Who: Dominic Akana & Luke Hayes What: Luke is worried about his brother & asks Dom over, dark secrets are shared Where: Ashland, Oregon (Luke’s apartment) When: Backdated to December 6th, 2017, late evening Warnings: Mentions of past physical & sexual abuse Status: Incomplete
Luke was not the sort of man who was particularly fond of admitting a weakness. Usually he avoided doing so at all costs, and often at the expense of others. In his worst moods, Luke thought he might actually prefer falling on his own sword to looking weak to anyone, least of all someone like Dom. Dom, who from the moment he’d walked into the palace at Vere had been an utter nuisance in Luke’s life, simply by having the audacity to exist. Luke had been just fine before all this. Before Laurent. Before Vere. Before Damianos of fucking Akielos. Before Luke’s life had become unnecessarily complicated by reincarnation, and all of the meddlesome feelings and memories that came along with it.
Objectively, there was nothing wrong with Dom. Quite the opposite, actually, which was maybe the most infuriating thing about him. He was too much like Damen, which made Luke twice as wary around him and even more determined to keep him at a respectable distance. He was too good, too honest, so very genuine that it made Luke feel a little bit bad about himself. Which, naturally, meant that he found more reason to torment Dom for his troubles. Luke was damaged goods, and he didn’t like being reminded of that every time Dom said or did something thoughtful, like that was at all normal.
The fact is, Luke had been quietly obsessing about him since they first met. Obsessing, not thinking about him. It was a subtle but very important difference. He couldn’t understand how anyone in the world they were living in could possibly be so well intentioned. Granted, the world Luke had grown up in wasn’t typical even for most young boys. Still. He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. After spending the better part of a week together in Vere, he’d been no closer to understanding it, and he’d only seen Dom once since then when the ridiculously large man had come to collect his sweatshirt.
He honestly hadn’t meant to call him tonight, but after the message from Will he’d received earlier, Luke wasn’t thinking straight. He was very close to panicking, actually, so he’d done something he didn’t usually do and he started drinking. Only wine, but he never drank, and he was such a lightweight it only took a few glasses for him to feel completely loaded. That was when he’d gotten the bright idea to call Dom and ask him to come over, for reasons he couldn’t possibly start to comprehend, but it was too late now. He was already on his way, so Luke coped with that by pouring another drink for himself and waiting.
It didn't take a genius to know that Luke asking for anything from anyone was a blue moon kind of occasion; even if Dom had been in the middle of something important when he'd gotten that call he would have dropped it immediately and gone when Luke asked him. If he hadn't he knew he'd have been hearing from Damen about it until he did give in and go see what Luke—and Laurent—needed. Since Dom hadn't been doing much of anything at all he'd dropped everything and headed straight for the nearest MTN hub. He didn't even bother with his hoodie and sunglasses. That was probably a mistake, since it was a little cold to be walking through town in just a flannel shirt and beat up jeans, but Dom wasn't going to waste any more time by turning around and getting something then. He barely noticed the cold anyway. He was too busy thinking about how serious this must have been for Luke to call Dom, of all people, for... what? Help? Just company? Dom didn't even know but it hadn't occurred to him for a second to turn it down or ask if it could wait. He was afraid if he took too long then Luke might change his mind and refuse to let him in.
Dom's cheeks were pink with the cold by the time he reached Luke's door and the tips of his ears and fingers were starting to get a little numb. He figured Luke would probably make fun of him for it, big brute of a guy like Dom letting a little chilly weather beat him up... or insult his intelligence for not grabbing a coat first. That'd almost be a relief. It'd be more like the Luke he'd gotten to know, just the slightest bit, while they were in Vere. It shouldn't have been so comforting to Dom, that Luke's tongue was so sharp, but it felt a little like coming home in the wreckage that his life had turned into. He worried that he might actually be a masochist sometimes, with how much he enjoyed it, but he figured it was at least one familiar thing... to Damen, if not to Dom.
At least if Luke was making fun of Dom he wouldn't be thinking too hard about what it was that his brother was apparently doing that was so dangerous. Dom hadn't known much about Luke's brother... he couldn't even remember if he'd known for a fact that he had one or if he'd just been assuming because of Laurent's brother. Either way, Dom figured that a brother doing something that might get him killed would cut a little close to home for Laurent and make the whole thing worse.
