Drache-Königin (edincoat) wrote in makrothumia, @ 2009-01-11 04:00:00 |
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Whipstickagostop
Bruises were a constant thing now, long-fingered and fading in and out into one another. More dark around both wrists, lighter and less frequent up higher on the arms right to his shoulders. No pain involved, just mild irritation that they don’t really bother to speak to each other anymore and yet here he is with Martin’s hold on him harsh against his skin.
It’s enough to make a less patient man crazy.
But as it is he just reminds himself to not roll up his sleeves so that Viviane won’t see, and keep out of reach of Elena and her trailing fingers so that she won’t press the shirt against his skin and notice discolorations under the fabric.
He feels a bit shaky after that last brush with death, and sits at his desk long after everyone but Martin has gone home. Not because he wants to speak to Martin, or even look at the man, but because he doesn’t feel like he should move right now not yet in a moment please. And to his credit the younger man just sits at his own desk with his back turned to the entire office and types away, looking up leads on cold cases like he can actually make a difference in someone’s life other than his own.
Lifts his hand over to the switch on the base of his desk lamp, flicks it on off on off on, repeats until he has a good rhythm going, smiles to himself as he enjoys the game, ignores the flashes of darkened skin against sallow pallor that is his wrist under the sharp fluorescent glare.
“Morse code?”
His fingers still leaving the lamp on to shine bright in the darkness, and turns a little to see Martin looking over his shoulder at him, slightly amused expression piercing through the darkness.
“I’m sorry?”
“Morse code, that thing you’re doing.”
He hmms low in his throat, and removes his hand from the make-shift toy he was distracting himself with. The shakes are lessening, that’s good, and he reaches across the desk to grab his cell phone before standing and shrugging on his coat.
“Sorry man, don’t know Morse Code. What was I saying?”
Martin tilts his head a little, shrugs, then turns back to his work station.
“S.O.S.”
He pauses mid-motion, stares at the back of his co-workers’ head, and then heads towards the lift.
Save our ship. Figures.
He uses half an ear listening to his nephew prattle on, and inspects his arms in the softer light of his flat while cradling the phone with tilted head and lifted shoulder. Says really and that’s cool man in the right places, and thinks about chopping off all of Martin’s fingers to give the bruises time to heal, then affixing them back onto his hand using duct tape and maybe some sort of super-strength glue when he wants to be touched again.
“And the teacher had us do this live-read thing of Plutus by this Aristo-something guy, and I got to play the slave, and it was so much fun. I got to talk back to Johnny Kentwood, who was playing the nobleman who owned me, and make faces at Neven Hill who was playing Plutus! And at the end, my last line, had the word entrails in it. Entrails, tío. How awesome is that?”
He drops his arms from his immediate view and frowns off into the distance. “That does sound awesome, Nick, but why did you like talking back to Johnny? I thought he was your friend?”
His nephew audibly sighs on the other end, obviously ruminating about the idiocy of adults, his uncle in particular. Says, “Yeah, he is, but we had a fight today so it was great calling him stupid and not getting hit for it.”
“He hits you? Nick, that isn’t a friend.”
“I hit him too, tío Danny. It‘s normal.”
And he brings his eyes back into focus, into the here and now, and wonders if that method would work for him too.
Dreams come easily after a hard case, easier still when he manages to get home in time to knock back two cups of coffee and unwind in front of reruns of old sitcoms that he had no time to watch during their original run when he was a kid. He slips between the sheets and closes his eyes, and there he is in a different place in a different world, doing different things than what he is doing in his real life.
It almost works to keep him relaxed when he wakes, but never so much that he doesn’t keen a little and cause him to wake with a hitch in his throat saying the first half of Martin and the latter part of please.
He wakes up in a pool of sweat most mornings, trickling down his bare chest and sliding down to soak even more liquid salt into the sheets, and he always heaves a breath before prying his fingers off his upper arm.
“This has to stop,” he tells himself softly in the darkness. “This has to stop now.”
It hasn’t stopped in the past two years, and probably won’t for a half-dozen more.
Back to the bruises now, he looks at them in the mirror with his shirt still off, salt crusted over his skin spelling out letters of discontent and drawing patterns of unease. Lighter towards the shoulders, darker towards the wrists. It’s like he has black bands around them, these wrists of his, and he lifts his hands to examine the greenish dark yellow black blue that imprints his skin.
