the killer thief has done to Dominic, and it takes everything Billy has not to look to his side and take the knife in his hands. Billy can tell just from the sight of Dominic’s torn flesh that the blade is a thing of perfection—far different from anything Billy’s held before.

He will not succumb to that particular urge. He cannot, as long as his attention is better earned by Dominic. Billy searches his lover’s body for other new injuries, and he knows that both he and Dominic must count themselves lucky that Dominic survived. The reason for this is still a mystery to Billy, but he is willing to accept it as such for the moment. Perhaps the hardest part of what he will do tonight must happen now, and Billy steels himself for it. He touches Dominic’s stomach once more to make certain that the blood has stopped flowing, and then he reaches for his small kit bag, full of things Billy has always dreaded needing: matches, surgical needles, suture thread and painkillers that would fell a man considerably sturdier than Billy himself.

And while Billy imagines that even in his state Dominic would wake at the strike of the match, he does not, and Billy is able to sterilize the needle in relative peace. He threads the soft but firm thread through the needle’s eye with only slightly trembling hands, and he presses a gentle kiss to Dominic’s forehead before he leans down to his stomach.

“I am sorry,” Billy whispers as the needle breaks Dominic’s skin. Dominic does not react, and Billy exhales a shaky breath. He works with the utmost concentration and care, looking up every few seconds to reassure himself that Dominic still sleeps, and that he is not aware of what’s being done. Billy’s certain that if Dominic were awake, the job would be much harder. He cannot bear to hear Dominic cry right now—especially knowing that he, however unwillingly, is the reason for the young man’s pain.

It does not take long for Billy to stitch up Dominic’s wounds. He has always been good at this, even managing the awkward task on himself several times in his youth. It is small comfort to Billy that he can help Dominic this way, but he knows his work is better than no work at all. At least now the bleeding has been staunched. Billy takes up the alcohol again, cleaning the smears of his own sweat and faint traces of blood from around the stitches, and then he looks up again at Dominic’s pale, bruised face. Billy swallows at the sight, hot tears burning in his eyes, but he blinks them away as he reaches for the roll of bandages in yet another bag underneath the sink.

It strengthens Billy to hold Dominic again, to steady his body as Billy wraps the bandages around Dominic’s torso and stomach. Billy is good at this, too, having bound the wounds of many of his friends and himself long ago. He knows the exact pressure to exert, the perfect places to turn the fabric in his hands so that the bindings will stay put—or at least Billy hopes. He takes the extra precaution of taping down and fastening the bandages behind Dominic, high on his back where his hyperkinetic hands should not be able to reach.

And then it is done. Billy has become aware that his breath is loud and echoing in the tiled room, and he can barely hear Dominic’s shallow pants. He searches Dominic’s face once more, running gentle fingers over his eyelids and cheekbone, avoiding the scars. “You are so young ...” Billy whispers, and his hand trembles at Dominic’s jaw. Billy moves closer, feeling Dominic’s pulse in his throat, and he is so absorbed in his task that he does not see Dominic’s eyes fly open.

And he does not at all expect it when Dominic’s hand closes firmly around his wrist.

---------

“Dominic ...” Billy sighs, relieved and terrified at once. Dominic’s grip grows stronger, and he bares his teeth in a grimace Billy recognizes. Billy tries to move, to get to his feet, but with too little warning, he has no chance. “No, Dominic—”

“Be quiet, Inspector,” Dominic growls. “For once, you fucking stop talking ...”

Billy knows better than to fight a frightened thief. For years he did just that, suffering for it both physically and professionally in ways he never imagined—a result of his own sharply–honed instincts as a former thief. But he’s learned over time to talk down those criminals he encounters. His hands rarely find their way into fists in the presence of a threat now.

And even at this moment, Billy cannot imagine considering Dominic an actual threat. The young man has spent every moment with Billy submitting to the inspector, allowing Billy to take his internal anger, his fear out on his body and heart. It has never occurred to Billy that Dominic would return fire like this. There is something new and ugly in the stormy eyes Billy has come to find beautiful, and Billy tries to capture it, tamp it down even as Dominic holds his wrists tighter than handcuffs ever could and tips him backwards to the cold floor.

Billy struggles, grits his teeth against the heat and weight of Dominic’s body above him. The look in Dominic’s eyes has changed again, shifting now into desire and fear, greed and desperation.

And Billy does not want this.

He wants to help Dominic, not fuck him, not now. Not like this. Even in their fiercest, angriest lovemaking, the vicious tearing–taking with which they have battered one another, neither Dominic nor Billy has ever not wanted such treatment. Dominic in particular has seemed to relish Billy’s cruelty, calling it forth and holding it close as Billy fucks him into blind oblivion.

But this is so different, so new to Billy. Dominic does not smile as he tears at Billy’s trousers, does not whisper entreaties as he yanks them to Billy’s ankles. He straddles the inspector’s waist and takes Billy’s wrists in one large hand, smacking at Billy’s cheek when Billy makes to close his eyes.

“You will watch,” Dominic hisses. “You will see. He said it should have been you.” Tears are leaking from Dominic’s eyes, and he makes no effort to stop their flow. His voice is angry, cold, like nothing Billy has ever heard before. “He said ... he said you would kill me—”

“No—” Billy gasps, and Dominic’s hand comes down hard to cover his mouth.