His rap on the door was firm, three sharp taps of his knuckles before he shoved his hands in his pockets and waited. He knew that Luke was home; if it took him too long to answer then Dom would knock again. Even if it meant that Luke had changed his mind about wanting the company, Dom wasn't going to go anywhere now that he knew that Luke had needed him enough to let down his guard even for a minute and ask him to come there. Who knew how long it would take before Luke would do something like that again if Dom just gave up and walked away if it took him a few minutes too long to get up and get to the door? Maybe Dom didn't know exactly what he wanted out of whatever this was with Luke yet but he did know that he never wanted to walk away.
When Luke first heard the sharp rappings at the door, he did briefly reconsider his decision to ask Dom to come over. It was obviously too late to back out now, though of course if he’d really wanted to be difficult, he still could have refused to open the door now that Dom was here. It was his apartment, after all. He would be well within his rights to not let him in. Yes, it would be a bit rude considering he’d been the one to ask Dom to travel all this way for him, but Luke had never cared about being perceived as ‘rude’ before. He wasn’t interested in dwelling on any reason there might be for why he might care now, but that was the beauty of alcohol, he was quickly discovering. Thinking was vastly overrated.
Despite how much he’d already had to drink, he still appeared remarkably composed when he finally answered the door, still making Dom wait a full minute because he could. His face was a little flushed from the alcohol, but the pinkness in his cheeks was nothing compared to how red Dom’s were when Luke first opened the door and took in the sight of Dom without so much as a light jacket on. Arching an eyebrow high into his forehead, Luke’s face eventually relaxed into his usual smirk. “Forgot a sweatshirt? I would lend you one of mine, but I don’t think it has enough holes for you to feel at home in it.”
Not exactly up to his usual biting remarks standards but he couldn’t be bothered with a better zinger, mostly because he really needed to sit back down. Normally he would have maybe kept Dom in the doorway for a little bit longer just to torment him, but now he stepped aside to give the man room to step in and left the door wide open as he made his way carefully back into the living room, clearly under the assumption that Dom would take care of the door for him because he was too busy finding the couch.
Somehow, Luke managed to gracefully flop back down in the spot he’d been occupying in the corner of his couch with all of the pillows before he’d been forced to get up and answer the door. The cup that was sitting on the lamp table next to him was inexplicably full of wine again, and after a pause Luke looked over at Dom curiously, his expression absent of the guards that were usually in place as he gestured uselessly with one hand towards the kitchen behind them. “Want something to drink? I have plenty.”
If it'd been a normal day, and a normal encounter with Luke, Dom would have made a crack about whether Luke was sure he hadn't finished it all off. The younger man looked intoxicated enough that Dom would have believed that he might have... and Dom knew what drunk looked like. He was usually careful about overdoing it himself. He had to be; when a guy was as big as Dom was, if he wasn't careful and mindful of his strength all the time he could do damage that he could never repair. For all the good that it'd done him with convincing everyone that he wasn't just some big brutal bruiser, Dom had never let himself get drunk enough to forget how strong he was and how easily he could break most people.
Luke's face stopped him. He looked warm and drunk and a little vulnerable and maybe Dom wasn't the best with people but he got the feeling that if he bit back now there was a good chance all the walls would come back up and he'd never get to see Luke without them again. Not that Dom minded Luke having walls. That was just who Laurent—who Luke—was. He just wanted to be inside those walls instead of outside them. Even if he wasn't sure what else he wanted from Luke he was sure of that. He was sure that Luke needed someone inside them with him too, just as much as Laurent ever had.
"I'm good. Thanks." Dom settled himself much more carefully at the other side of the couch. The movement still didn't have even a fraction of the grace that Luke's flop had and for the space of a breath Dom was a little jealous of that. He was always going to be a guy operating in a world that was never built quite big enough for him and there was nothing that he could do to change that. It faded quickly though. Maybe he was too big to fit anywhere but that also meant that he was big enough that anyone who saw him would think twice before fucking with him, at least until they'd gotten to know him well enough that they knew how to find all his soft places and go right for where it would hurt the most.
Not that he planned on spending the night thinking about his brother and his ex-wife when Luke had invited him there for some reason that might be a mystery even to him.
Dom let the silence settle for a moment before he shifted (the couch creaked when he moved) to look toward Luke. "So what's your brother like?"
Luke bit back the first words that threatened to spill from his lips in response, which were, ‘a lot like you’. He may be drunker than he’d possibly ever been right now (and would hopefully still be drunker by the end of the night), but there were some places that Luke still would not go to, including comparing Dom to Will. It was too close to any subject that could possibly revolve around Auguste, and Luke refused to take this conversation there. His life was already far too much like Laurent’s for his liking, that is if you substituted castles and monarchy feuds with the Irish mob and a more modern set of family politics.