These are from Martin, he knows because he never touches them to make them any different. Grasping too tight to lead him to a relevant point in the case, pulling too lightly while asking if he wants any coffee. Just wrapping those long digits around his wrist and leaving them there, asking if he’s all right and does he need anything, saying such comforting words with blank eyes and monotone lilt that should be a non-combination but when it comes to Martin, it isn’t.
He lifts one hand to his face, darts a tongue out to taste the salt-slicked skin that is marked by a man who permanently crawls under his skin while leaving streaks of black and blue in his wake, and he shudders.
“This has to stop,” he says to his wrist, still hovering in front of his lips, and he means it this time too.
They are the last two left again, Martin hunched over his keyboard working himself to death and him making shadow puppets in front of a manipulated desk lamp. The shapes don’t mean anything, show to be more of a wiggling mass of darkness hovering in front of the light instead of trite names like dog and cat and little birdie.
The sudden sound of Martin’s monitor switching off makes him spins around to catch sight of Martin standing to gather his jacket and knapsack from the back of his chair. He stops and raises an eyebrow at the sudden ceasing of the shadow theatre, and pauses mid-heft of the probably super heavy backpack containing only god knows what.
Motions his head towards the wall, and tilts his it sideways. “You done now?”
He replies, “Yeah.”
Nods and shrugs on his suit jacket with one arm. “Well then, come on.”
He staggers upright, leans over to switch off the lamp, and walks quickly over to him. “Or, alternate option, we can stay here.”
The look of surprise on Martin’s face should stop him, really it should. He rehearsed what the proper action to take was all throughout the day, even to the extent of leaning across the table to the head suspect and asking if telling a man that he has to stop touching you or you’ll go insane was a good way to start a conversation or if perhaps it would be best to lead with a joke.
But instead of stopping, he presses close and dips his head low, breathing softly over tense neck and bobbing adam’s apple as Martin swallows in what is most likely a nervous manner.
“What are you doing, Danny?” he asks him, another swallow as the backpack lands on the floor with a heavy thud.
He presses his lips to the hollow of Martin’s neck, and tastes the different brand of sweat residue left there. “This.”
Nips teeth where he just kissed, and draws a ragged breath from the smaller man, earns a shove at his shoulders that propel him backwards half a step.
Martin narrows his eyes at him, and does his best to stand tall in the limited space provided. “Danny, what? Are you on something? You’re on something, aren’t you?”
Frustration gnaws at his spinal column, or whatever is located up and down his back where the itch is now making itself known. Something akin to fervour is taking over his mind, he can feel it move into his mental space, and it makes his hands shake just a little while he intakes a breath and leans in again. Hooks fingers over Martin’s belt and pulls up against him without any real fight.
“What do you think?”
He palms him through the trousers, grinds down hard with the heel of his hand against what will soon mirror his own state of perpetual ‘being-around-partner’ arousal. Martin lifts up his hands to push again, and so he counters with a drop to his knees and a pressing of his mouth against the cold steel of a zipper, breathing hard to shove warmth through the fabric.
Martin’s fingers dig into his shoulder, and he glances upwards to meet bewildered eyes and panting mouth. Those same fingers flex into muscle and bone, and he swallows and gasps to get out words.
“I think you’re on something,” he practically breathes out, and he licks his lips before shivering a bit and almost falling.
He smiles and bites at the pull of the zipper, yanks it down. Reaches in and pulls out Martin’s cock before he dares to loosen his teeth around the tiny bit of metal. Licks the tip, just a mere touch, and looks upwards to grin at the bowed head and darkened gaze directed towards him.
“Yeah, I am. I’m on you.”
And then he begins.
He sits on the subway line in the vague direction of his home, the taste of Martin still lingering on his tongue and his wrists hurting from another layer of imprinted fingers.
Martin is probably in a taxi, freaking out as calmly as he can manage and planning how to shoot him and get away with it.
He tries to smile at the thought, but grimaces instead. This was supposed to solve his problem, not aggravate it.
He licks his lips to taste the come and musk, and dreads the dreams that are sure to visit him tonight.
not heard but felt
It is two days later when he decides what he is going to do. Mainly because he has the time, it being the weekend and all, plus the fact that he really needed to turn over every option in his mind before choosing the correct course of action.
