forthedog | (no subject)

Entry tags:

darrow,
neil

(no subject)

It's not uncommon for him to come home covered in blood. But this is a lot of blood.

It's not as bad as it might have been. He's cleaned off what he can, washed his hands, and the rain has taken care of some of the rest. He could have gone to the asylum, where he keeps a change of clothing for exactly this reason, but now that the adrenaline has left him completely he's tired and a little drained.

In ways that have nothing to do with the wound on his throat.

Now that sanity has reasserted itself, he's sort of wondering how that's going to be taken.

But there's nothing to do about it. He pulls the bike into the garage and heads in through the kitchen, shrugging off his jacket. The wet clothes are something else he wants to shed.

He's still not sure what tonight even means. He supposes he'll figure it out eventually.

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"Yeah, well, I kinda feel like you did, too, so at least we're on the same fuckin' page," I say flatly, tears seeping silently out of my eyes before I can stop them.

"I can't follow you there, Mike. I... I want to. I would, but I can't. Not all the way. I can't leave your kids here alone. Our fuckin' kids," I say firmly, "You gotta stay on this side of the fuckin' line with us, because I don't wanna do this shit alone again."

Please don't make me. Please, God.

"You can't follow me there, are you insane?" His head snaps up, hand clenched into a fist, and for a second he's as close to fear as he's come in a long time. "Even if you could, you'd... You can't. You can't ever do that. Jesus, I won't even take you in the asylum."

He leans back against the edge of the sink and rakes both hands into his hair, almost pulling at it. "I don't wanna go there. If I do, there's no coming back. You think I wanna leave you alone? You think I ever wanted to do that?"

He doesn't even know where it's coming from, now. Pouring out of him, even as his neck is clotting.

"I should be so fucking scared of this."

"Am I insane?" I say, looking at him like he's just said the fucking stupidest shit ever.

"You think I'd let you go someplace without me, if I had a fuckin' choice? We're supposed to be in this shit together. Everything, that was the fuckin' deal, and you're just... You're not letting me, anymore. I'm losing these pieces of you, and yeah, you fuckin' should be scared."

Leaning back against the island counter, I scrub a hand over my face, feeling humiliatingly, pathetically, like I've been betrayed. If he'd fucked someone else, I'm not completely sure it would've felt worse than this. I'm not sure I'd have felt more inadequate and stupid than I do right now, waiting up for him at home with his daughters sleeping upstairs, while he was off doing what he had to do. What he wanted to do.

"Who was it?" I ask quietly, hating myself for the question, but it's out there and I can't take it back. I know it wasn't Spike. Oddly enough, I trust that he wouldn't have let it happen in the first place.

"Kisuke," he says, low and flat. His hands are hanging loose by his sides now, still no attempt at mounting a defense. "I dunno if you know him. He ran into me, we started talking..." One thing led to another.

"It felt good. Being watched. You've only seen me like that once."

I turn my face away, struggling suddenly against a wave of nausea, this sick weight in the pit of my stomach.

"I don't know him," I answer flatly, because it's really the only thing I'm entirely certain of. The rest of it, how I feel right now, I can't really make sense of.

"But you don't want me to see. You won't take me to the fuckin' asylum, you won't..." I stop myself, jaw clinching tight, "It's startin' to feel like you've got me boxed up here, bein' the borin' fuckin' Dad, 'cause somebody's gotta be sometimes, while you're... out doin' what feels good."

Arms dropping uselessly to my sides, I say, "You can't protect me from this. If you can't let me see this shit, then you shouldn't be fuckin' doin' it! Sure as hell not with some fuckin' guy I don't even fuckin' know."

Edited 2014-05-19 05:53 (UTC)

He almost laughs again, because suddenly it really is so goddamn funny. That after everything that's happened and everything he's allowed himself to become, after letting the part of himself that was frightened by everything be destroyed, this is still something he can't seem to shake.

There are places he knows he can't go with Neil. But those borders have been expanding, slowly, without him even really being aware of it.

You weak little idiot, whispers something with awful eyes and far too many teeth. That was not part of the deal.

"So maybe I should. Let you."

"So fuckin' do it. You can't keep shutting me out. And you can't... You can't lose sight of this. This is our fuckin' life, right here, in this house. A house that you fuckin' wanted, by the way, and if this is somethin' you wanna keep, you gotta learn that you can't run around doin' whatever the fuck you want just 'cause it feels good," I say, and honestly, I can hardly fuckin' believe it's coming from me-- this speech that's basically grow the fuck up and take responsibility for your shit.

"It's not gonna work anymore that you're living one life here with me, and another one out there with... whoever the fuck else. I've already been with somebody who wasn't really with me, and I'm not doin' that shit again."

And that's the final lash. He stands for a moment, taking it in, then pushes away and heads through the room toward the sliding doors that open onto the deck. His house, yes. That he wanted. That he wants. The blinds are drawn and he can see out into the dark, where part of him desperately wants to be.

And that's not where he really belongs.

He lifts a hand and presses it against the glass. "Help me."

Heaving out a sigh, I follow him to the door, stepping up behind him, my arm sliding across his chest and my chin resting on his shoulder.

"I can't help you until I see what's goin' on," I say. "You're gonna have to let me see."

He leans back with a quiet sound, feeling his heart beating close to Neil's wrist, pulse to pulse. He had thought it might be difficult, coming back from that, but even now he doesn't think he would want that heart to ever stop beating.

"I want to," he breathes. "There's things that... I don't know if I can." He stares at his own reflection in the darkened glass, at Neil's, thrown into shadow.