It was true, though. The similarities didn’t stop at the fact that they were both freakishly large and always took up more space than they meant to (a quality Luke always pretended to be annoyed with when he really wasn’t). Dom had Will’s kindness, if not Will’s dangerously sharp mind. Despite the biting remarks he often made, Luke didn’t actually think Dom was a completely moron, but there was no comparing the two. Where Dom’s mind was more geared towards the physical, Will was more like Luke in this way. They were both too clever for their own good, only for a long time no one else knew that about Will but Luke.
“I believe…” Luke licked his lips, starting slowly as he mostly avoided Dom’s gaze, “that when we were in Vere together, I at some point mentioned that I was there to avoid some family drama?” Not entirely true, but not entirely a lie either. It had been related, but like hell had Luke been willing to confess that much to a complete stranger, Damianos of Akielos or not. “Well, my brother is at the center of it all.” A short pause while he took a long drink from his wine glass, quite possibly steeling himself to continue. He could have refused to tell Dom anything, of course, but something compelled him to divulge, and not because it was the considerate thing to do, since the other man had come all this way when Luke had asked him.
“When we were children… I was eight, Will was a few years older. There was an accident, a head injury. Something the doctors were sure irreversibly changed him, but I don’t think so. He has problems with his speech, but he’s still the same kind, protective older brother that he was before the accident.” The way Luke’s tone softened made it obvious how he really felt about Will, and he was too drunk to be angry that his own voice had betrayed him in this way. “Everyone thinks he’s stupid now, but he’s actually the smartest person I’ve ever met. And I’m the only one who knows it. He’s… sacrificed a lot for me.”
It was tempting to cut in on the story in those pauses that Luke took. Dom nodded his way through them instead, his eyes fixed on Luke's face. It was strange seeing him this way—open. Baring something that Dom knew he didn't really have any right to ask him to but Luke had been the one to call him there in the first place.
One thing came clear pretty quickly: Luke loved his brother. It was sort of strange knowing that Luke loved anything that much when he'd done his best to stay as cold as he could in front of Dom before. It made Dom's heart kick with something a little like jealousy... not that he wanted Luke to think of him as his brother. He didn't know what he wanted Luke to think of him as exactly, but the way he felt about the younger man wasn't at all brotherly. Knowing how much he loved Will though... Dom wasn't sure that anyone had ever loved him that much. Definitely not his own brother. Definitely not his ex-wife. He kept his hand resting on his thigh when he wanted to reach out and offer some kind of comfort. Maybe he didn't know the whole story but he knew that Will was important to Luke. That was enough.
"He sounds like a good brother," Dom finally said when it seemed like he had to say something. He sounded like a man who'd been through a lot and Dom was pretty sure it wasn't as clear cut as Luke was making it sound. Things like that never were, especially if they required someone to make a sacrifice. Maybe it hadn't been anything as serious as Dom was imagining. He doubted that though. With Luke it was always going to be complicated and difficult.
He still felt too big and too awkward on Luke's couch. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing with himself. He was there to comfort Luke, somehow. He knew that Luke would pull away if he tried to touch just like he knew that the sun was going to rise in the morning. Dom cleared his throat and added on a little bit more that he knew still wasn't going to feel like enough. "Must have been hard, growing up like that."
Luke snorted, his tone suddenly as cold as ice. “That was never what made growing up hard.” An oversimplification, possibly. Despite Luke’s indignance, he was sure that having to adjust post-accident had been incredibly hard, at least for Will. But Luke had never looked at his brother differently. Maybe he’d come out of that accident different in some ways, no one would be the same after something like that, but in all the ways that mattered, Will was still the older brother that Luke knew and loved.
For a brief moment, he was annoyed with Dom. He wasn’t sure why. Dom had been nothing but kind and patient with him, humoring him and Luke knew it, but he resented it nonetheless, if only because he could. What did he know about it, anyway? Luke didn’t know anything about Dom’s life prior to meeting him, he suddenly realized, but in that moment he was sure it had to have been much more charmed than Luke’s for Dom to have maintained such an irritatingly naive outlook on the world.
Luke’s world was harsh, and ugly. Now that he’d started talking, Luke wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about any of it. Despite sitting down, he felt dizzy from the amount of wine he’d already had, but strangely it was the only thing keeping him remotely calm. Luke swallowed another gulp of it, still mostly avoiding Dom’s gaze. “I was lucky that I hadn’t lost him.” The implication was there, that unlike Laurent, Luke had still been able to grow up with an older brother. He couldn’t help but lash out now that he felt cornered.
