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There are things Dale doesn’t understand yet, about time travel and messengers from the future, and while he’s been told that can’t happen now that it’s started, he’s been wrong about a lot of things he’s been reassured of.

The man just raises an eyebrow, like he’s waiting for Dale to speak. Like there’s something Dale should already know to say. Maybe Dale’s the one who time traveled, accidentally or through some carefully cultivated spell because someone needed him for something, or needed to keep him from something. Everything else looks in place, though, like it’s any other appointment, but he’s supposed to be meeting with Bunny right now. This is definitely someone older than four.

The man flips the hood of his jacket up, little white ears flopping down. Not as small as normal, at the moment.

“Bunny?” Dale asks, tentatively. He’s still not good at telling who’s a vampire and who isn’t, or what kinds of magic are at play. So.

“I wondered if you’d like me better this way,” says the man who probably is Bunny, and he’s handsome, that’s true, it’s not the first thing Dale noted, but he did note it.

It’s still weird.

“Look, Bunny,” he says, and then scrubs a hand over his face. Rejection is a lot stranger in the magical world, with people like this, who Dale gets along well with, and probably could even like romantically, if.

“You’d still be thinking about how I usually look, even if I looked like this,” Bunny says, wistfully, and gives Dale a look not quite as forlorn as it usually seems on him.

“Yeah,” Dale says, just a touch regretfully. He’ll get used to vampires and their glamours eventually, he’s sure, but for now? “Look, you’re very attractive. It’s just -”

“You don’t have to tell me I’m hot, Dale. I know I’m fuckable. I was bought and sold on it,” Bunny says, with a dark look Dale should’ve seen coming. “It’s why I don’t always enjoy looking like this. But I figured I’d try.”

“Right. Poor choice of words,” Dale says, and sighs. “I’m sorry. I’d really like to reciprocate your feelings, Bunny, but I just don’t think that’s in the cards for us.”

Bunny shrugs, and if he’s more disappointed than normal, it’s hard to read on this new face. “Well. Let me know if you change your mind. Because I am willing to look like this for you. Also, you know I have a name, right?”

Dale must look confused, because Bunny glares at him a little. “You were introduced to me that way. Sorry. Would you prefer I call you something else?” Bunny’s expression softens, and at least that’s recognizable even on this face.

“No, Bunny’s fine. It’s just that you act like I’m some kind of magical creature. Which I am, I guess, but a decade ago I was human, and looked like this,” Bunny tells him, and moves to sit on his couch, where they normally go over plans. “I have a legal name. Or I had one, then.”

“Oh,” says Dale, who doesn’t really have a better response to offer. “Would you like to tell me?” It might take some resisting looking him up, but of course Tom is already trying to scour the database for who Bunny was.

“Not really. I mean, I have a sort of fraught relationship with my given name, but I can deal with it. It’s just if I tell you mine, there’s going to be places where you think you should say Honey’s, and you can’t ever call him that. He’ll lose his mind,” Bunny says, and Dale makes a note to avoid ever trying to learn it, “more than he already has, I mean.”

“Good to know,” Dale says, even though it’s actually a little horrible to know, and offers Bunny a tight smile.

“You can call him Christopher Robin, if you need to use a name,” Bunny says, like Dale hasn’t heard the moniker flung around, or the way people say it when they do. “People tend to call me Peter, if you need to call me something.” He holds up the same rabbit toy he always carries, to illustrate. There’s something a little bit more desperate, a little more lost, clutching so tightly to it when he looks like this instead, even though Dale’s aware he’s the exact same man, under the costume.

Tom’s stomach clenches. He hadn’t even considered the kidnappers might have carried his godson off far enough the trees would change, not with how steadily they march up and down the coast. “Can you see anything else outside?” There are standard questions. Tom might be too on edge to remember how to ask them. Someone has to get Dale.

He scribbles a note.

“Just houses. Nothing identifying. It’s a normal suburb, Tom, there aren’t even any interesting colors of shutters, I don’t know what you want me to say.” But the kid sounds more irritated than scared, which is good, at least. It won’t help anything if he panics.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Tom asks, and his voice might carry the slightest discernible strain, but Dominic doesn’t know him well enough to hear it, either.

“School got out. I went outside. I got jumped and they put me in a van, and now I’m in a house somewhere,” the kid says, matter of factly. “They locked me up in the basement, but then most of them left, so I got loose and called you.” And at least Tom already knew he was something of an accomplished escape artist.

It doesn’t stop any of the worry. It’s horrible to wish these things on a child, but Tom still finds himself wishing it were a stranger and not his godson calling for help. “Did you see how many there were? What color van? Do you have any idea what they want?” He knows it’s no good, asking multiple questions at once, but Tom can’t seem to stop himself, even though he’s the one supposed to be staying calm here.

“Four who grabbed me, another three here, and I’m fairly certain that’s all of them,” Dominic says, maintaining the presence of mind Tom is supposed to, and he’s starting to see what Dale meant when he called the kid strange. “Six left. The other one is… busy. The van was white but kind of grungy; I didn’t catch plates. And judging from the video equipment in the basement, I think we can guess what they want. How long has it been since school ended?”

Tom can guess. He can guess what ‘busy’ is a euphemism for, too. The first thing is reassuring the victim, though, not himself, and it means giving Dominic the information he’s asking for, even when it slows the conversation down. “About an hour.” Then he realizes that question is as much for his benefit as the kid’s, too, and Tom starts to reevaluate exactly what this kid’s experience is looking like right now.

“Good. They can’t have taken me that far, then,” he says, as Tom wonders whether he really was just guessing about the chloroform, or really knows somehow.

And if he recognizes it, Tom wonders who else he should be going after.

But even adjusting for bizarre life experiences, Tom hasn’t adjusted enough, because when he asks, “are they armed?” he still adds, “it’s okay if you’re not sure, just tell me everything you can.”

Dominic returns a full list of arm, including model numbers Tom couldn’t even recall off the top of his head, not just for their guns, but their knives. The kid registers all the modifications for them, the wear, guesses about where they might have got the weapons. And he calls them all hostiles while he does it.

But he doesn’t exactly know their names, so what else does Tom expect? “Can you describe them at all? Any tattoos or identifying features?” His hopes might be a little high on that one, but he could use a little hope after hearing about their arsenal. So he asks.

“They were all wearing masks, even after we got here,” Dominic tells him, more regret in his voice than any of the emotions Tom would expect. “I mean, that’s good, though, right? Probably it means they don’t intend to kill me after. I didn’t get a good look at everyone, but I didn’t see any known gang or cult affiliations or anything like that. If they’re organized crime, they’re new. Hostile three has a Big Bird tattoo, but that’s it. They’re a little bigger than average, height and weight both, but mostly just generic white men. Sorry.” Which is more than Tom expected to get, even if it’s less than he wanted - and that’s an easy tattoo to run.

“It does probably mean that,” Tom reassures the kid by rote, and he’s glad reflex takes over in saying it, because then their suspect is up on the screen, and Tom sees exactly where the Big Bird tattoo is, and he falls silent along with the rest of the office. He’s the one who has to work not to mention it, though. “Can you get out of there?” The answer has to be no, because Dominic would’ve tried a lot harder than the average kid, and he’s still on the phone, but it could also be a misplaced sense of duty.

“I can’t leave, Tom. There are kids here.” Or a sense of duty exactly where Tom’s sits, currently tying itself in knots.

“How many?” Tom asks. A team is being readied as they speak, and someone else must be coordinating with the locals, but even if his job were something else, Tom’s pretty sure he’d be glued to the phone anyway. And they need as much information as they can get.

“My room was empty when I got here, but the next one over had six kids. There were two other closed doors. I assume one of them is the studio. The other could have another six kids, or it might be a bathroom or something. I didn’t check upstairs,” Dominic says, sounding a little like he’s angry with himself for bad intel, and, yeah, this kid isn’t anything Tom’s dealt with before. “Should I check?”

“You should stay on the line,” Tom says, soothingly, and at least that’s just the same as normal. “Do you think they left to grab more kids?” he asks, because with everything else that isn’t, maybe his godson can give them more to analyze. It’ll keep him occupied. Keep his mind off things the way Tom might have someone else describing everything in the kitchen.

“No,” Dominic says, authoritatively, and Tom almost gestures for quiet, except everything is in hushed voices here anyway. “They had an argument with their boss, and got called away.”

No known associates on their one suspect, but obviously there are more players involved, and Tom needs anything. “Did you catch a name?” Then he remembers the level of detail offered is going to be tailored to his questions, and adds, “what did they talk about?” Maybe, given everything, Tom should be less nervous than usual, not more.

“No names. Uh - Blonde American Wendy, that’s someone’s wife, but none of the hostiles. Hang on, let me try to translate.” He goes silent so suddenly Tom is worried the call dropped. The kid doesn’t even specify what he’s translating from, just launches into, “hostile one had the phone, and I think he got accused of wasting time, because he said that they were actually on schedule, and fulfilled the order - that’s me - with a sweet looking American boy. And that maybe if the person on the other end thought they could do a better job they should do it in person. Then he started going on about ‘I’ll fuck your wife’ and so hostile five took the phone and said everything was on track and it would be fine. And then just listened for a while and said they all needed to be at a meeting. Then they all grumbled about meetings for a while until hostile three volunteered to stay behind to guard us. Am I sweet looking? Do you think that’s right?”

Usually, Tom would say yes. It might even be a descriptor he applied to Dominic himself, before it started turning his stomach like this. Instead, he sidesteps it with, “what were they speaking?” It’s a good thing the kid speaks so many languages, maybe, but it makes guessing difficult, and Tom really wants things to be easy, here, just for a little while.

“Russian,” Dominic says, then pauses, as if he’s making sure - although if he could understand them, Tom doesn’t know whence the confusion. “I couldn’t say what dialect. Nothing familiar. You do know where I am by now, right? I have a history test to study for. I want to go home in time to still get a good grade.”

The whole room is listening in, though, and someone runs down the hall for help. Tom tries to say the usual soothing things, and Dominic tries to give what almost sounds like a field report instead of responding to any of them, and there’s very little gained, except they’re apparently trafficking drugs as well as children. Tom wonders if this is the right time to worry about that - Dale mentioned drug problems a few times.

The other agent - the Russian specialist, organized crime, much gentler phone voice than Tom can manage at the moment - asks Dominic to repeat what he can in Russian. Tom doesn’t understand Russian. He can still hear some sort of differences in the voices his godson is doing, and clearly, from how intently the other agent is nodding, the imitations are helpful. Tom can’t read the notes, either, but there are a lot of them, which has to be a hood thing.

“Anything else you can remember? Anything might help narrow down our search, even if it doesn’t seem important.” Tom snorts to himself, not bothering to warn anyone how that might be too broad an ask. At least everyone else does it, too, though. At least Tom’s not that far into doing everything wrong.

“Um, one of them - I think hostile two - yelled at everyone else not to touch something. And asked who had,” the kid says, slowly. “What’s a,” and then repeats a word in Russian that Tom doesn’t feel bad for catching, if even the kid didn’t.

“It’s a bong,” the agent says, too caught up in notetaking to realize that’s a kid on the other end of the line, no matter how professional he sounds. “That slang is specific to a gulag in a fairly short time window, actually, though, so that may be important. Thank you.”

“Oh, okay,” Dominic says, and Tom is oddly relieved no one is going to have to explain bongs to him, although maybe he should’ve guessed that, given the apparent drug problem. Maybe he should send someone specifically to keep the kid from getting into trouble, too. “Well, aside from hostile three, who might be new, they all kind of seemed to know each other. I don’t think they’re Bratva or anything, though, or they would’ve been more organized. Their weapons aren’t uniform enough. And they argued too much in front of me. I know the pressure points if I wanted to fracture the team, now.” He doesn’t even say it like a brag. Tom doesn’t know whether to encourage the kid or warn him off.

The other agent seems to have gone through all the stages Tom did, wondering who the hell this kid is, except maybe no one explained this was a kid before he started talking like an agent waiting for an extraction, and organized crime says, “do you think you could take him?”

“Hostile three?” Dominic says, and pauses long enough that Tom knows it’s a real assessment, and there’s a sour taste in his mouth. “Yeah. I don’t know how long the others will be, though, and I couldn’t hold all of them. I could kill all of them, if you think I should.”

The other agent pauses long enough, apparently reevaluating the situation, maybe realizing this is just a kid, for Tom to step back in. “Maybe you could chloroform them to keep them down?” Not that he’d mind if Dominic did kill them all, but he’s not putting something like that on his godson. He’s already going to be traumatized enough by whatever assault revealed that tattoo.

“I don’t know. That might kill them anyway. Chloroform can be hard to dose safely, especially since they’re all in bulky gear and I can’t really estimate their weight, you know,” Dominic says, and Tom doesn’t curse. There goes both the plausible deniability and the kid’s get out of guilt free pass, if he knows that as well as Tom does.

“Well, kiddo, do what you need to in order to stay safe, okay?” Tom says, and the Russian specialist must not have been sure who this was, given that look. “Whatever you need to. You won’t get in trouble. I promise.” The words feel odd. It’s not that Tom’s never said them before, but never to someone who really has been in that kind of trouble and has legitimate reason to be wary of it. He can still back it up, though, at least.

Dominic barely agrees before the conversation transitions into Russian again, gradually taking over more and more of what they say as Tom stops understanding even the gist of it. They don’t seem to notice.

At least it’s in English again when Dominic says, “shit. I hear a car. I think they’re back,” followed by the gentle clatter of a phone being hung up incorrectly that transcends language. Tom appreciates understanding the heart attack he may be about to have.

It occurs to Dale, for a moment, that he might be dead. He hasn’t really thought about the afterlife since he was little, but when he did, it sort of made sense that someone would return to a happy place from their past, just the cozy sort of moment that had him sipping his favorite coffee out of his favorite mug, and this time with his cat beside him. Miss Marple wasn’t on the ship with him, he’s pretty sure, and an afterlife implies she’s dead, too, but he also doesn’t know how time would work, in a place like that.

The last time he was sure time was working, he was running for his destination, letting Dominic bleed out behind him. He made a promise. Years before and never magically binding, but he made a promise, and his son would never forgive him for breaking it, and that meant holding to the words: I’d never give up the world just to save you. Dominic was hit and maybe about to die and there wasn’t anything Dale could do to save him, not unless he wanted to let the aliens win. Over and over he said that he’d put the world above any one life, even Dominic’s, and so he had to run without being allowed a single look back.

He said he’d die to save the world, too, but that wasn’t anywhere near as hard, not even with the heat ripping through him as every sensation melted into one. He knew, at least, the mission was a partial success.

His cat’s no help. Her mewing fills the air with concern as Dale stumbles to the phone, punching in a number he still knows after all these years, and holds his breath. If everything was a dream, hallucination, too intense imaginary, then Dominic won’t pick up, anyway, because he was on a trip when everything ended. If it was real, and they’re all somehow back, then he’s waiting by the phone for Dale’s call. If this is death then who knows what will happen, except if it’s a mimicry of Dale’s life, all the joyful moments strung carefully together, then he’ll pause here, phone held frozen in his hand, until Dominic makes the journey to join him, a single click and then a sound of tearful relief.

Instead, the phone rings a handful of times, the way it does when the club is closed, and a voice Dale doesn’t recognize comes on, and asks who he is. As if Dominic isn’t there yet.

Except they get him. He comes to the phone and says, “Dale?” in exactly the kind of fragile hope that Dale was feeling, and he can’t help but let the sobs echo down the line instead of speaking. You’re okay, he wants to say, to repeat until there’s no strength left in his voice, but Dominic interrupts with, “it worked? It finally worked? Oh, thank fuck, we’ve been trying to get them to send you back for months, and they said they’d think about it, and - shit, Dale, are you okay?”

“I don’t think so, kiddo,” Dale says, even despite the steaming mug of coffee and his cat crawling into his lap, the soothing seaside decor of his own apartment cradling him, “a lot went down.” And the explosion fades away like it never was, and Dale’s fist is still clenched tight around his drink like someone’s going to walk in with another emergency, like there’s a new roving band of murderers, or some emergency supply’s been cut off, or infighting broke out somewhere vulnerable. Like some new atrocity has been discovered, and Dale’s the only one who can set it right.

Like everyone’s counting on him to carry the voice of the people, year in, year out, with no qualifications to show for it.

“I’ll be right over,” Dominic says, and the phone goes dead, and there’s a knock at the door that can’t be him already, but probably isn’t someone with an emergency, either. Unless it’s the kind that Dale’s always prepared to deal with, that he always used to deal with, before the war that wouldn’t fucking end.

“I think they have families,” Dale says, carefully navigating the metaphor, because it’s not really about whether chipmunks have the higher thought to philosophize, really. “I think they might be upset about that kind of thing.”

The kid sighs, but it’s clearly the answer he’s looking for, anyway, or at least the one he expected. “Are they traumatized?” Dale’s not sure if he’s talking about himself or someone else.

“Trauma is hard to evaluate, even for humans, kiddo,” Dale says, like it’ll push Dominic down the path he’s clearly dying to talk about, pardon the language. Of course, Dominic never lets himself be led when he’s not ready to walk it, and Dale knows that, too.

“Do dragons have families?” Dominic asks, and in that breathless pause, Dale can hear the rest of the questions caught in the kid’s throat.

Dale still hasn’t figured out what ‘dragon’ is code for, but he’s sure they’re a hell of a lot less debatably people than chipmunks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think they do, kiddo,” and Dale wants to say things about terror and trauma and childhood indoctrination, but Dominic’s only just ready to hear this part, and Dale waits.

Dale waits what feels like an entire night passing in Dominic’s shifting emotions scrawled plain across his face, even before he starts crying.

There’s a single sob in there, but it’s mostly silent tears, and Dale’s seen him react worse to a movie, but it’s still a long time coming, and Dale expected they’d get here. He hoped to reach this point, really, as much as it would hurt the kid, because his future probably depends on getting through it, no matter how complex the immunity agreement is (or how much it may cover that no one noticed Dale letting slip through the cracks). At least he is still a kid. It’s always harder to work through the guilt as an adult who should know better - except Dominic thinks of himself in those terms anyway, so maybe it’s already there.

“Have you ever killed anyone, Dale?” Dominic’s voice isn’t quite as soft anymore, and it makes it easy to hear the guilt underwriting it, and Dale sucks in a breath. He thought he was prepared for this conversation. It was easy to pretend Dominic had only ever killed in self-defense, but Dale had the feeling anyway, and now it’s sinking in, and he’s talked so many people - even kids - around about this, but it’s different, somehow, with Dominic. And it’s not quite an admission, and if it were it wouldn’t be the actionable kind, but it’s intel of a sort.

That isn’t the important point, right now.

Dale rolls out of bed. He doesn’t bother changing, yet, but it’s clear he’s not getting anymore sleep tonight, and he runs fingers through his hair like that’ll help him wake up faster. “I’m going to go put on a pot of coffee, sport,” he says, in a falsely cheerful tone, just to give Dominic an out if he wants it, and makes his way into the kitchen.

Dominic follows almost immediately, pausing just long enough to put on the pajamas Dale keeps for him even though he almost never wears them. As if even that could make the conversation any more awkward.

But the smell of coffee permeates the room the way it always does, and it gives them both something to fiddle with, something to look at that isn’t each other, and in any case, this would be the worst possible conversation not to manage to stay awake through. And it’s comforting, coffee. For Dale more than Dominic, who only likes it because of how it decorates Dale’s life, but Dale needs comfort, too, if he’s going to get through this. He wonders if he should’ve made the kid hot chocolate.

Dale’s parents always used coffee for serious talks, even when he was little. He takes a deep breath. The earthy smell fills his nose, and he stares into the deep brown well of the drink the same color as Dominic’s eyes like he can pretend he’s meeting them. “I have. I’ve killed three people.” He pauses, there, to let it sink in. With most people, it has to sink in. He’s not sure Dominic needed the hesitation.