“Don’t ... speak,” Dominic whispers. Billy recognizes his own accent, his own strangled speech in the words, and he stills himself, knowing that his struggle now is pointless, his resistance irrelevant. This is going to happen—and Dominic is going to make him see and feel every stolen second.

Dominic takes back his hand from Billy’s mouth and pulls open his jeans, ripping them down his hips with an effort, keeping Billy pinned to the floor all the while with his other hand. He resettles himself, hard already and firm against Billy’s thigh as he spits into his hand. Billy forces himself not to move away from Dominic’s fingers, but he cannot avoid tensing and rejecting their touch, his muscles bearing down against the intrusion. Dominic inhales sharply, angrily, and plunges forward, his face flushing when Billy cries out.

“Tell me to stop, Inspector,” Dominic snarls. “Fucking dare you to make me stop.” Billy holds down another cry when Dominic’s long fingers curl inside him. “You don’t want me to, do you? You’ve been begging for this every time you’ve done it to me.”

Billy shakes his head, and his eyes fall to half–mast before Dominic hits him again. Billy bites down hard on his tongue, tasting the blood in his mouth as Dominic descends, his cock driving into Billy slowly, torturously. Billy breathes in deep, and Dominic takes advantage, pressing forward, pressing fast until he is fully inside Billy’s body. Billy chokes on his next breath, but Dominic is there, immediately, his mouth covering Billy’s and his tongue sweeping over Billy’s sharp, pointed little teeth. Billy feels Dominic’s satisfied purr before he hears it, knows that Dominic can taste the blood, too, and is drawing it up into his throat, savouring the flavour and the knowledge that he has finally made Billy bleed after so much of his own blood has been spilled.

Dominic pulls back, his face a mask of aggression, and thrusts into Billy quickly, sharply, with none of the tenderness or caution Billy has felt from him in the past. This is Dominic taking, indulging the violence that has flowed through his veins all this time but has been kept hidden by Dominic’s discipline, his reluctance—his own fear of what he would become if he allowed it to surface. Billy sees sparks around Dominic, the same streaks of lightning he first noticed when Dominic walked into the pub and locked eyes with Billy, all smug grace and tattered beauty. Though Billy is angered and saddened beyond measure by what has come over his lover, Dominic’s terrified desire blows across him like an electrical storm, and Billy cannot look away.

And he cannot stop his own body’s reaction, not any more. Dominic has finally released his hands, and Billy pulls Dominic down again, enveloping him in a kiss as fierce as anything Dominic’s thrown his way tonight. Dominic braces himself, palms down at Billy’s sides, and the force of his thrusts moves them both forward and back again, harder and stronger than before.

Billy’s cries are lost now inside Dominic’s mouth, and Dominic swallows them like he does whatever Billy gives him. Billy pushes up, meets Dominic and quickens their pace. He half–expects Dominic to fight him, but he does not. Instead, Dominic’s hand grips Billy’s face, keeping him still as Dominic sinks his teeth into Billy’s neck. Billy gasps, and Dominic drops his hand between them, pulling and twisting Billy’s cock at a furious pace until Billy is nearly sobbing with need. His body aches, and he can already feel Dominic’s bandages loosening, damp with sweat and curled from all the movement. Dominic turns his wrist quickly and runs his thumb in a half–circle beneath the crown of Billy’s erection, and Billy bites down on his tongue again to keep from screaming as he comes thick and wet over Dominic’s hand.

Dominic tenses, shoves into Billy’s body three times more before he does scream, and the sound is bitter to Billy’s ears—a release of everything Dominic has held inside since he first met the inspector, a cry for safety, for protection, a plea for redemption Billy cannot give him. Dominic falls, heavy and covered in a fine sheen of sweat, onto Billy, and Billy’s hands immediately fly to Dominic’s hair, to his face. He murmurs words he cannot say when they are both more awake, more aware, for fear that Dominic will remember them, and waits for his own body to calm before he tries to raise Dominic.

Billy aches now, and he can hardly lift himself, much less Dominic. He leans Dominic against the cool wall and unwraps the bandages carefully, replacing them with new ones in a matter of minutes. When he is certain that Dominic is well–tended, Billy gathers the painkillers and walks the young thief slowly down the hall to his bedroom. Dominic does not fight being laid down. He reaches blindly for Billy, but Billy soothes him, whispering words of comfort. Billy finds the glass of water Dominic brought to bed hours before and props Dominic up slightly, feeding him three pills, one after another, and bringing the water to Dominic’s lips, watching to make sure Dominic swallows them. Weakened completely now, Dominic clutches at Billy’s arm and tries to speak. Billy shushes him gently and presses him back down to the bed. “Rest, Dominic. Rest now.”

Billy falls down beside Dominic, but he does not sleep. The dreams will come, and Billy cannot fathom reaching for Dominic now to quiet them, much less make them disappear. Hours have passed, and Billy will not have to wait long to make his escape.

The night dissolves into day, and though Billy does not fail to brush kisses across Dominic’s soft lips in the morning, he does not wake him. Does not force the young man to face the consequences of the past night. Billy knows better than to stay and face him.

home