Dom hadn't been trying to imply that losing his brother would have been easier, and he was pretty sure that Luke knew it; Luke was just being Luke and that made it easy to take a deep breath instead of trying to argue with him that he was twisting his words around. This was Luke. Of course he was twisting Dom's words around and of course that vulnerable moment couldn't last long before he was trying to snap his defenses back into place. All Dom could do was...
Wait. He sat back, forcing himself to relax against the back cushion of the couch for a second before he spoke. The second he snapped he had a feeling that this was over. His voice was totally calm when he asked, "So what was the hard part?"
Judging by the fact that this had started with Luke worrying that his brother—his brother who everyone but Luke thought was stupid—was going to do something to get himself hurt, it probably wasn't anything great. Dom didn't know anything about Luke. Maybe he should have tried harder to get to know him but... when? It wasn't like Luke had ever volunteered anything before and it wasn't like he was even being all that forthcoming with it now. Part of Dom wanted to point out that he hadn't had to come. If Luke was anyone else, and if Damen wouldn't have mentally kicked his ass when they knew what Laurent was like, Dom would have shot off with that comment without a second thought.
It might have bothered Dom that he was changing if it wasn't for the fact that he was pretty sure that any change couldn't be that bad a thing. The guy he was before hadn't exactly been in the best position and he hadn't exactly trusted the best people. Dom figured that this couldn't be any worse.
Luke could have chosen that moment to get further irritated with Dom for being so nice and accommodating towards him. Any other day he would have, but at the moment, he was just liquored up enough that he couldn’t quite muster up the mental energy it took to deliver the sort of mind games he was usually capable of. He’d had enough wine before Dom had gotten here that his walls were slipping. Not all of them, but enough that he was allowing the other man to get inside them if he really wanted to, and Luke was currently too inebriated and twisted up to do much to stop him. It was really mildly irritating.
What was the hard part? It was such a straightforward question that at first, Luke honestly didn’t know how to answer it. That was a first for him, considering Luke normally had an answer for everything. His usually bright, blue eyes grew stormy, his gaze straying to a pattern on the sofa for a long moment where he seemed to be lost in thought, his mind fighting in vain against all of the wine currently swimming in it.
“Our father,” he finally said, eyes raising just enough to almost make eye contact with him. “He’s not a good man. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.” Luke spoke bitterly, like he almost couldn’t stand how familiar this conversation was already starting to feel to him. “He’s the reason Will got hurt. He’s the reason for a lot of things. I haven’t been home in over ten years because Will could only get me out, he couldn’t leave with me, but I couldn’t…” he strained to keep his voice steady. “... stay there any longer.”
Dom wanted to ask why—not why he'd wanted to leave. Just hearing that Luke's father hadn't been a good man was enough to make anger start simmering in his chest. As much as he wanted to not understand what being the reason that Luke's brother had gotten hurt could have meant, he wasn't that ignorant of the way the world worked and how big of a bastard someone you should have been able to trust could be. He understood completely why Luke had wanted, needed, to get out of there with or without his brother along.
It was that angry part of Dom that wanted to know what exactly it was that had pushed Luke over that last edge so that he couldn't wait any longer. He wanted to know every detail of what this man, this sorry excuse for a father, had done to Luke so that he could know every last thing that he deserved to be paid back for. It would hurt to hear it and Dom knew that, but that same angry part wanted it to. If Luke had hurt then he wanted to hurt too, for him, even if it wouldn't do anything to lessen it or take it away from the man on the couch beside him.
Asking why would only make Luke look at him like he was stupid. Dom didn't know how to ask what he really wanted to know. He'd feel stupid if he even tried to fumble his way into the words.
The look on his face was dark but he took a deep breath and let it out slowly instead of charging out the door to go take care of the problem for Luke, the way he wanted to. He nodded his understanding and inched a little closer on the sofa. "That's a long time to be away from someone you love."
From the only person that Luke really loved, Dom would guess.
“Mm.” That was the only verbal acknowledgement to Dom’s observation at first, but it was more in agreement with him than anything else. Ten years was long, too long, and there were days when it still managed to escape Luke’s notice that it had really been ten years if he stayed busy enough. He’d spent so long building his walls and making them impenetrable that they often succeeded more than they failed, but much to his own annoyance, no one was completely invulnerable. Even him. There were times when it would sneak up on Luke without warning, and then he would suddenly find it harder to breathe.