“What was it like?” Normally that’s a prurient question, the kind of blood soaked front page journalism of a third tier publication, but the way Dominic asks is still something Dale’s heard before. Guilt, fear, trepidation, a little bit of horror that will most likely grow if the kid feels the need to share details - the feelings of someone who’s killed the same way Dale has, in necessity always held with deep remorse. Dominic’s coming to regret what he did, or admit he always has.

“The first one was the worst,” Dale says, slowly, sipping at warmth every time his mouth goes dry, which feels like every syllable. “Everyone says that, about killing, but this one - I was undercover, the first time, and he was trying to kill me, so it was self defense. It’s not the only time I’ve stabbed someone, but it’s the worst, and it’s the only time I’ve killed someone up close. He was a kid. I mean, I was a kid, and I don’t know how old he really was, but that’s the part that sticks with me, and the older I get, the younger it seems like he’ll always be. I don’t know why he was trying to kill me. Maybe for the awful things I had to do, to pretend I wanted to do, and then? Well, then, even in self-defense, maybe I killed someone trying to do the right thing, to stop other people from getting hurt, and I wish I hadn’t. I go over it and over it and don’t know what else I could’ve done, but, yes, it keeps me awake, some nights.”

“The first person I killed was the one who killed Excalibur,” Dominic says, probably into his own cup, and Dale waits to see if he needs reassurance, absolution, theorizing, “not on my own, of course, but I got a few good hits in, and it might have made the difference. Someone else finished the dragon off. But. But I don’t know if - I mean, how do we know we’re not fighting just because we’ve always been fighting? How do I know it’s not someone who was trying to get revenge for some dragon version of Excalibur, the same way I want revenge?”

Dale’s always found that possibility plausible, and opens his mouth to start dissecting it, wondering if he should tell Dominic he was just a kid, a kid being assaulted, first.

“Who were the other two?” Dominic asks, and this time it definitely is muffled by the coffee.

Dale nods, and takes another deep breath, another deep swig. “One was holding someone at gunpoint. I did try to talk him down, maybe not as much as I should have, although everyone seemed to agree I’d behaved reasonably. He was escalating quickly, and with a hostage that close to him, I didn’t want to take chances. I took the shot. He went down quickly. We got everyone out of there with minimal injuries, and I do wonder about it sometimes, think through what might have calmed him down, but in general, I only regret the loss of life abstractly. I would do it again. I may have to do it again, and I’m comfortable with that.” He reaches out a hand, finally looking up, but Dominic is hunched over his mug with fingers curled tight around it, and Dale pulls back.

“I would shoot, too, if that happened,” Dominic says, quietly, and Dale’s sure of that. He remembers how steady Dominic was with the gun when Dale’s life was at stake. “That’s okay.”

“The third - I feel like something should have gone differently, but I can’t think of anything personal,” Dale says, taking another swig. The coffee’s still too hot for how long this conversation seems to drag on. “We needed better training for the scenario, maybe, or maybe we just needed more people. There were a lot of them, on the other side. I was firing back. I attempted to keep my shots nonlethal, of course, but there wasn’t a lot of time to aim. I shot several people who were taken to the hospital, but one died before anyone could get to help. I do count it fortunate that it was quick. I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer. I may have saved lives; I’m sure I saved some people from future harm. It still weighs on me; I never want to commit violence by accident. If I kill someone, it feels like that should be my intent going in, but of course that’s not always possible. I do dream about it, still, sometimes. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did.” Dale looks up. His gaze still doesn’t meet Dominic’s, but there’s no judgement on the boy’s face, either, the way there sometimes has been.

“I’d protect you, if that happened again,” Dominic says, a solemn promise with the weight he gives any vow, and Dale accepts it as such.

“I know, champ. I’d make sure you were safe, too,” Dale agrees, and it seems to relax the kid a little. Whether because Dale believes him or Dale would protect him is unclear, but he’s glad it helps, especially when it’s only there to fill the silence while Dale waits again. It’s a lot of these conversations, waiting.

“The first person I killed all by myself definitely was trying to kill me,” Dominic says, finally, still not looking up, still not drinking his coffee. “It’s just that I don’t know if that’s because I attacked first or - I don’t remember which of us started it, or maybe we were both planning to. It was messy. I got hurt. I was so proud, though. I felt good, like I’d just done something great.”

“I understand that,” Dale says, and it’s fudging the truth just the slightest amount, and he wonders if he’s slipping to hard into procedure when Dominic needs a more personal approach, but it’s the only thing that feels natural to say. “In the hostage situation, I was proud to have kept everyone safe. I was proud to make the shot, too; it was a tricky one.”

Dominic shakes his head, though. Dale frowns, but all he can do is keep waiting. “No, I mean, I felt… powerful. Better than my opponent. Better than everyone, maybe. Not as much as - it can be addictive, taking someone’s life force, someone’s magic, and I know why, because that felt like a power that could never be matched, but that part I know was bad, because those people were innocent. Or, I mean, I don’t really know anything about them. They were probably innocent. They weren’t trained soldiers, anyway. I know to be careful with the magic, though. This was just - it felt powerful, to be able to kill.”

Dale doesn’t know what to do with that. He’s heard it from lots of people, but killing has always made him feel powerless, like he wasn’t strong enough to keep everyone alive. And he still doesn’t know what to do about the magic, or why it might feel addictive to the kid, when the specifics always seem convoluted and like they’re referencing information Dominic thinks Dale should have even when he doesn’t. He can’t answer any questions about that.

He doesn’t want to answer any questions about suddenly realizing victims of hate crimes were innocent. He should, because that’s Dale’s whole job, but he doesn’t want to, not for Dominic. Even as practiced as he is keeping the judgement out of his voice, even as much as he’s hoped and planned for this very thing, he worries, and Dominic was just a kid. He’s still just a kid.

“Violence often makes people feel powerful,” Dale says, carefully. “It is a very direct way of having power over someone, and that can be enticing, especially to those who feel weak. But it rarely has more than short-term impacts, except trauma for all involved. The real power is in creating lasting change for the common good.” It’s a canned speech, too generic, and Dale can tell from Dominic’s scowl that it’s obviously so.

“I don’t like that it made me feel powerful, Dale, I’m just telling you it did,” Dominic says, almost whining, but at least he’s looking up at Dale like they’re having a real conversation now. “Anyway, I’m not weak. I know the kinds of opponents I can take, and it’s a lot of them. More than most people.” Which is true, of course. He almost beat Dale not holding back at all right up front - or Dale wasn’t holding back, at least; Dominic probably was. He can easily take Dale down without hurting him, these days.

And still.

“It’s fear, really, not lack of capability,” Dale says, and successfully reaches out for Dominic’s hand this time. He squeezes gently, until he gets a squeeze back. “One of your earliest experiences with violence is being small and helpless, watching someone you loved killed. It’s something that sticks with you no matter how much you train, that kind of trauma.” Which is to say nothing about being raised to expect that kind of violence, but Dominic isn’t there yet.

“It wasn’t my earliest experience. I’ve been fighting since I could walk,” Dominic protests, as if that makes things better instead of worse, but that’s martial cults for you. “And I wasn’t helpless. I helped. Even Excalibur wasn’t helpless; he saved my life. He died saving me.”

“That’s what makes you feel powerless,” Dale says, gently. He’s pretty sure Dominic doesn’t talk about Excalibur to his therapist, and there’s no obvious way to change that. “You felt powerless to protect him. That’s the power you’re feeling when you hurt people.” It’s a guess, and it’s an overly specific guess that ignores all the context that would make this a state of mind and not an event for Dominic, but it’s what Dale has.

“Yeah,” Dominic says, “maybe,” and Dale’s not sure if he’s considering it or already decided on why it’s wrong.

“Why now?” Dale asks, when he can’t wait anymore, even as light as the silence feels now. Something’s been weighing on Dominic for a while, he can tell, but he’s not sure what triggered it, if anything did.

“You don’t like to kill people,” the kid says, a very firm statement that somehow still holds a question in it.

“I don’t,” Dale agrees, not bothering to sort through the various meanings of like, which seem to be more Dominic’s business than his. “I try my hardest not to kill anyone at all, and I think everyone should. I’d never kill someone when it wasn’t necessary. Even if it was necessary, I’d think twice about killing someone in anger.”

“Sometimes a lot of people might die, unless you kill someone,” Dominic says, uncertainly, and Dale’s fingers squeeze around his again. “Is it okay to kill someone to save lives? How many lives? Does it make a difference if it’s a really bad person, like a nazi mass murderer or something?” He’s on the verge of a panic attack, but Dale thinks moving around the table to sit next to him might just set that off.

“It’s a horrible calculation,” Dale says, and Dominic’s hands are so tight around his he’s not sure how the blood is circulating, “but, yes, I do think sometimes you need to kill people to save lives. Even one life, if someone is directly threatening someone else. It’s always better to try to take people down nonlethally, and even without hurting them at all whenever it’s possible, but sometimes you’re stuck in a difficult situation, and there are no good choices. And I try not to judge people on their history, because so many people of all kinds successfully overcome their history, but, yes, sometimes someone’s history can be an indication of how much of a danger they are, and sometimes that has to factor in.” Dale takes a deep breath. Dominic is shaking now, and there are so many pitfalls in this conversation, it’s impossible to know which has him by the throat at the moment.

“I’d kill someone to save the world,” Dominic says, and Dale knows how real his Apocalypse is to him, so it’s easy to see the depth of the statement. “I’d even kill you to save the world, Dale. I don’t want to, but if I have to, I will.”

“I know. I’d be okay with that,” Dale says, to a look of intense relief. The apocalypse isn’t real, but it’s real to Dominic, and if Dale can help, he will. And it’s not a lie, anyway. If it somehow came to that, he’s easily die to keep the world safe.

“But I don’t think I want to kill anyone, anymore,” Dominic says, all the edge cases where he might have to clearly overwhelming him, and Dale doesn’t know how to protect him from encountering them, especially if he insists on continuing to find his way into trouble.

“You don’t have to,” he says, instead, because they can fond ways around that when they need to. And the kid hardly ever ends up killing anyone, even with all the trouble he finds. He’s getting into fights of every kind less, these days. Dale’s probably lying, but it feels worth saying anyway, “you never have to kill anyone again.”

Dominic smiles softly, down at the table, tracing woodgrain. Then he frowns a little as he adds, “not even squirrels. I don’t want to kill any animals. I don’t - I don’t want anyone to kill them on my behalf, either. Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay,” Dale says, and then processes what the kid said, and realizes he’s going to need new ingredients, vegetarian cookbooks, someone to tell him about optimizing a healthy diet for someone as active as Dominic, or even him, and Dale’s hardly growing anymore. “You can be a vegetarian. We’ll figure out all of that, alright, champ? We’ll figure it out.”

At the kid. Bullet holes in the bed, yes, but the one on the floor is on this side, where her husband isn’t, so. JJ’s pretty sure she was shooting at the kid.

Getting rid of the evidence.

So as long as it isn’t before help arrives, it’s still long enough for JJ to be thinking of a kid as evidence someone was trying to dispose of, unable to free him to be a person again. This could be the security threat. She’s definitely a security threat. When he can hand off one gun and tuck the other back in its holster, his stomach unclenches so hard he barely touches the ground between the doorway and the kid, gone limp where he’s tied and still crying.

JJ cuts him loose. He’s willing to be picked up, wrapping his arms around JJ’s neck cooperatively, ducking his head against JJ’s shoulder in a way that drives the age estimate lower. JJ’s not sure he properly coordinates with anyone. His priority is getting the kid out of there, the same it would be on any case, and he ignores the threat once someone else has her handled, other people’s weapons trained so he can get the hostage free. Someone must have coordinated something at some point, though, because JJ is being escorted to a hotel room set aside for this purpose - probably not exactly this purpose, but to secure people who aren’t meant to be here, anyway - and it’s only a few floors down in an empty elevator before JJ can get the kid away from prying eyes.

Action item one is getting the kid something to wear. One of the guards posted at the door relays that to someone in their ears that isn’t in JJ’s, and he wonders how big of a mess he’s gotten himself tangled up in, how fast he can work the kid free. Chatter says even his team is being shooed away from upstairs. They haven’t followed him down, so they’re clearly doing something, but it’s just commotion on comms. He considers turning them off.

“Hey, buddy, do you want me to call someone?” JJ tries to put on the most soothing voice he can, but he’s not always good with scared kids the way some people are, and he’s not quite sure how traumatized this one is. He can guess, based on what he saw up there, but. “What’s your name?”

“Dominic,” the kid says, with a sniffle, rubbing at wrists that are a little raw. A few rope burns line his body, but most of it is just red marks. He doesn’t look like he’s bleeding.

But JJ realizes he might not have counted shots entirely accurately, no matter how certain he is that there were three before he got in the room and one after, and that he should probably examine a kid who might not want to be touched. “Is it okay if I check you for injuries?” JJ asks, trying to figure out what to do if he gets the no the kid has a very good reason to give.

Instead, Dominic nods. JJ tries to move slowly, announcing himself and explaining the whole way through, but the kid is compliant. He lets JJ give a field exam that’s a lot easier when someone’s already naked, a revelation that turns JJ’s stomach. The kid’s got a few scrapes and bruises, a handful of them nasty, but not much beyond what JJ noted at first glance.

There’s no bleeding, thankfully, but there is enough bruising for JJ to at least probabilistically confirm what it looked like at first glance. He doesn’t ask the kid directly. He’s too caught up on what’s clearly a cigarette burn on the boy’s chest.

Dominic glances down when JJ won’t stop staring, and says, “oh, yeah. The General likes to put his cigarettes out on me sometimes. He gets off on it.” The shrug is cavalier, but the kid still seems shaken.

JJ can’t imagine how he wouldn’t be. “It’s not right. What he did to you,” except then the door opens following a quick knock, and someone hands him a t-shirt and boxers and fatigue pants. No shoes or socks, but they can’t leave here until the kid gets debriefed, anyway.

Dominic makes a face at the offerings, and JJ thinks he’s about to complain about the choice of outfit, but all he says is, “can I shower first?” to JJ’s nod of confusion.

It’s not that it doesn’t make sense to want to shower off, lying on the floor hoping not to be shot for long minutes, on top of whatever else happened before that. It’s just that JJ doesn’t understand why that would be his business to okay or reject, or what Dominic thinks the man might do to prevent him. He sets the clothes on the desk where the kid will see them easily, stepping back out of the bathroom, and sits down to wait. The water turns on. JJ expects the steam to fill the room along with the sound of running water, maybe for a long time. It can be that way, after a trauma.

It only occurs to him once Dominic is most of the way through showering that the kid was asking if he needed to do a rape kit. JJ should’ve said yes. He’s destroyed evidence in what might be a really serious crime because he was too worried about making the kid uncomfortable.

“There’s really no one I can call?” JJ asks, again, for maybe the dozenth time, as the kid just shakes his head again, insisting that he’s fine, and pulls on the clothes, which at least seem to fit him okay. JJ’s really not sure if he should be asking what happened or waiting to get the kid into official interview. He puts on the TV.

The room is already perfumed with all the fancy soaps and things the kid was using in the shower, so it’s a little surprising to JJ he can smell it in the kid’s hair specifically, but he lets Dominic lean on his shoulder, and for a moment it’s kind of nice. Everything is cleaned up and set as right as it can be at the moment, and the kid seems relaxed, and JJ just has to watch him to make sure no one gets to him and he doesn’t get to anyone else, which seems largely doable. In that pause, trying to find a non-awkward way to hug a kid he doesn’t know, it seems like everything is going to be okay.

The click of the door, no knock, has JJ’s weapon drawn, but it’s just a prosecutor he knows, one he’s worked with before, on all kinds of cases. Competent, generally affable, deft hand at convincing multiple agencies to play nicely together, which JJ appreciates. He could come in handy right now, JJ thinks, that first second, before everything comes crashing down. He could deescalate tensions all the teams seem to be holding against each other, marking their territory in the current jurisdictional pissing contest. JJ’s happy to see him, at first, and figures he’s going to walk Dominic through the case or something.

There’s nothing to justify JJ’s sinking feeling right away. “This would be a hard case to push through,” the prosecutor says, which could just be good advice, “everyone wants to avoid too much scrutiny on the general, and more than one party would probably get in your way.”

“Okay,” Dominic says, already sounding resigned, and JJ wants to cheer him up, somehow, even though the prosecutor’s busy explaining why that’s impossible.

“The general would really rather avoid scrutiny, too,” the prosecutor presses, and JJ’s trying to understand if there’s actually somehow some kind of threat in the way he says it, or it’s just the kind of thing someone might say threateningly, if you already had that sinking feeling about them. “On himself or his wife. You understand.”

“I understand,” Dominic agrees, tone hollow, the way it obviously would be if you were strongly discouraged from pressing charges against the person who was just shooting at you, regardless of how much in your self-interest the choice was. The second the kid said the rank was the second JJ’s feelings started their downward spiral, and he wishes there were something he could do about it.

JJ’s still trying to convince himself maybe the prosecutor does, too, except that the man adds, “I don’t think we need to take this any farther than it’s been taken already. No one else needs to get dragged into this, least of all your parents,” and that’s the point at which JJ realizes he’s been talking Dominic out of pursuing anything the way he’s most likely talked dozens of kids out of it before. And the kid is, apparently, a kid. Which means the prosecutor knows he’s not supposed to be doing any of this with just the two of them.

JJ really wishes he got that rape kit after all. Except clearly it would’ve been swept under the rug. This lawyer’s been covering for his friend the whole time.

“I mean, can’t we forgive a little mistake, here or there?” the prosecutor asks, leaning in just a little too close to Dominic, close enough that JJ can see the kid struggle not to lean away. “I’m sure we could dredge up a few mistakes in your history, if anyone had a reason to look.” JJ’s mouth goes dry, even though Dominic seems mostly unfazed by the not so subtle threat.

The kid, the traumatized, freshly assaulted kid, being pressured to leave things alone so he doesn’t get charged with anything, says, clearly, and only the slightest bit sullenly, “yeah. I get it. I’m not pressing charges.”

“Good boy,” the lawyer says, and squeezes the kid’s leg, just high enough on his thigh that JJ’s assessment slides from enabler to perpetrator, and he gags on the slightest hint of vomit as he wonders how many children the general decided to share with such a good friend. Then he’s gone.

JJ swallows hard, several times, and finally manages to say to the kid, “are you sure there isn’t anyone you want me to call?” He’s still not sure how easy it’ll be to get them past all the security tape, but it seems worth trying, since Dominic is crying again.

“Yeah,” the kid says, voice raspy but easy enough to understand. “Would you call Dale?” and he scribbles out a number on the notepad, ripping off the sheet and handing it over.

It would be easy enough for JJ to call, assuming the number isn’t itself a security threat, except that the kid’s looking a lot paler and wobblier than he has been after that confrontation, and JJ doesn’t really want to take eyes off. He knocks at the door lightly, and hands the paper over when the posted guards open it, and asks them to call Dale instead, hoping that’s someone who can smooth things over for the kid. JJ hurries back before as much can go wrong as his paranoia is telling him will. Dominic looks bad.

Dominic looks sick. JJ sits with him, trying not to let his concern look too concerned. “Are you okay?” He doesn’t want to keep Dominic trapped on the couch where the prosecutor threatened him, but JJ’s not sure the kid’s in any condition to move even the few feet to the bed.

“I was just shot at,” the kid says, as if JJ’s an idiot, which he feels like. “I hate being shot at. He said his wife knew! He said they were separated and it was amicable!” JJ’s not certain why the kid would get suckered in by that, but he’s also not certain it would excuse any of what followed, so he lets the kid rant. It doesn’t go on as long as he predicted it would.

“Hey, kid, do you need me to get medical?” JJ asks, when Dominic sways slightly. He didn’t consider the possibility the kid was drugged. In fact, he thought the kid was probably coming off drugs, given that JJ figured someone smuggled him inside stuffed unconscious in luggage or something, to get past as much security as there is right now.

