forthedog | (no subject)

Entry tags:

darrow,
neil

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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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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.

He sits, lifting his blood-streaked hand again. That pale line. For some reason he keeps coming back to it, and not for the first time. Pulling out the glass shard, watching the water in the sink turn a swirling red.

"Tom would never be able to handle this. Would he?"

"No," I admit, without even having to think twice. "He'd never understand it, and honestly, I don't even think he'd try. He wouldn't want to, it'd hurt him too much."

Putting the kit down, I stand in front of him, curling my hands in the hem of his shirt and saying, "Lift your arms."

"I hate that." He obeys, raising his arms, pulling in a breath and really feeling - for the first time - how sore the rest of him is. Even if, at the time, it had felt like it took almost no effort at all.

"Who I am doesn't really bother me anymore, but that... He couldn't love me the way I am now. He might try, but he wouldn't be able to do it."

"He'd still love you," I point out, tossing his shirt carelessly into the corner, "That'd be part of the problem."

He's got some bruises already darkening on his skin, and I can tell from how stiffly he's moving that he's gonna be in a world of pain by tomorrow.

"Maybe I oughta put you in the bath," I murmur, pushing a hands back through his hair, my thumbs brushing over his temples.

"Whatever you want," he breathes, his eyes closing again.

It's as if a wall in him has cracked and something is trickling through, threatening to turn to a flood. He's been working so hard on drawing lines, on maintaining balances, and he's completely missed a singular and massive failure in all of those respects. And that should frighten him, and it doesn't.

"I just wanna stop thinking for a while."

"When do you ever think?" I tease, tapping my palm lightly against his cheek and then leaning over to turn on the taps.

"We got this big fuckin' tub, we might as well use it."

"Yeah, it's always too fucking much or nowhere near enough." He eyes the tub and the steam already rising from the water streaming into it, and thinking about sinking down into it makes him ache even more.

"So, what, you gonna wash my back?"

"Why, you don't want me to?" I tease, giving him a look, "Maybe I wanna wash all that shit off of you, so fuckin' sue me."

"I didn't say I don't want you to. I want you to."

He watches the water for a moment, oddly entranced. Maybe it's just that he's tired. Maybe it's the fun neurochemical cocktail he's got going on. "We should get some bubble bath."

Snorting out a laugh, I say, "We can steal some from the girls, if you wanna smell like bubble gum."

"Maybe I do. What're you, judging me about that, now?" He leans his head against Neil's shoulder, half butting at him and half nuzzling.

"We should get our own. Something floral."