It also didn’t escape his notice that Dom had moved an inch closer on the couch, but for the moment, Luke chose to ignore it. Drunk or not drunk, he didn’t fear the man’s presence. Quite the opposite, though he’d never tell Dom that if he could help it, but he felt safer with Dom than he had in years. It was at least half of the entire reason he’d called him here in the first place that night, but there was no need to get that sentimental. Luke was already uncomfortable enough with how much he’d already shown Dom tonight, but thankfully, there was still plenty of wine left to dull whatever senses of shame he had left.
With a healthy drink from his glass, Luke sighed quietly. “Yes. It is.” His gaze leveled with Dom’s in the dim lighting of the room, taking a moment to study the other man’s face curiously. Luke recognized that look, and he wasn’t sure if Dom even knew how much his own features had betrayed him. Luke took another drink before speaking, turning his head just enough so that he was giving Dom a sidelong glance instead of any direct eye contact. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t my father.”
It took a moment for that to completely sink in and for all the pieces to come together.
Luke might have been overestimating Dom's intelligence there, not that Dom was going to tell him that. He'd known something bad had happened. Luke had told him that, maybe not in so many words but those were lines that even Dom could read between. He'd assumed... he didn't know what he'd assumed. That his father had beat him maybe. That he'd beat them all.
It wasn't his father. And there was only one place that Dom, knowing Laurent as well as anyone else could, would go when he started thinking about the worst things that could happen—because they had happened in another life and Damen had already almost killed over it once before. Someone had... they'd... Dom's brain stuttered around the reality of the only thing that Luke could possibly have meant for him to say it like that. He hoped that he was wrong. He hoped that for once he was the one reading too much into what he was hearing.
"Who?" His voice was deadly soft. If anyone had hurt Luke like that...
Dom still couldn't do anything about it without ending up in jail for it. It might have been worth it.
Luke was just drunk enough to talk about it, at least enough to acknowledge that it had happened, which was saying a lot since Luke had previously been under the assumption that he would rather die than ever utter a word about this out loud to anyone. He was stubbornly not acknowledging any reasons for why the combination of alcohol consumption and Dom’s company was making him feel more compelled to confess now, but at least he was nearly drunk enough that there was a good chance he wouldn’t remember all of the excruciating details of this conversation in the morning. One could hope, anyway.
“My father’s business partner.” He said the word ‘business’ like it was a joke, but Dom still didn’t know just what kind of ‘business’ his family had even been involved in so he wasn’t actually in on the joke. His own throat was feeling curiously dry all of a sudden despite how much he’d been drinking. “More like a family friend, in some respects. I trusted him. And we both know the end of that story.” Luke’s voice was bitter with a harder edge to it as he took another drink, still carefully avoiding Dom’s gaze.
“Now as an adult I’m almost positive my father knew about it. He might have even been the one to arrange it as some sort of… deal.” Luke shrugged. “My brother got the beatings, and I got… well, that.” He finally turned his head enough to glance in Dom’s general direction. “That’s why I was in Vere that day. After ten years, I spotted him from across the street, and I immediately left town.”
If it'd been Dom...
Dom couldn't say how he would've reacted if it'd been him. Maybe he could tell himself that he would have faced the man down and made him pay for what he'd done to him, if he'd been in Luke's shoes, but he couldn't know since it hadn't been and never would be something that he had to deal with. Maybe he'd have been able to. Maybe he'd have been so broken by it that he couldn't live the kind of life he'd lived. Maybe he wouldn't have even been himself anymore if it'd been him that'd been hurt that young and that often by someone that he should have been able to trust.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if Luke's brother knew too. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe it didn't make a difference either way because in the end he'd gotten Luke out of there and somewhere that he could finish growing up as safe as he could be.
His own father though. His own father may have made a deal to sell Luke to someone who would...
Dom's heart beat an angry tattoo in his chest and he wanted to go and strangle both of them, the man who'd touched Luke and the man who'd allowed it. He didn't though. He took a deep breath and caged the anger because he was with Luke now. He wasn't with someone that deserved him being mad.
"I'm glad you did," he told him instead. He was glad that he'd gotten out of there and he was glad that Luke had been at the right place at the right time for Dom to meet him. "If he ever comes back..."
If he told Luke to call him he was pretty much guaranteeing that Luke never would, he thought. He couldn't just stick around and guard Luke's back just in case he did, either.