“I… don’t know. I thought I was just a little drunk. It was really fancy champagne, you know,” the kid says, and he’s definitely slurring, and JJ didn’t even pick up on the possibility he was buzzed this whole time. “I’m. Now I’m not sure. The General might’ve put something in my drink.”

“Okay,” JJ says, trying not to panic. This isn’t the kind of thing he’s been trained in stopgap measures on, and he doesn’t want it to ever be a thing he just knows what to do with. “Do you need an ambulance?” And fuck the general for slipping something into a kid’s drink when he already had the boy naked at his mercy.

“No, no, I’m sure it’s not,” Dominic looks lost for a minute, and JJ reaches out to steady him, not quite touching while the kid looks this freaked out. “It would’ve just been a little, you know, just to help me relax. For fun, you know. The General wouldn’t - he’d need to have stuck a dose in every glass I drank, for what this feels like. He wouldn’t give me that much. He wouldn’t give me enough to hurt me.”

JJ disagrees on principle, given what he’s seen of the general, but that’s abstract, while this is a little too specific. “What does it feel like?” How often has this general drugged the poor kid that he can tell the kind of dose he’s on with that much specificity? Or is the general intentionally preying on drug addicts who can’t fight back?

“Maybe it’s a bad batch,” the kid says, almost thoughtfully, and then grabs the pen and notepad again, drawing some sort of complex symbol JJ can’t decipher. “Um. I think that’s just ecstasy, but save this for me. I’ll look at it once I sober up. Too hard to keep track of - I don’t feel good. I need to lie down.”

JJ thinks that’s a good enough idea that he’s already trying to help Dominic up when the kid collapses. He goes dead weight for a moment, and JJ can lift enough it’s not an issue, but then he pukes on his shirt a little, and JJ rushes to get him to the bathroom so he has somewhere to vomit other than into his own lungs. The kid is stumbling in a way that hinders even though it’s clearly meant to help, but JJ gets him propped up against the bathtub ledge before he really loses his lunch. Dominic is clutching at his arm hard enough that JJ struggles to sit down, but he manages, settling himself on the floor behind the kid, where he can rub Dominic’s back.

A few abrupt minutes later, the kid is leaning his head against cool tile, JJ trying to hold him up with one hand while still rubbing his back with the other. “I don’t feel good,” Dominic repeats, as if it’s news to JJ. The acrid smell’s overtaken the tropical fruit of the soaps, and the kid shivers when JJ tries to wipe off his mouth, and his pupils are dilated until they look uncanny, so it’s not like JJ thought anything else could be happening here.

It’s news to the person who just walked in, though. Apparently, JJ made enough noise getting the kid in here, someone came to check if there was some kind of altercation.

“Um. Do we need emergency services?” The newcomer is speaking more to JJ than Dominic, but he’s not sure how to answer without asking the kid, anyway.

“I’m fine,” Dominic says, and he’s slurring, but conscious, so JJ’s pretty sure the best option is to trust him. He expressed a worrying familiarity with drug use going into this. Maybe this Dale will know. Maybe this Dale is his drug dealer. Maybe this Dale trafficked him to the general JJ’s handing the kid deeper into trouble trying to get him out of it. “I mean. I’m bad, but I’ll be fine. Damn. You’re like the queen if she were young and hot and had four guns. I want an ankle holster. Can I have an ankle holster?”

The newcomer tucks one foot behind the other like she can hide the weapon JJ didn’t even clock - not that he was looking, but he also isn’t in the middle of overdosing and still managing to pick up subtle cues. “Are you sure you don’t need an ambulance, love?”

“Love,” Dominic says, wistfully, “he said we were in love. He said he’d leave his wife for me. We could run off together and live in the mountains.” JJ gags a little.

“Oh, ducky, he’s not going to leave his wife for you,” JJ’s backup tells the kid, which JJ wouldn’t have put so blatantly, but also he’d sound too relieved about that fact to feel okay trying when the kid’s still so clearly upset by it, even after all of this. “Who are we talking about, here?”

“The General,” JJ explains, since he’s not sure Dominic’s capable, and they’re all going to hear about the security incident soon enough. No matter what else gets covered up, the who of it’s going to be inescapable.

“God, was that the security breach?” she asks JJ, some judgment shining alongside the horror making her eyes widen, “are you The Incident, then?” She seems almost as lost as JJ, and he was there.

“I’m not!” Dominic protests, silent sobs wracking his body, and JJ redoubles efforts to rub his back, even with the angle even more awkward now that the kid is twisting to look, “I’m just here because The General asked me to be here - his wife’s the security breach. Not me. She shot at me! She’s not supposed to have a gun!” Whatever else he’s about to say is cut off by resumption of the puking, and JJ struggles a little to hold him up at the sudden shift in center of mass.

“That’s true enough,” JJ’s ally says, sharing a look with him. Not much he can do, though, since he was too anxious to do anything but volunteer for babysitting duty. He already handed off the gun she wasn’t supposed to have, and couldn’t give any special details about it.

“And it looked like standard issue FBI,” the kid breaks off to reach behind him, groping in a way that JJ might find inappropriate if it weren’t clear Dominic wanted to find his gun, and dangerous if he were in more of a state to do anything with it. He’s right, though, as far as JJ remembers. The kid’s fingers brush against his firearm and retreat again with a relieved sigh. “Okay. You’ve still got your service weapon. That means you didn’t sneak it in. Only why sneak it in plain sight and then go to the trouble of hiding the bullets?”

JJ’s glad he’s been exonerated of whatever this is, but he’s not following the kid’s rambling. “She wasn’t hiding them, that was the problem. She was shooting at you.” The kid retches a little, fails to vomit, and slumps down against the tub. The other member of the ad hoc security team reaches over JJ’s head to turn the shower on, cold water washing away the smell and making Dominic shiver slightly when it splashes him. He sticks his face into the spray, briefly, splashing JJ just enough to make him shift away.

“I was there. They weren’t normal bullets. Ceramic, I think, from the sound, only why use a weapon that’s supposed to be there with bullets that aren’t if you’re going to make so much noise about it anyway?” Dominic says, looking to JJ, whose only response would be that they couldn’t share case details, except that seems not to apply in this instance. The kid seems to know more case details than he does, when JJ only might’ve been able to work those out with concentrated effort, if there weren’t techs there to obviate the need. “She was supposed to use a silencer, wasn’t she. She was using someone’s actual service weapon with other bullets for some kind of fucking disappearing evidence trick once she finished, only she forgot a crucial step. She’s fucking an FBI agent.”

JJ’s eyebrows raise in tandem with his colleague’s, another shared look, and he couldn’t say about most of the speculation, except that someone did mention ceramic bullets before everyone got kicked off the case. Not about the standard issue firearm, but JJ knows the feel of a service weapon in his hand, and he couldn’t say no for sure, either. Nobody’s mentioned the gun at all, and someone probably made a big deal about locking it away immediately, for safety. Presumably so it could be hushed up more easily, given the prosecutor.

Dominic’s stomach’s found its second wind trying to expel the poisons, so JJ goes back to trying to keep the kid’s hair out of his face, reaching into the still running shower to wet the washcloth again and scrub the kid’s face, get another and lay it on the kid’s neck. His British counterpart’s been in here long enough, apparently, for her partner to get worried and follow her in.

“Aw, no, pet, do you need me to call for help?” he says, in response to the puking, which JJ’s sure is fair, except Dominic wouldn’t risk giving the question the time of day just now. He’s doing the kind of breathing exercises JJ knows he knows from somewhere, but can’t put his finger on.

“She’s fucking someone else, too!” Dominic says, in triumph, once he catches his breath, even though JJ could’ve sworn that wasn’t his initial forensic conclusion. And he had seemed to be leading up to a point, there. “She’s got a hot FBI agent, so maybe they really are on the outs. Maybe he will leave his wife for me!” He sounds so hopeful it makes JJ a little bit sick, too, wanting to scream to run far, far away.

“Don’t get your hopes up, pet, he’s not going leave his wife for you, and isn’t that always the way,” the partner says, apologetically, looking at the other two in confusion. “Who isn’t going to leave his wife, then?”

“The General, but he might. He loves me,” Dominic says, and if he doesn’t sound quite as sick anymore, JJ’s increasingly worried at how dazed he sounds. Not just lovesick, but intoxicated to hell and back. “He wrote me a love song. He loves me. You’re hot, too, British guy, do you want to fuck after I finish puking?”

“I’m so sorry, I’m on duty,” says British guy, sounding not sorry in the least, not that JJ can blame him.

“Does that ever work on people?” JJ asks Dominic, more out of curiosity than scolding, but he’s sure the scolding comes through. It wouldn’t be good for him, this fast out of a trauma, even if the general’s got him so twisted around he doesn’t understand how far out of reach most people want to keep kids. JJ’s still trying to keep the panic to a minimum, though, and that means jokes, even when the target audience doesn’t quite find them funny, even when they’re about how unattractive vomit is on a kid.

“I’ve had takers,” Dominic says, and he’s preoccupied enough with trying to finish throwing up that JJ might actually believe him. It’s not smug enough to be trying to convince him of anything, just the first thought on the tip of the kid’s tongue while he could still use it.

“I can see that,” the first agent says, shrugging when JJ looks at her in horror, “even if he is a kid, you can tell what the general must have been looking at. You can see it through this. Regardless of all of it, someone would like him enough.”

“Just, uh, just give me a minute, I’ll do all three of you,” Dominic says, in the least appealing offer JJ’s ever had, and then, with a pause, he runs through the conversation, like he’s trying to remember something important. JJ waits for him to take it back, realize how very much not interested the rest of them are, but the kid just says, “or when you get off shift. You know. Come find me.” He tries to wink and accidentally just lets his eyes drift shut.

JJ is comforted when the other two stare in just as much silence as he does. Although maybe it’s a relief the kid can’t see it. Low self-esteem has to be what got him here.

“The General does love me, you know, he didn’t do this on purpose. He just wanted to have a little fun together,” Dominic insists again. He waves a hand in emphasis even as he almost knocks JJ over with the other one trying to pull himself upright by the agent’s sleeve. “More than his wife, who couldn’t even follow the simple instruction to use a silencer to keep her lover out of prison, which the hot FBI agent probably even gave her along with the gun. I mean not that you can really blame her. Silencers are so hard to attach. Let alone for a civilian, am I right? That’s why you’ll never catch me killing anyone with anything that has a muzzle. Sucker’s bet.” He looks around at the three of them, and the weapons they’re armed with, as if he should be putting pieces together, but he can’t seem to place them. Of course, JJ would be very upset if the kid noticed he was insulting them but couldn’t pick up on how much of a creep the general is. It’s already bad enough he’s running through forensic evidence of everything but how a kiddie diddler is getting away with it. “You guys have a different standard issue, huh? So it isn’t you. And you still have yours - I remember you had two at once, anyway, for a while, I think. If I’m remembering right. Where do you think she planned to hide the silencer, after? It might still be there, you know.” JJ does know that. He doesn’t know how to tell the kid it isn’t his problem.

JJ wants to reassure the kid that he’s safe, but he’s pretty sure enough dangerous people have been saying that it’s meaningless by now. He scrubs at the kid’s face with a cloth, instead, wishing he could warm one at the sink without risking Dominic falling over, even seated like he is. He seems more unstable every time he vomits. JJ has to hope it’s the dehydration and not the drugs working their way to killing him.

“Oh my god, she was shooting at me,” Dominic says, in sudden forensic epiphany that confuses the hell out of JJ, and probably the other two. Not that JJ likes to say it, but the traumatized kid was doing so well analyzing the scene JJ kind of forgot he was a traumatized kid. A drugged, traumatized kid. “You guys, I think she was trying to kill me!” Who’s just realizing now how close he came to dying.

“Yeah,” says one of the British agents, not oblivious to the kid’s distress, just entirely unclear where he’s coming from. Best to just let him work out the feelings, maybe - JJ doesn’t know what to say any better than they do.

“I thought she was trying to shoot her husband, which would make sense, if he’s cheating on her, which he promised he wasn’t,” Dominic says, slowly, and then, in a voice so clear it sounds like he sobered up just for a moment, “but she was willing to kill me. I think she’s killed other people. Kids, maybe - she thought I was a kid.”

It’s a chilling thought JJ was trying not to have again, but he’s pretty sure the kid’s right. Her husband rapes kids, she kills them, and all their connections cover the whole thing up. JJ doesn’t look over; he’s seen enough of foreign law enforcement giving his country’s government horrified looks. The only thing worse than that look on their faces would be not wearing it, and he doesn’t need to see that, either.

“Fuck. Makes you want to puke,” the kid says, and JJ can see the other two nodding in his periphery even through his own nods. “And… I’m not going to, so I think I’m better, probably. Can you guys clear out so I can shower again? Because I’m a little covered in vomit and a lot covered in sweat right now, which, gross. Uh. Whose clothes am I wearing?” He tugs the hem of his shirt.

JJ’s starting to think it might’ve been traumatizing to stick the kid in clothes other than his own when his were probably forcibly taken in the first place, but they’re still upstairs, and maybe being sorted into evidence. Maybe not in wearable condition anymore, either.

“No one’s, love, they’re just extras out of the uniform locker,” JJ’s ally soothes, making her voice extra soft, like she’s waiting for the kid to freak out about other people’s clothes touching him, or every other worry running through JJ’s mind, too. Maybe she just still wants to call an ambulance. Maybe she’s soothing JJ.

“Can I have more?” Dominic asks, hesitantly, although JJ isn’t sure why anyone would say no. It would be strange to offer him one set but balk at two. All world governments have done stranger, obviously, but this is such a small thing, he can’t imagine what tiny comforts people have refused the boy for what petty reason. And it drives home how right the decision was to prioritize getting him dressed; the last thing he wants is to be trapped naked again, clearly.

“Of course, pet,” says her partner, and then they clear out before they have to watch a kid strip off more than his shirt.

JJ hesitates. “Do you need help in there?” He doesn’t need to see a kid naked any more than anyone else, but they weren’t down on the ground propping Dominic up, either. They trusted his poise instead of the balance of his weight, and most likely have no idea how unstable standing’s going to be for the kid.

The kid makes an uncomfortably indecent sounding moan as he steps into the water, already steaming even though he’s still adjusting the temperature, still groaning into it. “Not unless you mean sexually, and even then, I’m feeling maybe a little too icky at the moment to take you up on it.” JJ is glad to hear it, even though he’d rather be in there. It’s hard to believe the kid won’t slip and brain himself. “Maybe find housekeeping and grab me more tiny soaps.”

JJ steps out against his better judgement, relaying the request. One agent gestures at JJ that he’s going to look for them, while the other leans in to say in a low tone, “even drugged, he has a fair grasp of forensics, and scans for weapons. Not to mention that comment about killing people. Are we sure he’s not our security breach?” She pinches her lips like she feels silly even saying it, but there it is. JJ didn’t like that comment, either. “Many people look alarmingly young. Some organizations recruit for it.”

There’s a pause, then, when JJ hesitates so long the door opens again, half a knock and the thud of trying to carry too many things later.

“If he is, he’s drugged enough I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” JJ reassures her, with another glance back at the person of interest. “I mean, don’t fuck off, though. If there is a problem, it’s better more people than fewer.” Both of his foreign allies give JJ meaningful looks along with the handfuls of soaps and shampoos, but he can’t do anything with those without more information, and none of them have any.

“Thanks,” Dominic says, when JJ hands over the toiletries sans commentary, and almost loses his footing. He recovers gracefully enough, but JJ can’t bring himself to leave again. He’s aware he’s watching a kid shower. He doesn’t want to be. He just wants to walk back in to a cracked skull and blood everywhere even less.

The bathroom is filled with steam even with the door open, and JJ almost thinks he’s home free, about to pretend he was waiting outside the whole time, when the kid slips again. Probably he’d recover without JJ’s intervention. The reflex is too ingrained, though, and JJ wraps an arm around him, holding him up. The kid winces as the bulletproof vest JJ still hasn’t taken off digs into him, then he turns to glare.

“Hey. Let go. You know grabbing someone who’s in the shower is like super inappropriate, right?” JJ does know, but apparently the kid knows why he intervened, too, and adds, with a sigh, “thank you, though. I’m. A little dizzy.”

“Are you sure I can’t help?” JJ asks, ready to wash the kid head to toe if it keeps him from keeling over. The drugs still haven’t worn off, and his balance seems increasingly precarious. And if anyone’s gotten in touch with Dale, he isn’t around to take over yet.

Dominic sighs again, then says, “yeah. Okay. I’m pretty sure it is ecstasy, because my hair has way too many textures right now, like way more than normal. I’m still pretty high.” He says it professionally enough that it almost feels like a disclosure instead of the cry for help it is.

JJ steps halfway out the bathroom door, just enough to strip off his jacket and vest without losing sight of the kid scrubbing down too vigorously. Then he helps Dominic down onto the side of the tub, wide enough to be a bench anyway, and starts working shampoo into the kid’s hair. This he’s done before. He can wash someone’s hair easily. Whether he can do it without the queasy feeling that’s going to accompany comparing this kid to the people whose hair he usually washes is an open question, especially with Dominic responding like that, but he can work out all the sweat making it itch, all the vomit clinging to the strands at the front of his face, all the bad vibes of everything that’s happened to the kid today.

“You’re good at that,” Dominic says, sort of dreamily, which is better than what JJ worried was going to come out of his mouth. “Almost as good as Dale.”

“Who’s Dale?” JJ asks, with the same sinking feeling from before, because he thought the kid might be avoiding his parents for good reason - JJ wouldn’t have wanted to be caught in this situation at that age, even with less shooting - but he’d hoped it was at least a caretaker type, an uncle or a family friend.

“Dale’s the nicest man in the whole wide world,” Dominic says, happily, which might carry more weight if he hadn’t applied similar terms to the general, “imagine the nicest man ever. Now imagine he’s really hot, too. With a huge dick. Really just impressively large. And he makes hot cocoa you would kill for. He’ll give me the special cocoa after this. I always get extra when someone tries to kill me.”

JJ can’t pick apart the entire claim, but his hopes died with every subsequent sentence, and all he has left is the optimism that Dale’s someone Dominic’s age, or someone he met recently - he might be barely an adult, the way he’s insisted a few times, and then it would maybe be mostly okay. Better than the general, anyway. “He sounds. Nice.” JJ winces at echoing Dominic’s words, but the kid doesn’t notice.

“Oh, he’s the nicest. He loves me, and I love him,” the kid says, happily, as if he wasn’t just saying the same about the general. “He’d shoot someone for me and everything; he’s done it before. You’re nice, too, you know, Mr. Special Agent Man. I’d do you.”

“I’m straight,” JJ says, before anything can go anywhere down that path. It sits wrong in the air, like that shouldn’t have been his first denial, but it feels like one the kid is more likely to believe.

“Okay? Lots of guys I’ve fucked are straight. You can just close your eyes when I suck you off, and it shouldn’t matter,” Dominic says, and JJ doesn’t want to delve into any of it. He doesn’t need to know who all these guys are, or where they met Dominic, or how old they were relative to each other. It’s better not to ask.

JJ’s starting to think nothing might deter the flirting, but all the things he doesn’t need to know feel like they might encourage it.

He doesn’t need to know any of that about Dale, strictly speaking, either, but JJ’s going to have to release Dominic into Dale’s custody unless he can find a compelling reason not to, and he damn sure needs to find it if it’s there. “So. How did you and Dale meet, then?” He’s almost hoping the man is just a drug dealer the kid trusts overly much, which seems the least of bad options.

“Oh, just ignore me when I hit on you, that’s polite,” Dominic gripes, rinsing his hair and stumbling even as JJ supports him out of the tub. He accepts the towel JJ wraps around him with a kind of hum of appreciation, and at least the way he leans against the agent for support seems platonic enough. “I spent a lot of time at the skate park in elementary school, and he was there one day, and he gave me a bunch of tips and tricks. Rollerblading, I mean, not skateboarding - he’s really good at rollerblading. We’ve hung out ever since. Can I have a hug if I promise not to be weird about it?”