The final plan, plot, devious way to get what he wants and needs, is written like this in his psyche:
o1. Follow Danny Home.
o2. Before he gets into building, drag him to dimly lit alleyway.
o3. Return the favour from Friday night, then invite out for coffee and maybe a discussion.
o4. Repeat step three in different alley, just for revenge.
Fool-proof, he thinks to himself. Brilliant, he ventures once or twice. A little outlandish, his practical side mutters off in the corner of his consciousness, picking lint out from under its fingernails and being sulky because for the first time in a long while it isn‘t being listened to.
Monday morning rolls around, and as he showers off the sweat from his daily run, he hazards a jaunty whistling tune.
“Formulated plan is a no-go, retreat and regroup,” he says to himself under his breath as he stares at the back of Danny’s head, trying to burn holes into it with his gaze. Not working, and he is beginning to think that perhaps he doesn’t actually have heat-vision like that X-Man guy. Very dispiriting.
Sam walks up to him and hits his shoulder good-naturedly, but since he wasn’t expecting it, he jerks to the side and knocks over his computer monitor. It lands with a rather loud crash onto the floor, and a few sparks fly before the screen flickers and dies.
“Nice,” she says.
“Yeah,” he replies.
He chances a glance over at Danny, and is a little angry to see that he still hasn’t turned around.
Stakeouts are his least favourite thing about this job, and he decides that in the future he will cheat when it comes time to draw straws for the job. That, or refuse to participate because of a medical condition that he can make up on the spot.
Viviane looks as bored as he is, and plays some solitaire game in her lap, trusting him to keep watch for the suspect and not watch her flips cards around like some magician.
“Martin, pay attention to the house,” she says, jolting him from his amazement and making him do an about-face to focus on the suspect’s place of residence as if he never even wavered in his commitment to the job.
Nothing happens for three beats except the sound of cards flipping, and he decides the hell with it, and heaves a sigh. “If I go crazy and shoot myself in the foot, tell Jack it was justified, all right?”
She chuckles as more cards go ‘flip flip’ in the dim light of the setting sun, and then shuffling sounds ensue. “Think of it this way, Martin. Sam and Danny are having the same boring time as we are.”
Somehow, that doesn’t comfort him.
Theodore Poduker, the man with one of the most unfortunate names ever, runs like the wind in front of him, and he does his best to at least be a conflicting breeze in the scheme of things as he races after him. He probably would have caught him by now, but the weaving and darting and general Parkour-like style of fleeing is something he isn’t used to, and he finds himself slipping in places he thinks that he probably shouldn’t be slipping.
So he does his best to yell “STOP” at him as he leaps over yet another boulder--what is this, a boulder park with a smattering of trees?--and hopes that if the man falls off of a cliff that he manages to stop in time before he follows him down.
Because that would be the worst death ever. Running after suspect in missing person’s case, couldn’t stop like the Coyote guy in the cartoons and probably pulled out a sign saying ‘Uh-Oh’ before plummeting downwards to his death.
The ground levels out a little as they start to run alongside the canal, and he hopes the man gets into the water, because at least then he could swim after him, and then drown the bastard by pure accident. Or at least, he could make him swallow a lot of semi-polluted water.
He puts on a burst of speed, and reaches out to grab the man’s jacket. His fingers graze the fabric, he tries to run a little faster, and then there is no Theodore Poduker in front of him.
He slows, almost trips forward, and is glad this isn’t the part with the cliff. Turns back and looks at the splashing, and grins at wet Danny and sputtering suspect.
“You stole my move, Taylor,” he says as his partner crawls out of the canal dragging the murdering bastard out with him. “I demand payment for infringement of copyright.”
Danny coughs a little and squints up at him, looking most decidedly peevish, then his face cracks and he starts to laugh.
He laughs with him, and thinks that maybe a modified plan could be put into play.
Jack hits him between the shoulder blades in a congratulatory fashion, and he can’t help but wince at the force behind the blow. The rat-like suspect glares at them from inside the police car, and makes a few childish faces, and he considers making faces back just for the fun of it.
Sam gasps from beside him, and he starts a little. “Danny, what happened to your arms?”