“If he ever comes back… what?” Luke’s blue eyes shone with a strange, new light. Maybe he should have expected this sort of reaction from Dom, but it momentarily took Luke by surprise, though he very carefully hid his shock. After all, they barely knew each other. Was it really enough that Luke had Laurent to make Dom this visibly furious on his behalf? The larger man was doing his best to breathe his way through it, but Luke was an expert at reading body language, and Dom was practically boiling over.
Perhaps in another mood, Luke would have found this flattering, maybe even tempted to exploit this development to his advantage. Instead, he was simply intrigued, tilting his head briefly to regard Dominic with a morbid sort of curiosity. Despite how much Luke prided himself in thinking of everything, this was actually a scenario he’d never anticipated. That in telling Dom his personal childhood sob story, the other man would react with such… what, loyalty? Or was it simply out of some twisted left over obligation on behalf of Damianos. That thought briefly soured Luke’s interest, but in the end his curiosity still won out.
Moving an inch closer himself was deliberate on Luke’s part, still somewhat calculating despite how inebriated he currently was. Apparently even when some manner of drunk, Luke wasn’t above testing boundaries, and right now, he was keenly interested in Dom’s. Gripping his wine glass loosely in one hand, Luke slid forward effortlessly, leaning further in once he’d resettled on the couch like he was about to tell Dom a secret. He spoke softly like he was too, looking at Dom intently. “Would you kill him?”
Dom was speechless.
He wasn't sure if it was the move or the question or the way that Luke was staring at him but it almost felt like he was the one that was too drunk to function, not Luke. Would he kill him?
If Luke had asked that question any other time, or if he'd waited until Dom had a chance to adjust to what he'd just been told—as much as he could adjust to something like that, something that would never be normal and never be okay—he'd have said no. Of course he wouldn't. They weren't in Vere or Akielos. They weren't any place where Dom could just get away with killing someone who'd hurt someone he...
What, loved? He didn't love Luke. Damen loved Laurent. Dom... and Luke... it wasn't like that. It wasn't like anything else either though. Dom didn't know what it was like, he just knew that there was only one answer to that question right then. "If you asked me to."
It was Luke's choice. If he wanted the man gone then Dom would promise, right then, to hunt him down and make sure that he never touched anyone else again. He might regret it once he'd had time for the rage to wear off but if he'd made the promise he'd do it anyway. He didn't think it was just that Luke was Laurent, but he still couldn't break his word to him once he'd given it. He had a feeling that Luke'd had enough of that in his life already and Dom knew exactly how it felt to be let down by someone you trusted.
Even with as dulled as his senses already were, Luke still felt a small thrill rocket up his spine at that. He thought he actually believed that Dom meant it, or at the very least, he believed that Dom believed he meant it. It was one thing to promise to kill for someone, it was quite another to actually follow through with the deed. Luke came from a family where killing someone was as normal as having breakfast, but he had no idea what kind of family Dom came from. He really didn’t know much about Dom at all, come to think of it, but that shouldn’t have been a surprise. Luke tried very hard to never get to know anyone.
All he really knew about Dom was that he was the reincarnate of Damianos. For the limited amount of time they’d spent together, he had also already observed how much the two seemed to share in terms of personal qualities. Damianos would have killed for Laurent in a second, and had, but he would also be just as quick to spare someone's life if he could. He was annoyingly moral that way. Luke couldn't help wondering which way Dom would go, if he actually decided to put that offer to the test.
But as tempting as it was to order a hit on the man who had taken advantage of him in his youth, Luke let the moment pass him by. If he was touched by Dom’s declaration, he also didn't show it. “Will never knew. I imagine he would have tried to kill the man himself if he had, but it didn't start happening until after his… accident.” Luke leaned back more comfortably against the couch, breaking the brief spell they'd been under in such closer proximity. “Eventually, I would have been expected to start taking part in the family business, something none of us were cut out for, especially me. So, when I was eighteen, my brother got me out of town and I never looked back.”
The details of what the family business might have been weren't important. Dom didn't come from the kind of world where families were in the kind of business you talked about that way, like there was always a little irony to it. Dom didn't need to know the specifics to know that Luke's family was shitty all the way through… except for his brother, it sounded like. Dom wanted to be angry that Will hadn't somehow known and saved Luke sooner but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't dislike him. He couldn't even blame him.
“But he stayed,” he said since he couldn't think of anything else, anything clever. “Why?”
It was probably something heroic. Something to make the older brother even more of a god to the younger just like what he was apparently doing to risk his life now probably was. As much as Dom hated that he'd been left alone in the world, he might as well blame himself for not finding him sooner as blame Will for not getting out with him.