“Sure,” JJ says, still processing words he really didn’t want to hear, and then hastily adds, “after you get dressed, I mean.” His hands are over the towel, rubbing the kid’s shoulders, but pulling him close - at the very least, JJ wants to be as dry as possible, and he’s already failed a noticeable amount at the task.

“Spoilsport,” Dominic says, without any particular vitriol in it, and walks back into the main room with JJ’s help. The British are back, but they avert their eyes as the kid gets dressed and then drapes himself against JJ, who tentatively gives him the promised hug. “Come to bed with me. I mean, just for cuddles,” he pleads, and JJ helps him into the bed, but doesn’t climb in after him. The lack of any kind of hesitation before the kid’s hand is down his own pants make any idea of just cuddles even more questionable than JJ thought as soon as the kid tried to walk it back.

“So, this Dale,” JJ says, to a raised eyebrow or two, even though Dominic seems happy to answer, “did he ever, uh, do anything coercive, the way the general does?” It’s an awkward phrasing, and JJ winces at it, but it’s the best he can do under the circumstances.

“The General isn’t really coercive,” the kid says, in confusion, and JJ’s eyebrows shoot up. He’s never wanted to protest a statement more in his life. The only way it could actually be incorrect is, “I mean, I guess he gets kind of pressure-y sometimes, but mostly it’s all stuff I want to do, anyway. There was that one time I said no and he said he’d be quick and I told him I didn’t want to do it in public on account of the public indecency and all and he just went ahead and did it anyway, but in his defense, he was really quick,” and there it is. JJ tries a half dozen times to form a response that’s tactfully phrased at all.

“That’s just rape,” is what he ends up with.

Dominic doesn’t protest, just stares at him crossly, and says, “well, it’s a good thing it’s not going to trial regardless, then, isn’t it,” and flops down on the bed. One hand is still down his pants, but he doesn’t seem to be doing anything with it, any more than he’s looking at anything. JJ likes to think it would take more than someone jerking off for him to leave a possible security breach unmonitored, but he’s not sure on that one, so he really wishes the kid would just stop.

“Is that good?” one of the British agents asks, in a fair amount of concern. JJ would be asking the same thing if the prosecutor hadn’t made it sound almost as scary to him as to Dominic.

“I mean, have you ever done a rape trial?” The kid isn’t being confrontational, despite the words, just sleepy, and JJ doesn’t know whether it’s more comforting to Dominic to let him talk it through or try to change the subject. If he needs to let all of this out, better to do it in front of people who understand what a sex crime is, at least. But not if it’ll traumatize him more.

“I have,” he says, as Dominic’s gaze almost focuses on him, “I mean, not as the victim, but I’ve done a few of them, yeah.” He feels like this is a test he’s not passing. He feels like there are words he should be saying, maybe even that he’s said before, in situations less immediately worrying than this one.

“Okay, yeah, so you know the kinds of things they say. Like that lawyer before, did you hear what he said? They’d let him interrogate me. I’d probably cry.” The kid makes a face, and JJ tries not to picture him crying on the stand. “I hate when they make me cry in the witness box. I mean, I don’t know, I’m way better at rape trials now than I was the first time. Now that was coercive.” JJ doesn’t like the idea of that being the kind of skill someone builds up, and he doesn’t want the details on it, especially not whichever parts were coercive, or whichever parts made the kid cry. But this is what the kid’s rambling about, and the other option may be letting him fall unconscious and hoping that’s not a health concern.

“What was coercive?” The agent’s partner gives him a scathing look JJ is too sympathetic to copy, because the man’s clearly already realized what a horrible idea it was to ask. He’s worried about the trial system, too, sure, but JJ’s pretty sure that wasn’t what the kid meant.

“The sex I was having with my boyfriend when Dale shot him,” the kid says, like this is a story they already know. JJ didn’t like the sound of Dale before and he likes it less armed, but at least it sounds like a good target. At least maybe all the people Dale supposedly shot for this kid were the kind of targets it’s hard to feel sorry for.

“Dale shot him?” Her lilting accent gains some sharp edges at the protest, and JJ can’t help but sympathize with his counterpart’s involuntary outburst. “While you were having sex with him.” That’s the kind of lasting trauma that has JJ skeptical the kid would ever agree to sex again, especially not with the general.

“Yeah. That’s what I was saying before. I don’t like being shot at during sex. I mean, at least I didn’t get shot, this time.” Dominic yawns, and JJ struggles not to yawn after him. It’s a good thing, how hard he has to work, because it means he doesn’t react to the implication this kid has been shot at during sex enough the hits landed more than once. The kid shrugs and says, “I mean, haven’t you guys been shot? Getting shot sucks.”

JJ reluctantly agrees, worrying that it’s the kind of thing the kid will want to discuss, and the others don’t seem any more eager than he is to describe whatever landed a bullet in them, if he’s reading their hesitant nods right. His hand twitches toward his scar, but at least he doesn’t start worrying at it in front of strangers. The kid only seems to be making a statement, though, as JJ tries to remember how many of Dominic’s scars might’ve conceivably been bullet holes once, and why he has a better reason than any of them to avoid admitting to that.

“He wasn’t shooting at you, though, was he? Dale?” JJ only realizes a moment later that he didn’t ask the question, and he’s watching someone else reconsider letting Dale see the kid, let alone take him away. It didn’t even occur to JJ that it might’ve been the same situation with the general’s wife; he’s only worried the attack was out of jealousy rather than empathy.

“No, just my boyfriend,” the kid says, slightly too cavalierly for JJ’s mental comfort. “He was choking me. I mean, that wasn’t the coercive part or anything, he was just mad at me for crying. He got me to do it by breaking my hand. That was the coercive part. But I mean it’s not like Dale should’ve know or anything, because that was the first time he did anything like that. I guess it was the first time I didn’t want sex when he did.”

“How old were you when this happened?” JJ hears the question, and double checks to make sure it is in his voice this time. He’s having trouble telling when he’s speaking, or even if he’s entirely still standing here. He should be asking how old the ‘boyfriend’ is, too, probably, except he doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Um, twelve?” The kid asks it like it’s a question, and JJ’s here to tell him if it’s the right answer. He can understand not remembering, in the face of all that trauma, but it feels like he thinks there’s something JJ wants to hear, here, even though he wants absolutely none of this making its way into his thoughts.

“How old was your so-called boyfriend?” asks one of JJ’s backup, at the same time the other asks, in even more horror, “and this was your first time?” and JJ realizes with another sinking feeling how the general got his teeth into the kid. He’s so underwater he’s about to discover a new species. And it’s likely to be even more information he could’ve gone his life without ever knowing. Even if Dominic has to.

“I don’t know, like, thirty-something, maybe? I was just a kid. I wasn’t good at telling ages,” and Dominic waves one question away to answer the other, like JJ’s already had time to ready himself for another blow. “Not my first time, just my first rape trial, which sucked, by the way. No. By that point it had been like a year since Dale showed me how to do anal, and I’ve been giving blowjobs since I was nine. So, like, I’m very good at it. You know. If you’re curious.”

JJ thinks he might never be curious enough to get a blowjob ever again.

“He sent me a letter, though, you know. Recently. He said he was sorry for all that, and he misses me, and he loves me. I believe him. He was always good to me except that one time,” the kid says, about the rapist who was molesting him for maybe months, and JJ has to admit he assumed Dale had killed the guy. Even out of jealousy, that wouldn’t break JJ’s heart any. “Like, don’t tell Dale, because he gets mad about stuff like that, but you know. He was nice to begin with.”

JJ is beginning to think this kid is confused by the definition of the word nice. He’s not going to tell Dale because he doesn’t want it taken out on the kid, but he’d support the guy taking the lethal shot, this time, even just over a letter. It makes JJ want to track down the rapist and he barely even knows Dominic. All three of them make abortive attempts to tell the kid to throw away whatever love letters he’s getting, but the kid continues on like they’ve said nothing at all, anyway.

“No, my first time was with Clay. It was amazing. I mean, it was terrible, actually, like really incompetent, because we had no idea what we were doing, but we were in love, so it was great.” The kid smiles wistfully, and JJ can’t say how much he doesn’t want to know anything else about yet another adult in this kid’s life trying to gain sympathy the same way as child molesters all over, claiming he’s never done it before, claiming he’s in love this time so it’s different. But Dominic continues anyway. “He’s off at West Point, now, though, and I can’t see him anymore. I miss him so much. I love him, you know.”

He looks plaintively at JJ to see if the FBI agent is buying it, but that’s exactly the thing - it’s his job to see through shit like that, even when the kid believes it. It’s pointless to go looking for what the connection is between some teacher whose rank he doesn’t even know and the general, when no jury in the world will ever hear about this, but JJ can’t help but get shivers down his spine wondering how much of the army brass this poor kid’s been passed between, or for how long, just to entertain themselves with his hurt. How many people out there can’t be touched, no matter how they’re touching Dominic?

“Kid,” JJ says, and the kid’s too out of it to even notice the word, “have you tried more. Uh. Age appropriate relationships?” It’s the worst thing he’s ever said because of how much it’s sweeping under the rug and how glancingly it touches any of the issues, but there’s no other way out JJ can find without convincing the kid he’s a victim first, and he doesn’t want to be convinced any more than anyone else does.

“Boring,” Dominic says, waving the thought away, and possibly eyeing up JJ while he does it. His hand is moving inside his pants again. “Why are FBI agents always trying to control who I fuck? And without even a hands on approach, like damn. At least hold me down and make me.” And if JJ hates every part of that response, the kid manages not to notice somehow.

“You’re going to get hurt,” cries a plaintive English accent, and JJ would echo the sentiment, except he’s the one who carried the kid down here naked, and it seems a little late for it.

“I can take care of myself,” says the kid, despite clear evidence to the contrary, and waves away all of their concerns. “Dale isn’t worried about me for anything short of a half dozen marines, and you shouldn’t be, either, you know?” JJ wonders how much of the kid’s lack of safety is wrapped up in exactly that sentiment, how many adults never saw clear warning signs because they assumed he could take care of himself. He hates Dale for not giving a shit about the kid’s physical safety, just his purity, or availability, or whatever it is he finds relevant enough to shoot over.

“Ducky, you can’t just think because you know how to fight or some such, no one can take advantage of you,” JJ’s backup tries to explain, but JJ’s not sure any amount of talking about it reasonably will get the kid to realize the general just doesn’t care if he gets hurt. That no one who’s willing to touch kids can actually care that much if they get hurt.

“Why are there British people in my bedroom?” The kid looks blearily up at them, seemingly crossing JJ off some mental list before sizing up the other two. “Are we in England? Did my bed get moved to England? Am I British like Marcus Imperator, now?” JJ repeats the sentences to himself like drugged rambles ever make sense, and still fails to answer.

“We’re in a hotel, pet, not your bedroom. You got shot at and you were brought down here, remember?” Which might be overly optimistic of a question to ask, with the kid drifting in and out of it like this, but it’s probably the only way to gauge whether they need to take him to a hospital. JJ wonders if specifying where they are in more detail than that will be grounding or confuse the kid worse.

“Oh my god, I got shot?” The kid sits bolt upright, and JJ finds himself taking an involuntary step back. He shuffles forward again. His hands are held out placatingly, almost as if the kid is armed, and JJ tries to relax his stance a little.

“At, love, at,” says someone other than JJ, who’s still kind of flinching whenever the kid twitches.

“At. Right. I didn’t get shot? I mean, did anyone look me over, because I can’t always feel it when I’m stressed or like. Well I’m pretty fucking sure I’m pretty fucking high right now.” Dominic holds his hands in front of him, touching his fingers to each other, and JJ isn’t sure what he’s doing except that it doesn’t seem to be going right. The kid seems more and more distressed.

“I looked you over before you got dressed,” JJ soothes, reaching out the pat the kid’s hand, the one where that isn’t creepy. He’s maybe sounding too reassuring when he should’ve called a doctor up front, except the kid really doesn’t seem to want one, and it’s his trauma to live through. “You weren’t injured. Or you only had scrapes and bruises, anyway.”

“I was undressed?” Dominic says in confusion, looking down at the pants and shirt he’s wearing like they mean he could never have been naked before in his life. “Are we having an affair?” He gestures vaguely enough that JJ isn’t sure which of the three of them the kid means, or maybe all three. The way the kid is eyeing each of them in turn, he might be hoping for that answer.

“No. You were having an affair with the general. I just got you out of there,” JJ says, managing to stop himself from reiterating the bit about the gunshots at the last second. He doesn’t know how many times that panic can come back around, but he knows that if it needs to it’s better for it to happen once, after the kid’s come down.

“Okay? You can get extracted and still have an affair,” Dominic says, squinting like he’s sizing up which of them is his most likely love interest. It’s different from the appreciative glances, more clinical, and somehow makes JJ feel far more like he’s being stripped naked. “Obviously not all of them will do it, but if you’re persistent you can definitely have an affair with your extraction team. I’ve done it twice.” JJ has no idea how to tell how true any part of that sentiment is, and he can see his back up analyzing the security angle on it either way, but he can tell how to discourage it.

“Well, not this extraction team,” JJ says, to corroborating shakes of the head from the others. The kid pouts.

“Ugh, no one ever wants to have sex with me,” Dominic complains, and JJ has to share a dozen separate looks with the other two over that. It’s sounding increasingly like the kid’s life would’ve been significantly better if that were true. “Except The General. Where’d he go? He loves me, you know, he told me so. And I love him. I thought - I thought I was going to - hmm.” The kid breaks off and JJ can’t tell if his memory caught up to him or he’s busy chasing it.

There’s another knock at the door, and JJ opens it when he sees an FBI vest on the other side of the peephole. He’s still on edge, because chances are the kid’s suspicion of a traitor have merit, but he can’t go the rest of his life never trusting another fed, so his gun is out, but pointed down the line of his leg, almost casually. The new agent doesn’t give him more than a nod before sweeping through.

“Dale!” The kid throws his hands up in the air, not quite sitting up, but clearly reaching for a hug, and JJ braces for what the nicest man in the world is going to do, knowing that he has the bureau’s backing on it whatever it is. “You’re here! I missed you! I love you so much.” Of all the terrible predictions he made, JJ never expected them to be shielded by credentials.

“Ah, fuck, Dominic, are you high right now? Seriously?” Dale crosses his arms in a much more menacing way than any of the rest of them have, and JJ wonders if it’s in a bid for information, even as he tries not to lose his shit on another federal agent for talking to a drugged kid that way. “Did you decide getting high in the middle of an international incident was actually a good idea, or was that why you thought you’d cause an international incident in the first place?”

JJ should’ve expected the victim blaming. Clearly Dominic did, because his response is a defensive, “it’s not international. The General is one of ours, and so is his wife, and so is the agent who rescued me, even. And The General invited me here. He wanted me to come.” JJ isn’t completely happy being acknowledged right in this instant. He’d rather be referenced to Dale as little as possible, especially depending how important the bureau finds him.

“I’m sure he did,” Dale says, not at all resembling the soothing way the rest of them would say it, not at all acknowledging how awful that man is or how awful his part in this is. “That doesn’t excuse you creating a security breach at talks this sensitive. Which is what makes it an international incident in the first place.” JJ is about to give one of his superiors a piece of his mind, except he doesn’t know how to word it.

Then the kid starts crying. “I wasn’t the security breach. I didn’t do anything. It was his wife. She had a gun she shouldn’t have and she shot at me, Dale! He said she was okay with it and she shot at me anyway!” Dominic starts crying in earnest, then, sobbing hard enough the bed shakes, and at least Dale’s expression softens, then. It took longer than JJ’s comfortable with, but at least it’s capable of being there.

“Aw, kiddo,” Dale says, and then crawls into bed with the kid despite where his hand is, wrapping arms tight around him. JJ’s getting ready to intervene and preparing even harder to be disgusted, but the kid’s hand leaves its perch to cling to Dale instead, and then the hug is almost normal, and definitely not any sort of crime, regardless of how actionable. “I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have shot at you. It’s alright. I’m here, now. I won’t let her at you again.”

“I love you, Dale,” the kid says, tucking his head against the man’s shoulder, and relieving absolutely none of JJ’s fears when the man pulls Dominic closer and the kid melts against him. He’s far too old for any of this to be reasonable - especially in elementary school - but it’s the badge that really does JJ’s head in. This kid has to be an informant to be calling him at all signs of trouble like that, and that’s an inappropriate relationship with an informant even if it isn’t inappropriate in that way. Which it might be.

And there’s probably nothing JJ can do about it.

“I love you, too, champ,” the agent says, pressing a kiss into his informant’s hair and cradling him. “Let’s get out of here, okay? Let’s go home.” Which implies he’s taking the kid away before he gets questioned, which JJ doesn’t like, except it may just be the latest part of the investigation to get disappeared, so what does it matter? The man already lives with his informant. Home.

“I don’t want to go home. We haven’t even visited Gutenbooks yet,” the kid complains, sleepily, burrowing into Dale just the way he curled into JJ in the first place, and it’s hard not to wonder if the agent was just tenderizing this kid for anyone in a uniform who wanted to take advantage of him. It would’ve been easy for JJ, or the others, this whole time - how much of that is Dale’s fault, pressing the issue from such a young age?

“We’ll go back to the hotel room, then,” Dale says, soothingly, and there it is, the man’s only stopping short of anything inappropriate because there’s an audience. He’s happy to share a bed with the kid in the privacy of their own hotel room. “You can sleep it off, and then we’ll go tomorrow, how does that sound, sport?”

“Okay, Dale, whatever you say,” Dominic says, and JJ has to wonder how many other times the kid’s uttered those words and what kind of horrors it led to, except it’s not his problem anymore, because the man is picking up the kid and carrying him out the door, presumably to a waiting car, and out of JJ’s life.

My boyfriend is pressed up against my back like he’s molded to me, and as fake as undercover relationships are supposed to be, this feels real as hell right now. He’s hard. Not as hard as I am, but I’m pretty sure he’s actually concentrating on the task at hand, whereas I’m about to start swearing and fall to the floor, writhing underneath him if I can manage to pull him with me. He’s giving me instructions I can’t process despite being able to easily recall what they’d be.

It’s not like he doesn’t know. I mean, his hand is on my fly, stroking slowly, even as his other hand aims and steadies my gun. His gun, really, I guess, even if it’s registered in my name, because he tossed my undercover weapon and replaced it with a legal one as soon as I moved in - he can’t have illegal firearms in the house. But anyone close enough to read the serial numbers is already a bigger problem, and somehow he got me a concealed carry permit, and now he’s insisting on teaching me how to use it correctly, assuming we lived in a pornographic film.

I think Dale did something more illegal than usual, but that man’s also the one who insists Dominic maintain his familiarity with guns by going to a range twice a week, so just at the moment, I’m pretty sure my only feeling towards him is gratitude. When I fire, the reverberations run all the way through me and, unlike normal, this presses me up against Dominic’s hand in a way that makes me wonder if we’re about to get kicked out, even banned.

No one’s watching. No one else is here. That’s my saving grace, when Dominic is rubbing me through my pants while he uses his sex voice to explain firing mechanics to me. I catch enough to know what he’s talking about, but I miss enough, trying not to thrust and still not managing not to rock against him, that he thinks I don’t.

He lets me fire again, then, without his hand wrapped around mine like he’s showing me how he likes to be touched, and I miss wildly. He steadies my arm for the next shot, encouraging me, telling me it’s going to be okay, everything short of calling me a good boy and telling me to shoot for daddy.

I probably would, if he said that.

It’s not the same target I’d use for recert, but it’s clear as hell even without that it wouldn’t pass. I’m not exactly the best shot, but I always pass by a decent margin, and this - this looks like the beginner he thinks I am. Maybe we should give out that advice to new recruits, that if you want to look like a beginner, just picture the hottest man you’ve ever fucked wrapped tight around you, massaging you steadily and stopping every time you get so into it you forget you’re holding a weapon in your desperation to hold his, chuckling at how cute he thinks you are for humoring him.