He turns to look at a just-took-off-his-jacket Danny, and feels his eyebrows raise of their own accord. Dark stripes show up and down his arms through the wet shirt, and the look of deer-in-headlights terror on his partner’s face makes everything dip and swerve around him. This isn’t good, he thinks to himself. This isn’t good at all.
Special Agent Taylor shrugs back on his jacket as if a rapidly ruining suit jacket was the most comfortable thing in the world to wear, and wipes the shock off of his face with a brilliant smile. “Nothing important, they’re just healing bruises.”
Jack walks over to pull one shoulder of the jacket off with a glare, and inspects the closest bruise through translucent when wet fabric. “There are a lot of these, you sure you‘re okay?”
He feels spellbound as Danny looks straight at him when he says, “Don’t worry, they’re healing.”
He follows Danny to the hotel room without saying anything, mostly because he is still just a bit bewildered, and also because he really doesn’t know what to say. The older man had adopted an expression that suggested he had just been hit by a Mack Truck and hasn’t really regained all of the mental faculties he had possession of before the ordeal as soon as Jack let him head back to his room, and it made it all the more difficult to say anything.
And the looking at him when he said it, that was just odd.
They reach the side of the building, still out of sight of the walkway but kind of close anyway, and he impulsively reaches out and grabs hold of Danny’s wrist. Notices the wince, thinks oh god he did injure himself when he tackled the guy, and loosens his grip. Slightly.
Danny looks straight at him with an amused expression, so finally the shell-shock is gone, and opens his mouth to say something.
That isn’t a good idea, because he really doesn’t want to hear what he has to say, so he pulls him forward and kisses him.
It isn’t a good kiss, not with the clashing of teeth that sort of rattles their skulls a bit from the force or the sort of hitch of breath that they simultaneously take when he sticks his tongue inside of Danny’s mouth, but it’s a good first try, and he enjoys it thoroughly when the other man moans a little.
He pulls away with raised eyebrows, and takes in the bemused man in front of him. “So bruises, huh?”
Danny nods, and laughs a little. “Yeah, bruises.”
He decides he isn’t going to ask for the details.
It isn’t until they get back to the city that he thinks about modifying his plan and perhaps putting it into action, because finding the missing kid alive took up most of their time, and figuring out if he really should ask Danny about the marks on his skin since he is his friend occupied his thoughts on the plane ride home.
They get back into the office, and everyone drags their feet a little as they force themselves to work on reports and try to survive until the end of the shift.
He stares at the blank word processor, yet one more report to write and he hasn’t a clue which one he hasn’t turned in yet so he’s having a bit of a crisis mentally as to what to start with, and he catches in the corner of his eye Danny standing up and heading in the direction of the men’s bathroom.
Looks at the blinking cursor for a moment, and then gets up to follow.
Danny is leaning over the sink splashing water on his face when he finally gets there, and he doesn’t bother to say anything to him as he looks at all of the empty stalls and reaches behind him to lock the door. Finally looks directly at Danny looking confused right back at him, and grins.
“Tough day, huh?” he asks, strolling over to him with his hands in his pockets, getting right up close to him and backing him against the wall.
Danny frowns at him, and looks around at the locked door. “Why did you lock us in?”
He thinks maybe the combination of the choked moan with the loud crack as Danny gives himself a concussion against the tiled wall might be the sexiest sound he’s heard in his life, and he hasn’t even done anything other than drop to his knees and unzip him at the same time. He looks up at his partner to see a glazed expression, and thinks maybe the reason Danny’s been cranky lately has been because of him.
Amends his previous ‘sexy sound’ award to relegate it to the runner-up category, because the groan as he takes him in his mouth is definitely in first place.
It doesn’t take long to make his partner loose control--a few licks of the underside, a bit of teeth grazing the skin just so, sucking so hard his cheeks hollow right there at the end--and he fights not to choke as Danny spills down his throat with a gasp and bruising grip on his shoulders. He forms a mantra in his mind, relax relax relax, and swallows it all with a grin.
Looks up at Danny again, takes in the glazed expression, and smiles.
“You okay?” he asks as Special Agent Taylor slides down the wall to sort of settle into his lap.
Danny pitches forward to rest his forehead on the crux of his shoulder where it meets the next, and mumbles unintelligently.
“Danny, are you okay?”
“Shut up.”
He chokes back a laugh, and wraps an arm around his friend.
Modified plan is a success, prepare for next stage.