He waited for Luke's answer anyway, waited for the part of the story that brought them together on Luke's couch that night, close enough to make Dom's pulse race even if it was just for a moment. It was funny how he'd never thought about men before, really, and now how natural and obvious it seemed to feel anything at all for Luke now.
“Our little sister.” Luke said the words with a tinge of bitterness that he couldn’t bother to mask in his current state. In his darkest times after he’d left home, he’d gone as far as actively resenting her, even though logically he knew it was far from her fault. But it was because of her that Will had stayed. It was because of her that Luke had been forced to go out into the bigger outside world alone, it was because of her that his older brother who he’d loved and looked up to since childhood had been taken from him.
It wasn’t anymore her fault than it was Luke’s fault that one of his father’s friends had decided to take advantage of him, or Will’s fault for what their father had done to him. Deep down, he understood why Will had made the choice he had, and obviously Luke wouldn’t have wanted their sister to be left alone to fend for herself in their father’s house without the two of them there to protect her. Luke knew that now. But when he was only barely eighteen, still traumatized from his own experiences while living in that house and terrified of the larger world around him? Yes, he had often resented her. Luke was only human.
“She was still in school, and too young to leave. So. Will stayed for her.” They weren’t as close as they had been a few seconds ago, but when Luke leaned his shoulder a little more heavily into the back of the couch and tilted his head sideways, he could make out features on Dom’s face that he hadn’t been able to from his corner of the couch. Luke could almost imagine how terrifying he must look when he was truly angry, it was almost unimaginable that he could be so gentle with Luke now. But then, that was Damen.
Dom could understand that. It was probably the same thing he would have done if he was in Will’s place… he thought. How was a man supposed to pick one sibling over the other when it came to who he should stay near and protect? It would have to be the youngest, the least capable of protecting themself. It didn't make Dom any fonder of the idea of Luke all on his own, away from everything he knew. He was a pretty man. He would have been a pretty boy, at eighteen.
Dom didn't think too hard about how old he would have been when Luke was a pretty eighteen-year-old boy. Now that Luke was older an age difference didn't matter… or wouldn't have if there'd been anything between them that would make it an issue, not that they'd done anything that would make Dom think…
Except he was there on Luke's couch because he'd invited him and Dom had a feeling he didn't ask just anyone over.
“Must have been lonely,” he offered. That drunken lean made Luke's features intriguing in a whole new way. Dom hated himself a little for thinking how easy it would be to turn and kiss him when they were talking about something as serious as this, and when Luke had just confessed something as horrifying as he had only a few minutes ago. Luke would probably be mad that he thought it at all and madder still that it was that making him feel guilty about it. “And now?”
“And now…” Luke briefly lost focus, murmuring the words mostly to himself. By this point his head was practically swimming, but in the moment he found it comforting, whereas usually it would drive him crazy that he wasn’t in complete control of his motor functions. He felt safe here with Dom in a way that he hadn’t felt safe with anyone in years, so for once, he wasn’t immediately concerned about maintaining one hundred percent awareness of his surroundings. Dom wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.
It was dangerous to think like that, and Luke knew it, but as long as Dom didn’t know it… he could maintain some level of control over the situation. He’d already let himself appear too vulnerable by asking Dom here tonight in the first place, but if Dom somehow got it into his head that Luke needed him? Luke wasn’t thrilled at the idea of letting him assume too much and start to get presumptuous. If it was more that the idea of needing Dom terrified him, Luke wouldn’t even acknowledge that to himself.
Rubbing his open palm along the side of his face, Luke heaved a resigned sigh, unfocused eyes landing on Dom again. “And now, my stupidly brave older brother is planning on doing something extremely reckless that will either land our father in jail for good, or it will get Will killed, so.” He raised his glass in Dom’s general direction with a half hearted cheers. “Welcome to my ridiculous, soap opera of a life.”
Dom didn't understand what Luke's brother could be doing that was so dangerous but he didn't need to. The fact was that it could be almost anything and Dom would still be glad that there was a chance that it was going to send Luke's father to jail where he belonged. It wouldn't be enough justice and it wasn't nearly soon enough but someone would make the man pay for what he'd done to Luke. What he'd done to all three of his kids, Dom guessed, even though he didn't have any kind of personal stake in Will or the little sister.
"He'll make it through it," Dom told him. He couldn't know for sure and he shouldn't make any promises but he had a feeling that any man who'd already lived through what Will had wouldn't die as easily as all that. Dom didn't have to know much about the guy to know that he'd do whatever he could to make sure that his little brother and sister were safe for good, and if that meant that he needed to be alive to see it happen...