Picturing training agents holding their mentees like that has me almost passing out from blood loss. I’m dizzy with the image of my own, who I never even had that much of a crush on, and how much I’d suck at shooting if this scenario launched itself into my brain every time. I may have trouble shooting for the forseeable future, anyway, not that I’m supposed to be shooting anyone, not that I’ll probably need to. The only thing I need to do is not come in my pants so noticeably we get permanently barred from Dominic’s favorite range.

I meet that goal in the spectacularly closest call I’ve ever had when Dominic pulls away from me to demonstrate, and it’s probably the loss of his body heat that cools me down enough to stave it off. My boyfriend empties his entire clip in a single action, and when he pulls the target it, it’s not even a tight cluster. There’s just a single bullet hole. And he lets me keep it.

The paper smells like gunpowder and ink when I can’t help but kiss it, and at least wanting to lick a sheet of target paper for the first time in my life distracts me from everything else I’d like to like, starting with every part of my boyfriend I already know the intimate taste of, and ending with the gun he bought me. He holds it like an extension of his arm and it almost feels like if I could lick the barrel hard enough he’d shudder with the heat of it. He kisses me, instead.

I’m still imagining all the places he could hold my gun, even knowing it’s a bad idea despite the rounds I counted out, so it surprises me when I find it pressing between us, tucked neatly away again. Safety first, apparently. Even with what we’ve been doing here. He presses his mouth even harder against me than his hips, grinding against me slowly enough there’s room for me to back away from the edge, and it’s just that and the firearm caught between us left in the world - I can’t even make the joke I want to make to him.

I should watch him clean up and put things away, so I don’t look suspiciously familiar with the process when he takes me here again. Instead I clench my eyes shut and cling to the wall for dear life, until he finally tells me it’s time to go. It wasn’t hours, it can’t have been hours, but the clock in the corner ticks like it’s taunting me, and I need to escape it. My hands wrap around Dominic’s wrist maybe a little too hard as I drag him out of there.

It takes a moment for Dale to place the young man’s face; he didn’t see it clearly, that first day, the way he would’ve looked if he’d known something was going to come of it. It’s been decades longer for him than for his victim, of course, not that it makes much difference. The images won’t leave his nightmares and the violence is seared into his memory. He finds it unlikely any number of decades will make them feel farther away than the slightest distance.

“Oh,” he says, and the recognition on his face unlocks something in the other man, letting his face twist into something like a grimace.

He looks relieved, even despite that. “So you do remember me.”

“I do.” Dale wants to say something about never being able to forget or how much the whole thing weighs on him, but it seems a lot to hang on someone he’s wronged, no matter his reasons.

“I was worried you wouldn’t,” he admits to Dale, which is more of an explanation for the avoidance than Dale thought he needed, but there it is. “I went to confront a lot of my abusers in prison. I couldn’t find you. I guess I know why, now.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that,” Dale says, and then, wanting to reach out and knowing how bad of an idea that is, “I’m so sorry for everything, kiddo.”

“Well, it’s not like you wanted to be there, doing that,” the poor kid says, seemingly not noticing Dale’s slip of the tongue, or not objecting, at any rate. “I mean. You didn’t want to be doing that, right?” He looks so lost, all of a sudden, like he’s just realized the answer might not be what he wants it to be, even here.

“I would never want to do anything like that,” Dale says, on the heels of the question, terrified of leaving any gap that might be read as hesitation. “I never would have, if I didn’t have to.”

“You know,” the kid says, gaze downcast, looking just exactly like when Dale knew him, and he wonders how it took him so long to place the face, “it wasn’t even what you did. You weren’t the first and you weren’t the last. But you were the only one who avoided me after, like you knew what you did was wrong. And you still decided to do it anyway.”

“I don’t know what I can say, other than apologizing as many times as you need me to,” Dale says, clenching his fist. It’s trembling now, and the only thing he knows how to do is hold someone, even when he can’t.

“It changed my life, you know. I hated you so much after that I decided to come here. Because you made me think you cared and then, what, got what you wanted from me?” Anger flares in the kid’s eyes as he glares up at Dale, but it’s doused almost as quickly. “And I guess you did, not in the way I thought at all, and I can’t exactly hold it against you, not if I want to be doing the very same thing myself. I’m sorry for dropping your class. I hope you’re not offended.”

“Oh, kiddo, you can hold anything against me that you want,” Dale says, and it takes sitting down to figure out what to do with his hands. Clenching his knees is as good an idea as any. “I’d never be upset with you over - well, probably just about anything you might do to me, but certainly not that decision. That’s just sensible.”

“I’ve thought about murdering you so many times over the years,” the kid says, and Dale can’t figure out why he’d possibly look guilty over it. “I still think about you every time I shoot, and if you hadn’t told me never to fire angry - well, I’m not in prison, because of you, and I’m here, because of you, so I guess net win, if you think about it. I guess, if you think about it, I owe you a lot.”

“You don’t have to think of it that way. I’d never ask it of you,” Dale says, to the kid’s slow nod. “If it helps you to be angry with me, be angry.”

“But the man I’m mad at never existed at all, did he?” The kid looks on the verge of crying, and neither of them know exactly why, even though it seems like it should be the obvious. “The one who hurt me, but the one who cared never existed, either, did he?”

“Oh, kiddo, I cared about you so much, and I did as little as I could to hurt you, but,” Dale breaks off. Coming here, he should know the stakes, and if he doesn’t want to, Dale has no right to convince him of them.

“Do you still care?” The kid’s expression is nothing but tension trying to cover up fear, and it makes it hard for Dale to take a full breath, too.

“Of course I care. And I don’t know if this helps at all, but it’s so impressive you made it all the way here,” Dale says. He wants the kid to look at him, and understand the whole unvarnished truth, but he can’t exactly force the gaze. “That you made it out at all, but here? I’m so proud of you, champ.”

You haven’t paid a lot of attention to Dale’s kid, but you knew enough to know he’s magical, and even if you didn’t, you’ve glimpsed enough of his tattoos as he shimmied out of the cuffs you should’ve known before you pulled out the wrong pair. The enchanted ones sit in the inner pocket of your suit where you’re less likely to drop them or waste them on a mundane criminal and have to reset the single-use spells on release anyway, and you manage to fish them out and snap them around his wrists with barely more than an oops to warn him.

The kid doesn’t look surprised, but then, he’d see the werewolf in your aura right off, when all you’re primed to see is that he’s a good kid who’s been caught in some bad spots. Your partner is giving you enough of a skeptical look you’re pretty sure she either saw before you did, or remembered, and you wish she’d gone first. Everyone seems to be impressed you trapped the kid even for a few minutes, though, and there’s a slight cheer running through the crowd.

Metal glints as a knife slips from somewhere, not that it’s ever clear where, with a Sangreal. You did notice from the tattoos, of course, but the ritual blade is a bit of a shock. Those are swords, usually, and you knew he didn’t normally carry a sword, or the entire office would be bringing it up all the time. You figured he’d dropped it when he defected, or cut ties, or distanced himself, or however the kid thinks of working for Dale instead. You’d expect him to have a swiss army knife. A combat knife wouldn’t have surprised you, either. The fact that he still carries his ritual blade and, from the way he holds it, it’s his primary weapon, surprises you just a little, and you watch to see if he plans to jimmy the lock with it. A Sangreal tends to have a lot of odd tricks with their primary weapon, even with their magic out of reach.

He presses the edge of the blade to his wrist, and you realize how hasty it was to cuff his hands in front of him.

“Hey,” you say, and he pauses, looking up at you from where he’s still sitting after you halfway tackled him, his knife even brighter than the cuffs as he plans something. “If you break my cuffs, I’m going to have you sanctioned.”

“I wasn’t going to break them,” he says, with a pout, even though his knife is poised right against his wrist, and he clearly means business.

“I’m serious, Sangreal, if you disrupt the enchantments on those things, I’m going to have you sent to werewolf jail for interfering with a federal agent,” you tell him, and you think he’s going to listen, but you’re already getting a migraine thinking about having to requisition new ones and how long it’s going to take to get these repaired. And these ones you’ve broken in already, so it’s not like you want to replace them.

“We know you can,” says your partner, trying to defuse the situation when the kid looks about to cry, and you shoot her a grateful look, even though she raises an eyebrow at you for bot using the heavy duty cuffs when there’s all kinds of rumors about who this kid is if you bother to try to remember them all. “But do you really want to slit your wrists in front of the whole FBI?” You don’t want to use those cuffs on the kid because you’d rather not make him sick just for a game, or possibly even traumatize him. You’d get such judgmental looks asking for new cuffs, though, and your partner’s trying to save you the paperwork like she thinks he can really do it too.

“I’d put them back,” he says, frowning like you’ve impugned his honor, and with a Sangreal, that might really be why. “I can enchant cuffs, you know. It only takes like three hours.”

More like five, in your experience, but that’s hardly the point. “And are you an officially licensed enchanter? Because it’s not like I don’t know how to do it myself. But I’m not local PD, kid; I can’t just let anyone do it; it’s not regulation.” And you wish he’d just pick the lock like you’re certain he knows how to do, and hand them back to you before you have an aneurysm. You shouldn’t have let a kid play with your cuffs, even with everyone calling it entertainment.

“I’m not a kid,” the kid says, so coldly you think you’ve missed how long it’s been a point of contention and why. He was bantering about breaking your cuffs, but this he’s actually sensitive about. “I’m an adult even by US legal definitions, now. Don’t call me a kid.”

“Sorry,” you tell the kid, and nearly get whiplash when he turns to his handler to cry.

He’s probably not even faking, is the thing. Because he really is just a kid.

“Dale,” the kid says, plaintively, gesturing at you with the knife still in his hand, even though your partner’s admonition seems to have gotten through to him, “they’re threatening to send me to werewolf jail!”

“Oh, we are not,” your partner says, with a snort, staring edgily at everyone else around, still waiting for the kid to get free of his cuffs, watching your conversation in increasing confusion. “As long as he keeps his powers to himself and doesn’t short those.”

The kid hands the cuffs back to you - lock picked with physical means you also didn’t see where he was hiding - and you tuck them away in relief. He’s still sniffling. “I didn’t even do anything and they want to send me to werewolf jail!”

“Don’t threaten to send my kid to werewolf jail,” Dale says, aghast, and you’re not sure why. From everything you know about him, he’d prefer that over the US penal system - but, then, you don’t know why the kid’s so freaked out, either, and maybe he had a bad experience there.

“Fine,” you say, cavalier now that the cuffs are back in your custody anyway, “if the kid wants to pay $600 to reenchant and recertify my cuffs, he can feel free. I should’ve used the heavy duty ones on him anyway.” You make the mistake of pulling them from your other inner pocket just to show the kid, who pouts.

Dale looks curious. Your partner looks annoyed. Before either of them can say anything, the kid grabs for them and you have to start playing keep away. Other people seem curious, too, because these cuffs at least look a little different from the standard ones you all use.

“I bet I could break them,” the kid says, with a kind of confidence that might not even be unearned, given where he grew up. They’re built to withstand even Sangreal training, though, and he’s likely never had a reason to learn that.

“In three or four days, maybe, but we’d have you in a holding cell by then, or in residence,” you tell him. You’re not sure he’s entirely wrong, given the kind of wardbreaking his people teach, even though most people couldn’t touch the wards on these without a minimal coven no matter how long you gave them.

“Would you bind my powers? In werewolf jail?” His voice is low, when he asks. Threatening, you think, for a second, until you realize it’s fear keeping his tone that quiet.

“Again, Sangreal, no one is trying to send you to werewolf jail,” you say, in an effort to be soothing that just doesn’t seem to take. It doesn’t help that you barely remember his first name, and you’re not sure at this point what forms of address he’d even consider polite.

Your partner seems to have slightly more of a handle on it, even though she seems a little spooked herself. “With power on your scale, given your skillset, we’d probably have a healer dampen them. Not fully bound, but restricted, and only by an expert in the procedure. Or you could swear an oath, of course, but we’d never ask a Sangreal to do that.” He seems mollified, and you’re not sure if it’s because he thinks it isn’t that bad, or because he’s a special case. You make a note to ask your partner how powerful his aura reads, or if it’s something she knows about his background.

“My parents bound my powers, once, and I almost killed myself breaking the binding, and I’d do it again,” the kid says, except it seems more like a reassurance to himself than any kind of attempt to control your behavior.

“Your parents what?” you ask. Not that you could go in and fight en entire Sangreal settlement even if it were reasonable to go assault someone’s parents for hurting them, but you still want to ask if you need to beat anyone up. “That’s awful.”

“He was kicked out when he was thirteen,” Dale reminds you, with just enough warning tone not to ask further. He says it like it’s abusive, though, like he’s convinced the kid it was, which is enough for you. He might be more concerned with what else they did, banishing a serious fighter like that, but you can imagine everything it entailed yourself, and it’s not a pretty picture. Ugly enough to have been taken seriously.

The kid doesn’t need your help. He has a whole handler looking out for him, maybe a little too much, and he’s clearly popular around here. Your heart still tugs.

He licks his lips, then forces a smile onto his face. “Let me try the big cuffs.” He almost winks, like he wants you to think he’s planning on destroying them, werewolf jail be damned.

That’s not even why you don’t want to put them on him. If he’s had his powers bound, if he’s had his powers bound like that, “kid, I don’t know. You have no idea how these feel.” They burn, the slightest bit, just enough more silver than the standard cuffs to have a bite to them. You had to wear them for an hour before they’d let you carry a pair, and the way they didn’t just shift your magic away from you like running water - well, you agree that anyone who’s going to cut off someone’s magic so completely shouldn’t be doing it lightly, so you had to learn how it felt. The cuffs scare you even handling them, sometimes.

“I want to know,” the kid says, and that serious tone is back. You were thinking he was being cheeky, daring you, trying to prove something, or maybe just that full of himself. He’s not. You’re pretty sure he wants to know so bad so he can plan how scared to feel if he’s threatened with them somewhere down the line.

You’re sympathetic to the desperation for contingency plans, though. “Okay. Tap out if it gets too much, though, alright?” The kid nods, and most of the time you’d have to take that for what it is, but you can ask, really ask, with a Sangreal. “Promise you’ll tap out if you need to?”

“I promise,” he says, solemnly, and the weight of it actually crystallizes around him in a subtle glow as he says it, and you relax.

Not all the way, especially with your partner shifting from foot to foot like that, with the kid’s handler glaring at you like he’ll hurt you if something goes wrong even though he seems unclear exactly what, but enough that you can take his hands and gently enclose the metal around them, and wait. It was unbearable for you at about four seconds, and you’d sat through the whole lecture already, knowing what was coming. You knew why it was necessary for you to sit through that. He’s voluntarily making the entire sense go dark, and he thinks it’s necessary, too, but for much less defensible reasons. Very few people who have access to these would ever use them unless they really, really had to.

Very few is not none, though.

You watch his breathing steady at first, enough that the few ragged gasps are clearer than they should be. You tried to control your breathing, too. Everyone does. He seems to be working through his panic up until he tries to touch the cuffs. You can tell he just planned to run his finger along them, learn where to pick the locks like he did the last pair, and you should’ve remembered this part would be worse, for a Sangreal. They’re warded to keep ill intent away, primarily for the escape attempts, but that’s like holding him to an oath he didn’t make when he’s trapped in them, and his pupils turn to pinpricks as he almost but doesn’t quite look up at you.

You take off the cuffs.

“I didn’t tap out,” he says, but the way he says it already has his handler wrapping him in a hug and leading him away. “I could’ve handled it.”

You have no doubt he could have, and if he’d been tasked with an hour for his certification, you’re pretty sure you’d have been able to time the minutes to his breathing. But you could see the memory of what his parents did to him clawing at the edges of awareness, and all of this was only supposed to be a game. You think he was seconds away from screaming. You’re not sure he knows it.

The cuffs are heavier than normal in their special pocket, even with the silk they nestle inside supposedly dampening their more ominous qualities. There’s almost a clang as you drop them. It feels like the kid can hear it, turning to stare at you, but all he says is, “you should get some of those, Dale. Just in case.”

“You’ll come back to my place, champ. You’re always welcome.” Dale can hear the stifled tears making their way out anyway, and wishes he could get there faster than he will, even with the sirens leading the way.

“Thanks, Dale,” Dominic says, and then there’s a click, and he ends the call with as few pleasantries as he started it.

No one has a problem with Dale tagging along, but they know to keep him uninvolved, which means he hears the chatter through the tense silence of everyone figuring out what not to say. The radio specifies that it’s a cop who’s been killed, and Dale knew better than to hope it wasn’t quite that even as he thought it. The radio doesn’t have to specify which one.

Dale doesn’t either. They’ll see when they get there, even if Dale is wrong.

The hostility is palpable, but it isn’t universal, because Dominic is wrapped in a reflective blanket when Dale finds him, looking like he needs it. Dale wraps an arm around him, too. There’s a long moment of hesitation that Dale isn’t sure isn’t shock.

“Did they find the kid?” Dominic asks, like Dale’s more looped in than he is, but he’s heard enough of the locals ranting that there is no kid to know that, at best, the team he brought is looking.

“Not yet,” Dale says, and holds Dominic as he starts crying again.

“How do you know if you did it on purpose?” Dominic asks, and Dale tries not to freeze while he’s so close Dominic couldn’t help but feel it, but he’s never quite been in that situation before. “How do you tell the difference between a stupid fucking accident and revenge?”

There’s a methodology to it that Dale usually remembers, except it’s not usually his kid caught in this situation, or Dale desperately wanting to believe him even though he’s not sure he should. “I doubt you did it for revenge, kiddo.” By all accounts, everything in their relationship was good. It seemed to be going strong.

Dale liked the guy, though, so clearly he was missing something anyway.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t even remember firing, although clearly I did, or someone did, because he’s dead.” Dominic takes a deep breath, and Dale credits the circles he’s rubbing into the kid’s back. He lifts up his hand to show off the powder burns, like he needs to prove it to himself as badly as Dale, even when it paints him as guilty. “I was so fucking scared, Dale. Did I get scared enough to lose my trigger discipline? Who does that?”

“We all get scared, champ,” Dale says, and he’d bring up times he was a little fast on the draw or fired a few too many times, except he never killed anyone that way, especially not a friend. Especially not a romantic partner. “Can you tell me what scared you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what was real. I don’t even remember hearing the gunshot - or gunshots, who knows how many there were?” Dale’s about to reassure him the team will find that out, but that’s not his point, and Dale doesn’t want to interrupt to Dominic finding his way to what he needs to say. “So I don’t know if what I saw really happened, or I’m just remembering things I should be over by now. Some of it’s not real, for sure, because I can taste gunmetal and oil and he hasn’t put his gun in my mouth since we ran into each other again.”

Did anyone find the kid suddenly makes a lot more sense to Dale, if Dominic is wondering whether there is a real child or he’s just having flashbacks to middle school. Unfortunately, the other thing that suddenly makes a lot more sense is Dominic asking, early on, whether Dale wanted to know if someone did something wrong before, even if he’s reformed now, or did he want to start fresh, with no warning.

Dale’s regretting some of his principles, now. Of course he wanted to get to know Dominic’s boyfriend without the baggage. He just assumed the baggage wouldn’t be anything he needed to know. Maybe to justify revenge.

Dale really doesn’t want to justify revenge.

“What do you think happened, kiddo?” Dale asks, and if he sounds more angry than gentle, well, he’s going to have to process a lot of these details later, well away from Dominic.

“I mean, he pulled his gun on me, which hasn’t happened since,” and Dominic breaks off, even though Dale knows the time frame because he knows where they met, “did anyone check on the kid? He could be hurt. Someone needs to find him. Someone needs to….”