"I gave you that muzzle. You have the collar. Maybe you should use them."

"Is that what you need?" I murmur, sliding a hand to the front of his throat, putting just enough pressure for him to feel it.

"You can let me," I insist, squeezing a little harder. "You said you wanted us to have a baby, remember?" I remind him, speaking low in the shell of his ear, "You wanna help Andrea and Spike, you want me to be okay with that? None of that's gonna happen unless you let me see."

He swallows - maybe in part to just let Neil feel the working of his throat. But then, slowly, he turns, not touching Neil, letting Neil decide how much to touch him. Somehow they've come full circle and ended up almost exactly where they were at the beginning. Which is where he never wanted to be again.

"I showed Andrea the room in the asylum," he says simply. "When she said she wanted to do it. The baby. And I told her... the only reason this works is 'cause you're in control. And I think... we both stopped believing I'm the one with the power here a while ago."

He lifts his eyes to Neil's, and something about it feels instantly like a relief. "You're in control. Be in control. I need it, I can't do it myself."

"I thought I was. You're the one stepped outta fuckin' line," I say, splaying a hand in the middle of his chest and pushing him back against the glass.

"Guess I wasn't doing a good job."

"Maybe I just didn't know." He lets out a soft breath when he's pushed back, because now he's being pushed in more than one way.

"I mean it. Not like before. I think I need things clear. Rules. Consequences." He sighs. "Not playing."

"I know you mean it. You need a fuckin' handler. You can't be trusted on your own," I say, and there is an edge of lightness to my voice but I'm not fucking playing around.

"You know what the consequences are gonna be. You break a hard limit and I can't have you in this house. That's it. The others, we can talk about."

He nods. There's still relief. Kisuke is right, he's been dancing on an edge, but he knows what's on the other side of it and knows he can't dance the edge like that. Not unless there are some very strong restraints.

There's pleasure in feeling half out of control. But it's not a pleasure for which he has the luxury.

"What do you wanna see?"

"I'm gonna go out with you. Not tonight. Friday, when we can get a sitter," I say, my lips twitching with a hint of amusement.

"I wanna see what you do, when I'm not there. All of it. You're gonna take me to the asylum," I say, my hand framing the side of his neck, my thumb tipping his chin up, exposing his throat just a little. The bite marks have mostly stopped bleeding, but there's still a wet clot glistening on his skin, deeper red than the dried rust smears around it.

"You're not gonna do this, anymore. Not unless I say so," I say, rubbing my thumb over the bite, loosening the clot enough that it starts to bleed sluggishly again. "This is mine to give, nobody else's. You got that?"

Edited 2014-05-19 21:07 (UTC)

His eyes slip closed the second Neil touches the wound, going half under as immediately and easily as he ever does when triggered in just this way. It's peaceful, easy. Of course he's going to do this. And of course he's not going to do the other. Disobedience isn't even a distant option.

"The asylum." Calm, quiet. "With someone there? Or not?" Almost casual, in fact, as if he hasn't just asked his husband if he'd like to watch someone being tortured to death.

"I need to see it with someone there. If it's gonna keep going on, I need to."

Like I said, it doesn't work, him shuffling off this part of himself into a dark, secret place that I'm not allowed to get to.

"I wanted to let you have this for yourself, but obviously that isn't gonna work anymore. It's gotta be mine as much as it's yours. If you can't let me in there, it's over. I'll light a match to the place if I have to. Is that somethin' you can agree to?"

He nods, once and slowly. "I'd do it before you had to," he murmurs, and he means it. He thinks he could. He thinks it might be done. If it's a choice between losing it and losing this.

He wonders what Kisuke would think if he saw this. The aragami with its back against a wall.

Probably he wouldn't be in the least surprised.

His eyes open. "Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. You know that."

"I know," I say, without any uncertainty. I know it has a risk of changing things, of changing me, changing the way I see him, but it's a risk we've both gotta take.

"Don't forget who I am, Mike. Who we are."

The reason we work is because we get each other, and I can't understand something he's never let me see. We've been through so fucking much. Sometimes I think we've been through more than we both realize-- distant, starry fragments of lifetimes we lived miles and miles away from here.

"Okay," he says, and then, as something heavy and hot and overwhelming sweeps over him, "I'm sorry." He's sorry. he hardly ever feels it anymore, but he feels it now, and his throat clenches into a fist. He's sorry. It had felt so right and so perfect at the time but now he'd take it back if he could.

Except maybe it needed to happen, so this could happen.

"I need you so fucking much."

"You've got me," I promise, my hands framing his face, pulling him in to press our foreheads together.

I stay like that for a moment, letting my eyes fall shut and a little of the tension in me unwind. When I pull back, my hold on him falling away, I say, "Come on, I wanna clean you up."

I take a step away, toward the stairs, but I stop, holding my hand out for him to take.

"All right." He takes Neil's hand without hesitating, still feeling almost docile. Yes, he wants to get the blood off him. Suddenly he wants that almost a startling amount.

He'll be covered with it again soon enough.

He manages a faint smile. "That sounds amazing."

Leading him upstairs to our bedroom, careful not to walk too loudly down the hall, I click the door shut behind us, and then lead him into the bathroom.

The master bathroom, which still seems funny to me for some reason, which is bigger than that first hut Logan and I lived in on the island. Which isn't saying much, since you could barely stand two people in there, but whatever.

"Sitdown," I say, pointing toward the closed toilet, and dropping into a crouch to get the first aid kit from under the sink.