Or maybe Dom was letting Luke's memories of a big, strong older brother cloud his own judgement. He hadn't seen the man. He didn't know what he was like except that Luke loved him. Maybe that didn't take the kind of superman that Dom thought it did. Maybe he didn't have to be just like Auguste for Luke to adore him.
Dom wanted to take the glass out of his hands. He wanted to wrap him up in his arms and hold him close until Luke had pulled all the pieces back together. He liked seeing him like this, in a way. He liked seeing him open and vulnerable and all the things that he'd thought Luke had to be underneath it all. He just wanted it to be because... because Luke trusted him enough to let down those walls, not because he was drunk and desperately scared enough that, Dom thought, he might look to anybody who might agree to be there. "I'll stick around until you hear back from him."
It didn't matter that Dom didn't know how long that would be. It didn't matter that Luke would probably be sick of him and demand that he leave in the morning. Dom wasn't going anywhere.
Something in Luke broke then, though he couldn't immediately figure out what. It wasn't some monumental breakthrough that he could point to as physical evidence, or some sudden crumbling of all the inner walls that he’d spent so long building up to keep everyone else out. It was almost as if all at once, everything in him stopped trying. Stopped trying so hard to keep people out, to lock himself away from anyone or anything that might hurt him. With just a few words from Dom, everything in Luke caved.
To say that he was relieved that Dom had offered to stay (at least through the night, he assumed) was an understatement, but Luke didn’t have the words to express that relief the way another person might. Even if he was stone cold sober he wouldn’t have, but at least he’d have had the wits about him to successfully deflect from the present conversation. He had no idea when he was going to hear back from Will, if he heard back from him at all, a thought that was already making Luke’s stomach churn unpleasantly.
Knowing that Dom would be here for him until he heard something, it settled warm in his chest, a foreign enough feeling that it immediately put Luke on edge. even through the fuzzy drunken din. “... If you insist.” He wasn’t going to beg Dom to stay with him, but he also wasn’t going to kick him out of his apartment right then either, so he had to maintain some dignity. Draining the rest of his glass before setting it down, Luke abruptly got to his feet - or he tried to. What actually happened was he attempted to stand up from the couch, but somewhere along the way the room tilted and Luke lost his footing.
Swaying dangerously and without warning, Luke suddenly found himself falling back down to the couch instead, or more specifically, onto the mountain that was Dom’s chest. Luke was so surprised he actually let out a small ‘oof’, but otherwise, he didn’t try to break his fall. He landed against the larger man clumsily, appearing disoriented as his hands braced themselves on Dom’s enormous shoulders, their faces so close together now that Luke thought he could almost feel the brush of facial hair against his cheek. His vision tunneled and for the space of a breath, Luke stayed frozen, half-sprawled against Dom and trying not to concentrate too hard on the shape of the other man’s mouth before he finally cleared his throat, his whole body tense. “It…. seems that I might need some help to my room. If you don’t mind.”
Everything happened all at once until Dom was staring Luke right in the eye with something in his chest clenching. The other man's body was slender and warmer than it seemed like someone as icy as Luke tried to be ought to feel... not that Dom hadn't known that was a lie. Maybe he was just assuming based on Laurent but he'd never through that Luke was really an ice prince even for a second.
He breathed in deep and regretted it immediately. He could smell the wine on Luke's breath but most of all he could smell Luke. Maybe it was his shampoo or a soap or maybe it was just something about him that made Dom's mouth water and made him think about tasting that wine he'd refused straight from the younger man's lips. It would be easy to close those last couple of inches and see how Luke kissed. Dom would bet that he'd make it as much of a challenge as he made everything else. Or maybe he'd melt into it and let Dom take his mind off everything for a little while.
The fact that Dom didn't know exactly what he'd do to take his mind off of it broke him out of the daze he'd fallen into enough to hear what Luke was asking him.
"Yeah." His voice was husky and thick; he cleared his throat before he tried to go on. "Point me in the right direction and I'll get you there."
First, though, was getting his arms braced around Luke enough to ease him off of him so that they could both stand up without being pressed together closely enough to feel everything. Not that Dom didn't want to. That was a big part of the problem. He couldn't. It was wrong, that night anyway. And once everything had gone back to normal (he didn't want everything to go back to normal) Luke would use that as a reason to shy away from him and act like they were complete strangers again. It was better for Dom to pull the two of them to their feet with as much distance as he could manage with something like that.