Dale wishes someone found the kid a hell of a lot earlier, and he doesn’t like how much of his desire to find this one comes from knowing Dominic will need him as a defense. “You had a flashback, kiddo. It wasn’t revenge.”

“Maybe it was,” Dominic says, with the kind of blank voice Dale associates with shootings, and is one of the stated reasons Dominic hates guns. “I mean, I caught him in bed with someone, right? So - I don’t know. I don’t know why I’d panic that hard. But I thought he’d stopped. He said he’s stopped. He said he’d never do that kind of thing and I believed him and now this happened.”

Dale doesn’t know the details on this any more than he knows the details on what the man said he’d stop, but there are enough broad strokes to paint too full a picture. He couldn’t say why this made Dominic panic when so many other things haven’t, except that, even with the kinds of other things Dale’s heard, the kid never told anything about this. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out,” he says, because there’s nothing else to say. And chances are, there’s a strong defense if Dominic is willing to tell it.

“I think I need a lawyer,” Dominic says, and before Dale can even agree, he has the reflective blanket halfway open, staring down at his bloodstained clothes in confusion. Most of it is the darker red of drying stains, but some still looks too fresh, on his pants, then on Dominic’s hand where he presses down against it. “Um. Dale? I think I might have been shot.”

He’s pretty sure Dominic has killed before. He’s pretty sure the kid regrets it, too. He’s never known Dominic to antagonize people on purpose, let alone what something like this might kick off, and Dale doesn’t have the faintest idea why he’d sign his name to it. He’s been mixed up with the cartels a sight more than Dale would prefer, but even so, it’s taken Dale years to start deciphering their name sigils when it’s his whole job, so he doesn’t see how anyone else would know. Which is also why he doubts anyone would know to fake it and frame him.

Dale hopes he’ll at least try to deny it, but the kid says right off, “you’ve got to send a message, Dale. Or they’ll keep sending people after you.” And Dale, to his chagrin, does already have an inkling who would send a hitman after Dominic, and why. It’s hard to tell how familiar someone might be with just a bloody severed head to look at, but the ID seemed like something they’d find quickly enough he didn’t bother trying to remember. It fits the narrative when it comes in.

“This may make them escalate,” Dale says, like they’re having a reasonable conversation, like he somehow knows how Dominic got him to agree beheading someone was the right move.

Dominic can defend himself from a hitman. That Dale has no problem with. It’s hacking the man’s head off and signing a note in his blood that he doesn’t want the kid to do, and he’s somehow managed to get roped into a debate on it. They still haven’t gotten to the official statement, even.

“How are they going to escalate?” Dominic scoffs. “They’re already putting out hits on me. I killed the first one quiet and they didn’t get the memo, so I’m going for dramatic flare. Organized crime loves dramatic flare, Dale.”

Dale has no problem with Dominic defending himself from hitmen.

“Anyway, I figure they’ll call us even and cancel the hit,” Dominic says, a shade too optimistically, and Dale tries not to sigh at the idealism. That’s not what he has a problem with, anyway.

“You’ll have to come down and interview,” Dale says, running out of arguments, both of the kind he went in trying to make and the kind Dominic is spurring by being just a little too cavalier about this. Not even the lethal force, which Dale has to assume even this kid would need against an internationally wanted killer, but the fact that he’s having to defend himself from hitmen at all.

“Aw, but I didn’t do anything,” Dominic complains, and Dale maintains his composure by not arguing with that at all.

Mostly, everyone agrees it’s not a problem for Dominic to defend himself from would be assassins. It’s more that they argue whether he can. And clearly he can, but they do - and, here, Dale explains why so much time and money is going to surveilling this one group - question very strongly how. It’s all very awkward explanations of things that don’t sound great, but in and of itself, it isn’t an issue.

The issue is that no one knows who attributed the kill to the Sangreals.

Dale doesn’t figure there’s a leak, even though this incident made its way into several case files. He doesn’t think Dominic made any public statements about it, either; Dale warned him it wasn’t likely to lead anywhere good. But it’s the kind of bloody story the news jumps on, and the kind of major incident that makes its way through every rumor mill, and anything Dale knows, other people out there know just as well. Groups closer to the source might even pick it up faster than he does. Someone out there can read Dominic’s signature. The information is out there.

At work, most of the fuss is about the news spelling everything out in gory detail, with some about the buzz moving through the underworld. Somewhere in there, something escalated, though, and Dale wishes he had the pieces in the middle to look at.

“They fucked up,” Dominic tells him, over pizza, as Dale tries to pry out just a little more context. “It’s one thing to send someone specific after me, personally. They questioned our honor, though. Said they’d take out at many of us as they needed to. Then they put a price on my head, like a free for all everyone come and get it kind of price, and we can’t have that.” Dale has no idea where any of this conversation occurred, or who was representing each party, and it’s a problem.

“Dominic,” Dale says, slowly, carefully, soothingly, “if you have a problem, I can help you solve it. It’s better than trying to tackle these things on your own, champ.”

“No problem,” the kid tells him, much to Dale’s terror, “my family won’t stand for it, so they’re going to make the message clearer.” Dale does have some idea, already, what the Sangreal version of a strongly worded memo is. He hardly wants it to be open season on the kid. He still feels dread pooling in his stomach.

When they find a whole meeting of senior leadership missing their heads, Dale doesn’t need a signature to know who’s responsible. It might’ve helped the cartel, though, who decided to lean on known hostilities, and let the whole antagonism with a small unknown fall to the wayside. It leaves Dominic free and clear. Dale’s not even sure it would be better for this relatively unknown group to be thought of as being the size Dale’s coming to uncover, but he still feels like the death and destruction that follow can be laid directly at their feet. That other people take credit and escalate is almost immaterial after their opening volley.

“What, were they supposed to just do nothing?” Dominic asks, almost offended Dale would be upset over any of the fallout. “My Family isn’t just going to let people come after one of their own. We’re the only ones who put out hits on our members, and even then it’s Family meant to carry it out.” Which would be fascinatingly useful information to Dale if it weren’t in the midst of all this and he could concentrate on it at all.

He supposes he can’t fault people, even a cult, for trying to keep killers from threatening their kids. He can’t fault Dominic for fighting back. Dale can’t even blame the kid for the initial accident that kicked it all off because, for all it was a series of stupid choices that lead to the incident in somewhat predictable ways, the kid is still twelve, and it was still an accident. He’s not sure who he can blame. Himself, maybe, for not keeping enough of an eye out. Whoever put out the initial hit on a twelve year old.

Trey doesn’t like the slightly dazed look in the lead gunman’s eye, but there’s hope these people can be reasoned with. It’s just money. Nothing political, nothing personal, nothing to set them off, probably, except Trey really thinks they might be high. Reading too much into it, maybe - hazards of the job.

But Dominic says, “hey, no one wants to die over a few hundred bucks, here. And I don’t think you want to shoot anyone. Why don’t you put down the gun and we can get you your money?” which is exactly what Trey would’ve said, except his voice doesn’t go quite that calm, and it wouldn’t matter if it did, because it’s entirely the wrong thing to say, apparently.

The gunman raises his arm higher, taking aim right at Dominic, and the fact that everyone else holding them hostage looks wide eyed and frantic means basically nothing. He’s going to shoot. He’s not going to ask questions and he’s not going to negotiate and he’s not going to be talked down by his buddies, he’s just going to shoot Dominic in his unarmored chest.

The glint of the trigger seems to shine like the sunrise, just as long if nothing like as beautiful, dragging back in slow motion as Trey swims through molasses to put himself between the shooter and his boyfriend.

You literally took a bullet for him.

He’s not wearing a vest. Why would he be? It occurs to Trey that he’s armed, that he might’ve tried to outdraw the shooter, even as high as he is, probably on a cocktail with at least a few uppers. It occurs to him that he’s on the ground, now, too, Dominic’s hands on his chest and begging him to hold on. Like he’s going anywhere. Silly thought.

It hurts more than he remembers, and Trey thinks about how the human brain likes to dull sensation in the bad memories, just to trick you into putting yourself in those situations again. He would’ve done it anyway. Blood is pooling warm and too fast on his stomach, smelling like mistakes but not yet like danger.

“Look what you made me do!” the gunman shouts, and then the door chimes happily like it’s just another customer coming in for coffee.

Dominic doesn’t look up, just keeps trying to put pressure and telling Trey he’s going to be okay, which he might. It’s okay if he’s not, though.

What was I supposed to do, let them shoot him? I’m not letting a couple of random thieves kill someone I love, what the fuck?

The shooter is average height, average build, but seems like a towering giant from Trey’s vantage point on the floor, everything going bright and loud and cold, and his heart jumps thinking he should do something when that shine of metal swings at the opening door. No one locked it behind them. Amateurs.

The floor has more gravity than it normally does, though, pinning him down, stopping Trey from stepping in or drawing his weapon or even talking the guy down. Or even reassuring Dominic. He’s supposed to do something and he can’t even do that. There’s just going to be some civilian shot, probably shot dead, on Trey’s watch.

What kind of person walks into a building where they just heard shots fired, though? If he weren’t trying to breathe through the shock, Trey probably would’ve figured that one out. Probably would’ve remembered Dale was supposed to meet them. Probably would be able to assess if Dominic’s right that he’s going to survive.

His shirt is torn open and Dominic’s hands are the only warm thing in the universe, burning so hot it’s like the way his eyes smolder about two and a half drinks in. He’s holding Trey’s blood inside with everything he has, and his tears glint like gunmetal Trey can’t reach out to push aside.

So you admit you love him.

It’s often Dale’s treat, when they come here, and Dominic often cuddles onto him, not nearly as romantic as they are sometimes, but close. Trey never knows if it’s for his benefit, when they don’t flirt, or why the winds change, or even if they ever really had a relationship like that. Dale’s too casual about using their apartment, but that might not mean anything. Or it might. Breakfast always seems like just breakfast, the way any group of friends might get.

But Dale’s always cared about Dominic, one way or another. He’s always been willing to kill.

Trey would kill for Dominic, too, but he’s pretty sure he’s never had that depth of resolve in his eyes. He’s fifty/fifty on how important Dominic is in the willing to kill for Dominic equation. But it doesn’t surprise him, either Dale bursting in on the hostage situation, or the gunshot.

The shooter turns his gun from his last victim, something that makes Trey dizzy deciding whether to think of in the third person, and spins to the door, weapon up, arm tensed, and, if Trey tries to remember hard enough, finger clutching at the trigger with intent. Not that anyone ever asks. Dale’s gun is already out, and he pulls the trigger first, and the gunman falls.

Single shot to the center of the forehead, so close range that basically no one could miss.

Care about. I meant care about.

Trey might be surprised at Dale’s aim. Not that he could’ve fucked it up so bad it went wild or anything, hit a civilian, but it could’ve been messy. This is neat, like an execution. Dale’s struck Trey from that first meeting as a killer, someone with the will and experience both, but he can’t exactly fault the man for this. It’s just so carefully centered, so precision neat in the very dead center, it seems like it should mean something, even if Trey doesn’t know what.

Everything else clatters. Trey was probably right that the others couldn’t pull the trigger, because nothing goes off when they let their weapons drop instead of setting them down, hand in the air even as Dale pulls out a badge and tells everyone to wait here to give statements.

“You’re safe now,” he says, first, in a soothing voice Trey’s only heard him use when Dominic has a flashback or a bad trip, and then the second he’s sure no one else is about to pull a gun his eyes are on Dominic, scanning him up and down for hurt. He doesn’t even notice Trey at first.

The fuck you did. Don’t try to walk it back, Trey. You’d take a bullet for your wife or kids, sure, but I don’t even know if you’d take one for me. It’s not nothing. Don’t act like it’s nothing.

Dominic’s crying but he’s still applying pressure, so only the occasional tear sprinkles onto Trey’s neck. He’s breathing as careful as he can when it feels like the bullet took out his whole lung, and Dominic probably knows what he’s doing. He has all the other times.

He was never crying trying to sew up those bullet holes, though. Trey had to figure that makes it harder. He knows field medicine just fine, but if he’d had to do this for Dominic? So his boyfriend’s doing as well as could be expected, and it’s probably down to that why Trey’s still lucid when Dale takes over.

Fairly lucid.

The towel is bright white and neatly folded in Dale’s hands for just a beat before Trey realizes he can still feel textures even through the pain, terrycloth like sandpaper where he knows it needs to be. He still swears.

“I know, sport,” Dale says, hands pressing Trey into the floor more firmly, not so cautious or precious about how much it might hurt as Dominic. Or else it’s that his hands are slick red well past the wrists, trying to wipe them on towels just as wet, red rather than white even though it doesn’t match the decor. “You’ve been hit pretty badly, but it’s not in the worst kind of spot, and we’re going to get you to the hospital, alright? You’re going to make it through this.”

Dale didn’t stop to call 911 or tell anyone else to because those familiar tritones were filling the air the second he dropped the guy who shot Trey. Chances are good someone already did, after the first shot, in a neighborhood like this. Or maybe this place is too nice for anyone to recognize a gunshot, or maybe Dale already told them to call, or maybe someone in the back called for help about the hostage. Help is on the way regardless. No one’s going to hurt Dominic anymore.

And even if they did, Dale is here now. Kill for him, die for him, lie about Trey’s chances for him. Safe hands to leave him in.

Oh, fuck you, of course I’d take a bullet for you. You’re my best friend. But I have to figure I’m not yours, or you’d stop taking what I say on this many painkillers so fucking seriously.

The ambulance is loud, but the light is steadier inside than seeing one streak past. The emergency room is somehow louder, the smell of disinfectant making Trey want to puke, and people everywhere. The surgical suite is cold and Trey panics when they put something over his face, but he’s not sure if he gets his arm all the way up to stop it. Every time he wakes up, they tell him the same thing as Dominic: everything will be okay, just let us help.

At some point the adrenaline gives way to cold that just seems to make the pain sharper, then numbness Trey takes as a bad sign. Of course, all his senses go away when they put him under, and he wakes up unable to find them again, but at least the new tingling is warm. He feels like he’s being rocked by a cloud.

Dominic is still crying. Again, maybe, given what Trey knows about how long surgery takes. “Never do that again,” he says, with a vehemence born of love, and Trey reaches out to clasp his hand. That works okay again. “Next time, you get down, you hide, you let me take care of it. Don’t put yourself in the line of fire for me. I promise I can take care of myself, and I never want to watch you go through this again.” His kiss is whisper soft against Trey’s hand, and it makes him sigh.

Everything feels whisper soft just now, and that’s why Trey agrees instead of telling Dominic he’d always step into the line of fire for him, that it’s Trey’s job to take care of him, that it’s not like he wants to watch Dominic go through this. He wasn’t about to let those people hurt Dominic. He isn’t going to let anyone hurt Dominic.

Dominic’s hand stays warm against Trey’s until he regains enough wherewithal to curl his fingers around the other man’s, as the doctors come to tell him he’s out of the woods but has a long road to recovery. They tell him numbers he doesn’t understand and words he does but isn’t supposed to, and has to pretend he doesn’t with the aid of medicine that makes that just a little too easy. Dominic is entirely uninjured.

Shaken up and mad at him, but safe.

Just admit you’re in love with him. Please.

There are other visitors, in and out. Dale stops by a few times, though not as many as Trey would expect when the man should be off duty over even a cut and dry shooting like this, at least for a little while. Especially with Dominic always here, Trey would expect to see him more.

Not that he’s always in the room with Trey. Most of the time there’s no need for privacy when it’s their friends from school, or Dominic’s friends from work showing support, or acquaintances checking in a little too pruriently, but Trey can’t exactly deny how titillating it must be for them. A reporter shows up, once. A few of the other hostages. One of the baristas shows up multiple times - Trey isn’t sure if she’s flirting. Some of Trey’s friends from ‘work’ show up, too; this has nothing to do with their jobs, do it’s safe enough to see him, and they’re either displaced enough from bullet wounds to be curious, or around them enough to be concerned. It’s all casual, though.

Balloons and flowers and the occasional stuffed animal surround him, candy and get well cards piled on the table. Dominic there to organize them for optimal cheer, smiling wetly back at him whenever Trey tosses him a grin. It’s a nice room, for a hospital bed he can’t get out of yet. He’s mostly just relieved he survived. A lot of people counting on him, and, if he’s honest, he didn’t think he would.

He didn’t think at all, his handler tells him.

The man isn’t supposed to be here. He’s someone Trey makes sure to be seen with outside of official meetings, at least in some kind of costume, but he’s not supposed to be inserting himself so centrally into Trey’s cover life, especially not looking so close to his real self. Especially not with whatever he said to Dominic to get the few minutes privacy he needs for a lecture. He’s going to give away how close they are. It’s all Trey’s close friends Dominic keeps making sure to give him a moment alone with.

Not they’re really that close of friends. But Dominic doesn’t know that, and it’s sweet of him.

Trey’s handler being his actual friend is a different story, and not something anyone should know, especially just for a scolding. Of course he’s worried. Trey got shot, and it wasn’t even part of the case, just a random act of violence. But he’s recovering, and he has Dominic here to help him with that, and honestly it might even be good for his cover. He’ll be fine.

Dominic’s going to take meticulous care of him while he heals just the same as Trey’s going to make sure Dominic gets to a therapist if it takes dragging him every time, and then Trey will be back in business. Sooner than later with the gentle touch Dominic has, getting everyone back on their feet. Trey’ll be at 100% before anyone knows it. They both will.

His handler has nothing to worry about.

“Did you think I wouldn’t come looking? You could just wander off and I wouldn’t care where you went? I called my family and they said you never made it to Columbia - I checked and you never got on the plane. I couldn’t fucking find you. Do you know how hard it is for me not to be able to find someone?” Dominic sighs, tipping his head back onto the couch, then shakes his head. “You kept the bracelet I made you. I found it boxed up in the basement. Do you have any idea how that made me feel?”

Trey doesn’t know how it made Dominic feel. He knows how it makes him feel for his boyfriend to have made him a gift just to stick a tracker on him. He shouldn’t have kept it. He barely knows why he did.

“Who are you?” Dominic asks, and Trey’s mouth goes dry, and he tries to think of an answer that ends with his whole family safe, and can’t find one. Dominic is still flipping the knife.

The door opens and Trey’s heart stops right there, and the knife disappears somewhere as Dominic stands up, that familiar smile on his face again, and he looks safe for a moment. Trey’s daughter looks up at him and asks, “who are you?” like Dominic will give her the answer when he hid it from Trey so hard.

“I’m just a friend of your daddy’s,” Dominic says, gently, his voice warm and familiar and still close enough it pools in Trey’s stomach, tugging at that endearment that makes him want to lean into the man, even now.

“Okay. Are you going to help us make cookies?” she asks, heedless of any danger, a child’s wide eyes trusting anyone because Trey should’ve prevented anyone dangerous from getting this close. His throat spasms as he tries to swallow, the rasp of a mouth gone completely dry pinching at it, and he feels like he’s been stabbed in the throat. His daughter smiles brightly.

Dominic smiles brightly back. “Sure, sweetie! Why don’t you go get all the ingredients ready?” He turns back to Trey like he’s going to say something, make some kind of threat, give him some kind of warning, then nothing. He walks into the kitchen where Trey wishes he wouldn’t be.

Trey’s home. He doesn’t even have his service weapon on him.

Dominic is picking up his daughter like it’s nothing, lifting her high to grab what she can’t reach. He laughs as she babbles to him, his real laugh, or his normal one, or the one Trey fell in love with, anyway. He has no idea what kind of ploy it is, but the man has an arm around Trey’s child like it’s proof of how easily he could snap her neck. How quickly he could burn this life, too.

Trey watches like there’s anything he can do to stop that when the time comes.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Dominic asks, with a sharp cock of his head, like it’s an actual question, like he had no idea Trey wouldn’t want a murderer’s hands on his daughter.

“Can we talk somewhere else?” Trey asks, quietly, like if he speaks softly enough his daughter won’t notice when he never comes back.

“Okay, I get it, you don’t want me around your kid,” Dominic says, like he’s actually offended, and puts her down. “Fine. I’ll come back later. But you’re going to regret it.”

And then Trey’s alone with his kid.

“Are you and your friend fighting, Daddy?” she asks, a little worried, a little scolding, in the way only kids her age have of thinking their grasp on the world is roughly complete.

“It’s okay, honey, we’ll work it out,” Trey says, because he can hardly tell her their fight’s likely to end with his body in a ditch somewhere, and if he’s lucky, it won’t be next to hers.

“Maybe you should apologize. Then he won’t be upset anymore. Did you try that?” She goes back to stirring her cookie dough while Trey tries to guess if there’s any apology strong enough to convince Dominic he got his way.

He never seemed like that kind of man, not until right at the end, but the kind of man who isn’t that wouldn’t have persisted in tracking Trey all the way to his home.

Trey doesn’t like to say things that worry his wife as much as I may have been burned or do I need to move my family somewhere secure, but he does need information faster than he can find privacy, so he just passes over Dominic’s name, his full name, hoping that, at least, is correct. He gets pushback. There’s some ambiguous talk about sealed files and ongoing cases and does he really need to know any of this and why, that by the end of Trey is terrified of admitting why to anyway. There should have been a sign, somewhere, that this wasn’t just a coked out college kid looking for a good time.

People came by injured, sometimes, but that was just the price of doing business with the kinds of people Dominic was and Trey was pretending to be. He patched them up, and he was usually even gentle about it - he patched up Trey’s contacts, too, and they came by about as often. He knew dirty cops and sometimes disposed of evidence, but he was a dealer the same as Trey was supposed to be, and that happened. He was never violent with anyone. Even the handful of times he probably should’ve been, he was never violent with anyone.

He didn’t even like Trey keeping a gun in the house, despite his own skill with it.

But the day progresses as all days do, even though the best Trey can get is a grudging promise to get the file over with as much as Trey’s allowed to see, this and every other agency apparently knowing someone he never thought to note as a major player. He eats dinner with his family. He puts his kid to bed.

He steps into the hallway and Dominic practically coalesces from the shadows, hands in pockets, nodding to the closed bedroom door. “The kid asleep?” he asks, like a concerned friend.

Trey nods and follows the man downstairs.

Dominic stands awkwardly in the living room, looking around as if he hasn’t just searched the place earlier today, trying to figure out Trey’s life from the decorating scheme. He won’t sit down, and until he does, Trey can’t. “Do you want to go for a drive?” Dominic asks, finally.

Trey follows him out. Better for it to be away from his home. He’s thinking, at first, that if they’re not there for Dominic to see when he’s done with Trey, he won’t take out the rest of his anger on them. Then he’s just happy they won’t have to watch him die. Someone else will find his body, out here somewhere, and they’ll notify his family, quick and clean.

A drive gives him a chance to talk to Dominic, too, if he can think up an opening.

“Did you really look up my fucking file?” Dominic asks. His eyes are still on the road. The car keeps on at a steady pace, following all traffic laws and guidelines, and Trey keeps his face bland, anyway. “Do you work for the fucking government?”

“Yeah,” Trey says, finally. He doesn’t know who Dominic knows, who tipped him off that quickly, but he’ll know anything about Trey that he doesn’t already, soon enough. “DEA.”

“Right.” Dominic nods to himself, just a little too long. Trey hopes he isn’t losing it. Dominic’s always been a pretty easy going guy, but when he lost it - getting taken hostage wasn’t exactly a great time for Trey, but if that’s what happens when gets taken away from Dominic? It wasn’t like it was obvious he’d be possessive. Trey would never pick someone possessive. Everything indicated the opposite. “Why were you looking me up, Trey? I’m not the one who lied to you.”

“I wanted to know if I needed to get my family into witness protection,” Trey says, conversationally, like it’s any other time they’ve taken a drive. There’s still a close enough connection, here, if he can just figure out how to use it. Dominic - maybe he still cares.

Maybe if Trey goes to live with him forever and ever everything will be fine for his family.

“Wouldn’t matter,” Dominic says, crossly, and Trey stays even stiller than he’s been making sure to, “we have people in witsec. If I told them it was important, they’d do everything in their power to help me get to your family.”

“Please don’t hurt my family,” Trey says, quietly. He’s not above begging, he just doesn’t know if it’ll set Dominic off right now. It never has before - nothing ever had before - but all of this is a little bigger than fighting over a missed date or where to order dinner from.

“I’m not going to hurt your fucking family, Trey, god, what kind of person do you think I am?” Dominic has a hitch in his voice, which is good. Trey feels awful that he’s happy about it, but it means the emotions are there to leverage. “Even if I were that kind of person, it wouldn’t exactly help, would it? I mean. Your kid’s cute. I’d keep her. But that’s not in the cards, is it?”

Trey wants to protest that it is, just so the man will keep him alive, but he’s always been strangely keen at spotting lies. Aside from the big one. But even then, he spent a lot of time talking around what was really going on. And clearly, Dominic already knows that none of it meant what he thought it meant, what he was meant to think it meant. Or Trey wouldn’t be a prisoner in the passenger seat, air still blowing at his preferred settings, music still on his favorite station.

He can’t trust Dominic. But he feels like he can trust that statement, and he doesn’t know whether that’s just residual trust from his cover identity, still trying to lean on Dominic.

“I don’t kill people anymore. Not unless I have to. And I hardly have to kill your family, Trey, do I?” Dominic shakes his head again, and his grip on the wheel finally falters, just slightly. The car slows, then picks up speed again. The roads are pretty empty.

There’s a lot to read into that statement, and Trey doesn’t want to. He just wants to never give Dominic a reason to have to.

“Your name is Trey, isn’t it?” Dominic asks.

“Yeah,” Trey agrees. He considers giving his real last name, then wonders if it matters. Dominic has to know how that works. Dominic could look up the name on his mailing address basically instantly, anyway.

“Was any of it real?” Dominic asks, and his hands tighten on the wheel. He’s wearing driving gloves. Normally, he’s wearing the kind of fashion gloves that don’t look out of place on a liberal campus. Driving gloves he saves for stress.

Not that that means anything. Trey was stressed even before Dominic got here. Dominic would have been stressed even just going on with his life. That’s true whether or not he plans to kill Trey, and no matter how. It’s hardly like you could call it not a stressful situation.

“It was real,” Trey says, quietly, and if it’s an exaggeration in certainty, that’s just good deescalation, and if it’s not as much of a lie as it’s supposed to be, well, that’s the other reason he wanted to hash this out away from his family. “I didn’t intend for us to date, at first. I thought we’d be fuck buddies. Close enough to ask you to vouch for me, but not close. I didn’t mean to fall for you. I didn’t mind that, though.”

“Yeah,” Dominic says, “yeah. You must think I’m the world’s hugest idiot. Dale was right.”

Trey doesn’t know how to make Dominic believe him right now, not after all of this, so there’s no reassurance he can make. He wants to ask what Dale was right about, since he thought he’d gotten Dale to like him, but he’s never quite gotten a read on Dale, and he worries the answer will involve a hate crime.

But Dominic is mostly talking to himself, at the moment. And Trey still knows him well enough to know it’s a self-soothing mechanism, and not necessarily evidence he’s spiraling.

“Where are we going?” Trey asks, trying not to sound like he’s asking where he’s going to die.

“The beach,” Dominic says, and the roads realign and Trey’s wearing all the wrong clothes and there’s too much tension in the car but it’s a journey they’ve made so many times he shouldn’t have to ask. The beach. Their beach. “I like the beach.” Trey tries not to read into the tears choking the statement.

“Dominic,” Trey says, trying to guess what he needs to hear, “I’m sorry I lied to you. I never meant to hurt you,” but it’s the wrong guess.

“You have a wife and a kid!” Dominic says, snaps, almost yelps, “you were cheating on me the whole time! I never fucking lied to you about anything, and you lied to me about everything!”

It’s claiming that he never lied that sets Trey on edge, because clearly there was something he wasn’t telling, and he doesn’t quite manage to bite back, “we’re in an open relationship, Dominic, I’m allowed to have other partners!” but at least it’s better than asking any of the questions he desperately wants to ask.

“Open means open, asshole. You had a whole secret family. That’s still cheating in my book.” Dominic huffs, and the car speeds slightly, but he’s still steady, still looking straight ahead.

Dominic was never possessive before, but maybe it’s just that Trey never stumbled over the boundaries. Maybe it was a tracker around his wrist and having him home most nights that let the man rest easy on everything else. Maybe he was possessive, and Trey just found it sweet - he was himself, often enough, just for the persona, and Dominic called him bodyguard and knight in shining armor and my hero.

Trey beat the shit out of a handful of people for Dominic, just because he could, just because it fit in with his persona, just because he held off on those people so hard in real life it was a relief to finally let go. One man he put in the hospital. Dominic never hit or even threatened anyone for him, not until that last incident. But, then, mostly Trey was holding his own until then. Dominic thought he could take care of himself. It didn’t mean he wasn’t watching, or didn’t have anyone watching, on the sidelines.

“I mean, why act like you were going off on a shady trip and getting kidnapped, though?” Dominic asks, and Trey wonders if he should have faked his death, and how. If Dominic would’ve gone to war over it, bathing the streets in revenge. “Did you think I wouldn’t care? Oh well, he’s dead, probably, moving on. Did you think I wouldn’t come looking for you? There’s nowhere they could’ve kept you hidden forever, nowhere I wouldn’t find you. I’d never stop looking until I did. I’d never let one of mine go like that.”

Trey doesn’t know how to say most people would either call the cops, who’d quietly close the case, or figure there was nothing they could do, and mourn, and, yeah, move on. He doesn’t know how to say that he really did think Dominic would write him off as dead, maybe after searching for a while, and it would hurt, but he’d heal. He’d find the paper trail Trey laid in and learn he was lying about his trip and assume he got offed by the wrong people trying too hard to evade Dominic’s edict. He’d be mad enough at Trey to let him go.

“When I found out you weren’t there, I figured someone grabbed you here. I thought a fucking mob boss or something had gotten to you. I felt so fucking guilty, putting a target on your head just to protect you,” Dominic says, and for a moment, Trey thinks he’s pulled over because he’s crying too hard to drive, but it’s just the parking lot. “Then I find out you just went home. Without even saying goodbye.”

Dominic opens Trey’s door for him.

“It’s not how it works,” Trey says, even though Dominic knows that’s not how it works, even though he did say goodbye before leaving for the airport and fucked him hard enough for them to remember each other by even if he didn’t, and that’s what he really wants to say. “I couldn’t have told you anything, anyway.”

“You could’ve if you wanted to,” Dominic says, wandering along down the beach. Trey follows, wondering if Dominic plans to drown him. Trey’s not sure if Dominic believes his own words or he’s just that upset with Trey, not that it matters.

“You know me, Dominic. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you, not unless I had no other choice,” Trey says, reach out to grab his hand. The way Dominic grips back, it might not even have been the wrong choice.

“I thought I knew you,” Dominic says.

The beach isn’t that crowded, but it’s still full of couples there to watch the sunset, and standing there hand in hand with Dominic, Trey feels like one of them. It isn’t different from any other time they’ve done this, except that nothing can ever be the same again. The pinks fade into purples and then midnight blue.

“Do you want to fuck? One last time? Just for old times’ sake,” Dominic asks, a hopeful look in his eyes, fingers laced between Trey’s, standing on the beach full of memories like that.

Trey could do it, put all his effort into it, hope it makes Dominic remember what he loves about Trey enough not to kill him. Or play it like he’s changed his mind, like Trey remembers why he wants to go back. He could use it as a distraction, try to incapacitate Dominic while he’s vulnerable.

He can’t do it for old times’ sake. “I don’t think I can,” he says, trying to force all the apology he’s not sure he feels into the tone. He still loves Dominic, despite all this. He’s not sure he’s still attracted. Definitely not enough to get it up despite the terror.

Dominic nods, like he expected that. He’s crying. Trey decides not to resist the impulse to pull him close, comfort him, stroke his hair. It’ll remind him Trey is still real, still something like his, and keep him from being able to go through with it, or it’ll give him second thoughts about the kind of ending he wants here, hold him off another few days, time enough to get into hiding.

Maybe it’ll just comfort Dominic, and somehow, that’s enough, too.

Dominic is warm in Trey’s arms, slumped heavily against him, and still smells like himself, unlike Trey, an upsetting fact to learn, judging from Dominic’s sniffles. He doesn’t pull away, though. He burrows his head in farther, sobbing harder, muttering what’s probably self-deprecation, or maybe a plea for Trey to make it all have been a misunderstanding. He wants to explain everything, even the parts he’s not supposed to. He wants to kiss Dominic. He wants to go home. He really wants to go home.

An ocean breeze hits just as Dominic pulls away, leaving Trey shivering in the salt air. They stand, just apart, not quite looking at each other. Trey wonders if Dominic’s going to pull his knife, or a gun, or a needle, or take the time to beat him to death, or drown him, or something else harsher or gentler or just unpredictable.

“Do you want a ride home?” Dominic asks, deflating. He can’t do it, or he can’t do it yet.

Trey doesn’t want him changing his mind on the other end of the drive. He’ll find a way. “No thanks. I’d like to clear my head for a while.” He’d like to call someone and get extracted into the middle of nowhere, never to be seen or heard from again.

“You’re really DEA?” Dominic asks, almost in wonderment, and Trey wonders if he should’ve just accepted the ride while it was on offer.

“Yeah,” Trey says, licking his lips and deciding it’s a bridge Dominic’s offering. “Yeah, I went in to work my way up the local supply chain, figure out if the tainted drugs are all coming from one place or a bunch of them, see who’s funding what. I was trying to get to as big of fish as I could.”

“Yeah. Sure. That’s how it goes,” Dominic says, but at least he doesn’t sound mad at Trey about it, and that’s something. “I still wish you’d told me. I’d have told you anything you asked.”

“Like who you are?” Trey asks, looking over. He’s not sure the danger’s past. He’s not sure stalking isn’t a very real danger, too, if Dominic thinks they’ve made up already.

“You know who I am, babe,” Dominic says, sounding calm enough, although that knife is rolling across his fingers again. “I’m just a college student. Working. Studying. Falling in love. I just have a history, that’s it. Don’t we all? I told you I had a fucked up childhood. I’m just trying to get through my degree.”

“Yeah,” Trey says, because he can’t just leave it like that, not when Dominic is still looking at him with those eyes that always got to him, but there’s nothing left to say, not about any of it. Too much to ever get through. “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks,” Dominic says, and presses a quick kiss to Trey’s cheek, and then he’s gone.

Trey doesn’t watch the car drive off.

He waits until he can’t hear it, then collapses onto the sand, breathing hard and trying to get a grip on grains that keep slipping through his fingers. It’s cold now, but dry up here, and eventually, Trey’s panic subsides. He calls someone. This is the kind of thing it’s not even iffy to call in resources on, when he’s been kidnapped, threatened, possibly had threats on his family. He’s still not sure on any of that. He still doesn’t have his hands on any version of the file he’s been promised. He needs more time.

When Trey does finally lay eyes on it, not even a day later and still feeling like a lifetime’s elapsed in the span, it turns out Dominic was right. He said it like he believed it because he knew it was true: Trey could’ve read him in on anything, and Dominic would’ve played along. No guarantee they wouldn’t still have fallen, but at least it would have been the truth if they did. At least he’s safe. At least his family’s safe.

…

“Snipers in position,” you hear, over the earpiece, followed shortly by, “Shit. I’m tapping out, guys, I can’t shoot this kid.”

“You know him?” says a voice that sounds far more distracted than you’re used to hearing in the field, possibly on the phone even while coordinating. You hope it’s with someone helpful. “Get to the table then. Add something.”

There seems to be pressure from all sides not to shoot this kid. Obviously you’d expect a college not to want their own students shot on their campus, but you’re a little surprised the local PD are vouching for him over one of their own, convinced he’s having some sort of mental health crisis. Someone else is putting pressure on all of you not to hurt him, though. You wonder if it’s the ominous looking ‘silent observer’ in the dark sunglasses. You hope it isn’t.

“I don’t know what I can add,” the sniper tells you, apologetically. “It’s not like I have any insight into his mental state or anything. I mean obviously it’s something because he doesn’t usually do this.”

“What does he usually do?” You ask because you have to, but it sort of feels like, if there were answers, someone already would’ve handed them to you, even as chaotic as the situation seems so far. The kid seems frazzled. The gun is shaking in his hand. Hopefully his arm is getting tired.

“I don’t know. Not this,” the sniper says, distractedly, clearly also assessing the kid.

“What does he like?” you ask, patience with Dominic leaking over even talking to your colleagues, when you’d prefer to show a little irritation. “What does he care about?”

“The first time I met him he liked the Ninja Turtles, but he’s probably grown out of that. Last time he talked to me about bees?” The sniper sounds uncertain. Maybe a little afraid you won’t be able to talk the kid down, as if you aren’t. You never want a kid shot, either.

“Bees,” you repeat, wondering what you can do with that.

“Yeah. Bees,” the sniper babbles, “like gardening? Pollinators? Birds and bats and butterflies, too, that kind of thing. Other than that it’s just kind of. He can assemble and disassemble a rifle faster than any civilian has a right to, and he’s great at predicting line of sight at a glance.”

“He came with you on a job?” you ask, even though that isn’t actually your question. Your actual question is whether he’s moving that way to give the snipers a clear shot. On purpose. Is he suicidal, then?

“Snuck in, the first time. Hid in the van and didn’t pop up until halfway there. Wanted to run the extraction with us, because he needed to save Dale,” the sniper tells you, and there’s that name again. You make a note of it. “He did get a good look around, sneaking into the warehouse we assume, although he didn’t admit it.”

“So maybe he is lining up a shot, even on himself,” you muse. The sniper gives you a disgruntled look, but doesn’t argue. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Usually we’re on the same side. Maybe reflex,” the sniper guesses, and you wish you had a better one.

“Hey, Al,” the kid says, turning to you again. “Does Kelly know you guys are blocking sniper three, sitting there?”

The sniper leans into your microphone. “Yeah, kid, but it’s the only spot with the right acoustics, so we’re stuck.”

“Not a kid,” says the kid, absent-mindedly, and then shrugs. “You could head up to the roof. I already know you’re there, you know.”

He doesn’t seem to want to get shot, but he seems to mind less than you can make sense of.

…

“What are you thinking?” you ask, when the kid goes silent too long. He isn’t doing anything, in particular, just muttering vitriol at his hostage and gesticulating with the gun, but you have a feeling there’s something lurking. You don’t like having so many missing pieces in what’s known.

“What, do you want a fucking feelings inventory?” The kid stares at you incredulously, and the words are a little too specific for you not to worry he’s really suicidal again. “Well, I’m feeling frustration, and disgust, and homicidal fucking rage!” You panic a little at the last, as he shoves his gun in the hostage’s face, but he doesn’t pull the trigger.

“Do you want to tell me why you’re so angry?” you ask again, and he looks at you like he’s about to give you a different answer, and you hold your breath. Maybe a rapport is coming after all.

“No,” he says, finally, calmly, like he fully considered it. You think maybe he did. “No, he needs to tell you. He needs to admit it. How much can he really love his sister and his goldfish, doing that kind of shit, and he won’t even admit it?”

“Can you let him tell us?” you ask. You don’t know why you think the cop will play along this time. Even people who genuinely didn’t do anything are likely to make guesses at this point.

He protests his innocence again. Firmly.

“It’s your choice here, Mike,” the kid says, practically growling into his hostage’s ear, “do you want all this to just go away? Like it never happened? The power is entirely in your hands.” You try to tease the meaning out - the hostage here was definitely doing something key to figuring out the kid’s angle. The words sound like Mike handed them to Dominic, if not this time, somewhere recently. Or maybe not. You wonder how long this has been going on.

Dominic’s file is a little too heavily redacted for you to pick out many pieces, even more hushed than you’d expect from the sniper’s testimony, but there are enough references to drugs for you to wonder. You should wait on your own version of the file to make any assumptions. The cop’s old partner is doing a stint in rehab at the moment, but that’s still speculation.

You start to talk, but the kid beats you to it. He looks you directly in the eye as he says, “He’s not allowed. He’s not allowed to do that. Dale says that’s illegal and immoral and he’s not allowed.”

“What’s not allowed?” you ask, but he’s busy screaming in his hostage’s face again, ordering him to admit what he’s done. “Do we know who this Dale is?” you ask instead, turning to the table. If he’s the one person the kid keeps mentioning, you want him on side.

“Yeah, he’s already en route,” someone says, in your earpiece, sounding more than a little disgruntled about it, and you wonder who he is. No one attempts to hand you a file. No one attempts to get him on the phone with you.

“Okay,” you say, and when no one reads your pointed sarcasm through the calm veneer, you explicate, “and who is he?”

That gets you a file. He’s one of yours. He’s a good agent, decorated, but all that means is whatever he said was illegal probably is, and that could be almost anything. Especially since he’s been talking to the kid since age ten. He’s probably told the kid thousands of things are crimes. Easy for you to see why Dominic is so invested in his advice, though - you wonder if it has anything to do with Dale’s job. Maybe Mike is some sort of extremist.

“Don’t fucking do that!” Dominic says. You’re trying to see if he’s sweating or crying - either way, he’s clearly stressed. “Dale says you’re not allowed. You can’t do that. You’re not allowed.”

…

There’s definitely a lot of pressure not to shoot, judging by how many voices scream stand down in your ear every time someone says they have the shot. You’re glad, you think. Dominic doesn’t look like he really wants to hurt anyone, as much as he tells you he does, and he hasn’t escalated so far. He responds when you ask questions, most of the time. He doesn’t give useful answers, but he responds.

The key is that he turns away from the hostage, now and then. Especially in response to you. He gestures with the gun, pointing it in a safer direction - not for you, but for the hostage.

“Dominic,” you say, and lick your lips, trying, as someone gives you a nod, to push his buttons this time. “What did Dale say he couldn’t do? Maybe Dale is wrong.”

“Fuck you,” he says, immediately, pointing the weapon straight at you, and this time it does feel like a little bit of a threat. “Fuck you. Dale is not wrong. Dale knows. Dale knows.”

One of your colleagues steps in, then, to tackle him, disarm him, and hopefully get him help. Whatever Dale said was bad behavior has obviously upset the kid a lot, so you don’t feel great about it, but better than getting him shot, and better than him shooting anyone.

Of course, that only works if the person on the ground is Dominic, and your eyes widen. The scuffle happened too fast for you to see whether the kid choked the agent out, or pistol whipped him too, or did something else you missed. You can’t even tell if your colleague is alive.

You think he must be, though, because Dominic carefully drags him off to the side, laying him in recovery position, carefully arranging him until he’s stable. He reaches for the agent’s head, and you tense, and he reaches for the earpiece. You watch him work it carefully out, turning the unconscious man’s head gently to avoid bruising. The kid slips it into his own ear like it’s second nature, taking the vest cam from the agent and pinning it to himself almost as confidently, and looks at you when he tells you, brightly, how much easier it will be to talk this way. He doesn’t take the man’s weapon. He doesn’t take the vest.

Mile tries to run twice, and both times Dominic has the weapon trained on him before he can fully stand, trapping him.

“How can he do that?” you ask, only realizing after the fact that he can hear you, even if he’s politely ignoring it.

“He does that,” the sniper says, a little too cavalierly for your tastes, but he is the kid’s friend, you’re pretty sure. “Last time I worked with him, the sent him in with someone who tended to kill all the witnesses. He got the confession, though. We didn’t have to intervene.”

“The suspect didn’t attack?” you ask. Maybe the kid is so suspicious of your playbook because of how easily he’s used it himself, and how little compassion he feels for whoever’s on the other side. You wonder why he hasn’t used it on Mike.

“Oh, no, he did,” the sniper says, with a wave of the hand, and you frown at him, then at Dominic. “He took the guy down before anything could happen. So I figure, if he can take a former SEAL, one of ours doesn’t stand a chance. Not even taking him by surprise.”

You guess that must be true. You still don’t like that he has a second hostage now, especially an unconscious one.

“You can ask me about my feelings again, if you want,” Dominic says, calmly, over comms. “It hasn’t changed, but you can ask.”

“Will you let him go?” you ask, but the kid just shakes his head again.

“Sorry,” he says, into your earpiece, sounding more genuinely apologetic than you’ve ever heard someone with two hostages sound.

…

“Tell them what you fucking did!” Dominic says, rounding on his hostage again, the conscious one. He’s still waving the gun threateningly, but you can tell even Mike is losing conviction he’ll actually shoot it.

“I didn’t! Do! Anything!” Mike sounds angrier than you’d expect a genuinely innocent - or at least confused - person to sound. You’re pretty sure the frustration you feel on Dominic’s behalf isn’t all trained empathy.

“Do we know what sort of thing he did?” you ask, and get the kind of look from the officers sitting with you that there must be something, even though the Captain shakes his head. “Anything people have been accusing him of, lately?”

“Last complaint was about blackmail, but that got closed, too,” he tells you. You don’t like the sound of that one bit.

“Well, founded or not, a closed complaint doesn’t mean the complainant stops being angry,” you say, hand over your mic. “You can find no wrongdoing and I’m still going to need to see it, you understand?” You want to say just because some asshole got cleared by his friends doesn’t actually mean the complaint was baseless, but you’re too good at your job. You’d rather have the information, anyway.

“Give me a minute to find the full list,” the Captain says, reluctantly, and your stomach drops. Dominic may be hard to talk down for more reasonable reasons than most.

You’re finding too much sympathy for him.

“Tell them!” Dominic begs, obviously crying now, hitting the hostage again when he doesn’t comply, and you wish they’d hurry with the list so you knew what to say.

Another agent takes advantage of the distraction to step in, gun drawn, and then there’s a clatter you have a beat to hope is Dominic’s. Instead, there’s another agent on the ground, seemingly not dead either, and Dominic is lining them up in a way that reminds you uncomfortably of dominoes. The kid takes a minute to retrieve the agent’s fallen weapon, tucking it away neatly, patting the agent’s holster like he’s settling in the gun to sleep. You missed it this time, too.

When they hand you all the complaints that have been closed against this cop, you think someone isn’t doing their due diligence.

…

There’s too wide a variety of complaints for, well, for you to believe that none of them have merit, even if a lot of them are blown out of proportion, and Dominic has enough convoluted history he may well be overreacting to something. Maybe something that doesn’t even involve Mike. But it also leaves you with no hook. You couldn’t guess which of these is relevant, or how many.

“How is this guy still on the force?” you mutter, and forget to cover your mic, and the kid smirks, and you think that might have bought you some credit, at least.

“His uncle is a good cop, and pretty well liked,” one of the officers near you says, with a shrug. “He doesn’t believe his nephew would do anything like that, and he has enough commendations people trust his judgement.”

“He knows a lot of people, too,” the other officer adds, darkly. You think she might agree with you on the aggregate validity of them. Some might take pull to find in Mike’s favor on.

“Can you give us a hint?” you ask, finally, and the kid gives you an odd look at breaking character that way, but it doesn’t prompt an answer. You try, instead, “Dale wouldn’t want you to hurt someone like this, Dominic.” It’s probably true. Dale seems like a fairly level headed man, although you’ve only met him in passing. He says a lot about deradicalization and second chances.

“No, no, Dale says I’m allowed to hurt people who do that,” the kid says, suddenly tense again, and you curse. “Dale says I’m allowed to protect myself. Dale would want me to be safe.” You’re not sure Dale actually said all that, but if he did, it probably means whatever happened just happened. This isn’t payback, at least. Dominic probably feels he’s acting in self defense.

“He didn’t mean you were allowed to take someone hostage with his own gun, kid,” you say. You shouldn’t. The five unconscious agents behind Dominic have you calling him out for misbehavior, like he’ll change his tune if you scold him. You should know better. The sniper remembers him as a sweet kid, but

“I’m an adult!” Dominic snaps, the full force of a furious glare aimed at you, and yeah, you shouldn’t have called him that. You refrain from telling him to act like one.

You regroup.

“Could we at least have someone look at your other hostages?” you ask, tone schooled again. “They need medical attention. We’re worried about them.”

“So take them!” Dominic snaps, anger warring with confusion. You misstepped somewhere, but you’re having trouble retracing your steps. “Who the fuck is stopping you?”

…

The FBI file isn’t that much better than the one the local PD have, although at least you can see a lot more of the blank spots, and guess what kind they are. Less is redacted. This kid has been caught up in all kinds of shit, but it’s the same wide variety that leads you nowhere. You don’t see any references to Mike, but why would you? They’ve met on campus, clearly. Just around. No one knows any history.

“I think he roughed the kid up a few times,” one of the officers at your table offers, tentatively. It’s as good a guess as any, but the amount of question in it means it doesn’t help you.

“Mike knows a lot of college students,” the other officer adds, in a way that should be neutral, but isn’t. You don’t like the sound of that, either, but it still isn’t actionable.

You flip through the file, looking for anything to sink your teeth into. You’re still not making any real progress, but at least you’re back where you started. “Do you remember the time you got taken hostage?” you ask, with a kind of desperate hope. Him in danger, or at least Dale in danger, might get through to the kid.

“Which time?” Dominic asks, distractedly. You want him to pay attention to you, not menace the hostage, and it takes you too long to process his comment. “Oh. They only gave you my redacted file, huh?” He says it so professionally it gives you whiplash again, even though you feel like you should be used to it by now.

“Yeah,” you agree. What could it hurt? He knows enough and you know little enough that the give and take has to go somewhere. Just keep him talking. You’re still stuck on just keep him talking.

“Okay, sure. Dale and I got taken hostage,” Dominic says, waving the gun casually, in a circular motion, beckoning you to go on. “What about it?”

“Do you remember how scared you felt?” you ask, hoping for a moment of connection. He knows Mike. He already knows Mike has feelings.

“No,” he says, looking at you in something like disgust, as if you’ve said something to make him respect you less. “I wasn’t scared. I knew Dale would get me out of there. And if he didn’t, Cliff was right outside, calling for help. And anyway, Marcus Imperator wouldn’t have let me die there. Besides, you don’t get it. I want him to be scared.”

You swallow. You want to keep him talking, but you don’t want to escalate, and the topic clearly has his blood boiling.

He continues anyway. “I want Mike to feel the cold terror of not knowing when he’ll get away. I want him to know he has no choice but to do what I say. I want him to be afraid of me. I want him to worry about whether he’ll die.”

“Why are you fucking doing this to me?” Mike snaps, and you can see at least some of the terror Dominic is looking for on his face. “I thought we were cool, man! You never had a problem before!”

It’s too much to hope Mike really will admit it. Whatever it is.

“It’s not just me, though!” Dominic says, and at least you can be certain that part is true. “These things are systemic! I learned that in class.” He hisses the last part, and you wonder exactly how much of this was detailed in a slide.

“What the hell are you teaching these kids?” you ask, visions of bomb making instructions and viable targets flashing through your head.

“Oh, yeah, sorry for discussing police brutality and why that’s bad in a classroom, that’s always a bad look,” the Chancellor says, sarcastically, and you wonder if they can clear any of the growing crowd out of here. “It is systemic, you know.”

You know. If you knew what, that would be a hell of a lot better for everyone.

“Liar!” Dominic yells, kicking his hostage, “liar, liar, liar! Stop! Fucking! Lying!” and you try not to sigh as Mike protests his innocence again.

…

A helicopter flies a little too close, and you briefly lose the ability to hear yourself think. Someone rappels down. It does surprise you a little bit. You don’t know what you expected, since there isn’t anywhere to land, but it stuns you silent. You really hope this is Dale, finally, and not another fascinated spectator.

Someone tries to brief him. Someone else tries to hand him a bulletproof vest.

He ignores them.

You watch him walk up behind Dominic, slowly. The kid doesn’t react the way he did the previous times. The newcomer says, “hey, sport. It’s time to put the gun down.”

“He’s not allowed to do that. He’s not supposed to do that, Dale,” Dominic says, his gun hand shaking more than it has been. You hope this isn’t the point at which he slips. “Tell him he’s not allowed to do that, Dale!”

“I know, champ, I know. He’s not. He’s an awful person, but you’ve got to hand me his weapon now, kiddo,” Dale says, and you watch him step right up to the kid and start rubbing his back.

Dominic relaxes into it.

You bite your tongue. Anything you say might break the fragile peace. You hope everyone else talking in your ear remembers Dominic can hear them, too.

“Just give me the gun, kiddo. It’s going to be okay,” Dale says, in what sounds like it’s probably almost his normal voice, and you don’t even find yourself surprised as Dominic slips the gun into his hand. “There you go, champ. That’s it.”

He hands off the gun, and that’s it. You’ve solved the crisis. The hostage is safe.

You didn’t solve it. But it’s solved.

You watch the agent envelop the kid in a hug, and press a kiss to his temple, and it hits you why he kept calling for Dale, the same as any kid who gets into trouble. You watch Mike slink off, and notice no one’s there to comfort the hostage. Dale keeps rubbing the kid’s back.

“Am I in trouble, Dale?” Dominic asks, in a quiet voice you haven’t heard from him yet.

“There’s a good chance, sport, yeah,” Dale says, regretfully. You know, in his shoes, you’d want to make it go away, too. You’re not sure you don’t anyway. You definitely want to look into Mike.

“Why? I didn’t hurt anyone,” Dominic says, seriously enough you’re really wondering why he isn’t counting Mike. Scumbag or not, you’re watching paramedics wince as they give him care, and you’re sure he’s headed to the hospital.

“I know,” Dale says, like he agrees. You had a bad feeling, looking at an informant’s home address being the same as the case agent’s, but this makes you wonder what kind of strings he’d be willing to pull. Looking at the way he’s holding Dominic, you can tell the kid is his kid.

Too involved. But at least it ended things.

…

“Do you actually know?” you ask Dale. The kid is getting photographed, but judging by the number of people trying to get a good look, you don’t think it’s likely to go anywhere, public or not. “You said that guy was a bad person. Do you know what he did, or were you playing along?”

“I wasn’t playing along,” Dale says, one eyebrow raised. You already like him. It makes you suspicious, the way it always does. “If Dominic says something happened, something happened. I really do want him to be safe. But I don’t know the specifics of it, no.”

You deflate. You don’t need answers; that’s not your job. But the mystery’s going to eat at you. “Alright. There’s definitely something wrong with that guy, anyway. I wish I knew.” Maybe you can get someone to keep an ear out.

“I mean, I can make a guess as to the kind of thing we’re talking about,” Dale says, and you try not to give him a look that’s too interested. That’s still his kid, unprofessionally involved or no. “If he needs recourse to what I told him to convince you it’s wrong, I’m willing to bet that man was attempting to sexually assault him.”

“Oh,” you say. It was on the list. You didn’t necessarily think it was that probable, but there were complaints.

It doesn’t feel great for you to hear it, though.

“In all likelihood, that poor excuse for an officer of the law has been blackmailing people into sexual encounters for years,” Dale says, and you want to punch the Captain. He said blackmail. He didn’t say that kind of blackmail, and that would’ve told you a lot more, maybe. “Probably he’s been doing it to Dominic for years.”

You should take the quiet tone he ends on as a warning, and back off before you make an enemy, you should. You ask, “so if it’s been ongoing for years, what made Dominic snap now?”

“He didn’t snap, really,” Dale says, thoughtfully, and you have no idea what he means.

“He pulled a gun,” you say.

“And I think there’s every possibility that man pulled the gun first,” Dale says, as if that doesn’t move the needle from blackmail to something else entirely. “I don’t think he was looking to hurt anyone. He hates guns. They scare him. He was just having a panic attack.”

You don’t think panic attacks usually go that way, but you don’t have blank spots in your record that look like being kidnapped by the CIA.

“Anyway,” Dale says, answering your question at last. You wish hostage takers were this cooperative. “He only recently come to believe in the amount of coercion involved in letting someone off the hook for a serious crime. So that’s probably what set him off this time. He didn’t realize it was abuse before.”

Only just. You wonder how. “So what did he think it was before?” You almost flinch at the number of hostage situations narrowly avoided, and cringe at the reason anyway.

Dale sighs, and looks away from you, stirring his coffee like it’ll save the world. “I think… I think he thought they were friends.”

You’re pretty sure Mike thought so, too.

…

“Hi,” you say to Dominic, where he’s sitting in the break room, not drinking a cup of coffee. It’s awkward. You don’t usually meet again like this.

“Hey,” he says, and doesn’t look up at you.

You sit.

“I’m sorry,” he says, making sure to meet your eyes when he says it. You can’t tell if it’s calculated or he just wants you to know he’s sincere. “I didn’t mean to make your job harder.”

You could tell him horror stories, of course, not that he hasn’t lived a few of them anyway. You did end on a success, though, anyway. “It’s fine.” You feel funny saying it, but all the ways in which it’s not fine are someone else’s problem, now. Some of those problems are Dominic’s.

“I know I shouldn’t have done all that. I just got so upset,” he sighs, laying his head down on the table. You have to stop yourself from analyzing that to death. “You think people don’t know what they’re doing, maybe. I didn’t. So maybe they think it’s different than it is, too. Then he pulls a gun on you and it just - no one holds a gun to your head and still thinks they’re innocent.”

Your job is actually talking to all those people, a lot of the time, but you get what he means. “I’m sorry that happened.” He looks up at you in surprise, even as you add, “you didn’t deserve it.” You fail to hold his gaze.

“I’m surprised no one shot me, really,” Dominic says, finally taking a sip of coffee. He grimaces at the taste and you have to check if it really is that bad. “You sent enough people in.”

“About those agents,” you say, and break off at the kid’s panicked look.

“They should be fine. I don’t hurt feds.” Then, laughing at himself almost as bitterly as you’re finding the coffee, “normally, I don’t hurt anyone. Normally, people don’t… do that. Dale says normally they don’t, no matter who I’ve met.”

“They are fine,” you reassure him, and he looks actually relieved, not just for show. Not that you could judge him for trying to put people at their ease. “That’s my question. How’d you do that?” Good fighter or no, usually there’s bruising, dizziness, side effects of some kind. And when you checked on your colleagues, they really were all fine.

The kid snorts, looking amused. “Magic.” You try not to make any expressions in response, nodding like you’re still on the job. “Didn’t you have my file? It should say I’m a witch.”

“Alright,” you say. If he doesn’t want to give you an explanation, he doesn’t have to. At least he was gentle with them.

“Come on, Kelly, why ask if you’re not going to believe me when I tell you?” The kid seems exasperated, and that’s on you. You know he’s not lying, just crazy. Or whatever more polite version of the truth you want to spin. “I used a sleep spell. A weak one, so it would wear off soon, even if no one took it off. Obviously I wasn’t going to use anything that would be permanent if you shot me.” The you is general, but you still feel like you’re being personally accused.

“How soon?” you ask, like it’s a real martial art, like he’s as correct as he is serious. You do know he managed somehow, though.

“A few hours, maybe. Less than a day, anyway. Not enough they should need more than some fluids and to take it easy,” the kid says, peevishly. He thinks you’re accusing him of being irresponsible. He thinks you think he wants to hurt people, or planned to, or simply didn’t care if he did. You never meant to offend him.

“Well, they’re all awake now, and no harm done,” you tell him, and he relaxes. You don’t tell him they’re still going to the hospital for scans everyone is sure will turn up clean, even if they’re driving themselves up a wall figuring out how. “You did good, keeping everyone safe.”

He shrugs. He stirs his coffee the same way Dale did, and you wonder when he picked the habit up from his old man. He looks you in the eye and says, with the slightest smile, “so did you.”