living the gimmick

Quiet nights at home were few and hard to come by. There was always something that needed to be done—unpacking, packing, getting ready for the next show, traveling, training, press. Rarely did the grind stutter to a stop long enough to be still and breathe. But somehow, they'd managed to find one of those precious nights among the chaos—a respite, a chance to simply be and be together. Damian cooked, they ate, then JD and Finn disappeared into the back bedroom with a few soft murmurs exchanged in the leaving. Both had looked so exhausted that Damian had no reason to doubt they really were turning in early.

And so five became three.

They shifted to the living room, where Dom curled up against Damian's side, head resting in his lap as if he belonged there—which, he mused, maybe he did—and Damian held him close as they put on a movie Rhea had rescued from a discount bin somewhere last week. It didn't take long before Dom was half-hidden behind a blanket, peering over the fringe and clutching onto Damian's hand with every jump and pop of noise. Damian was only half paying attention, idly carding his free hand through Dom's hair, his thoughts and gaze both drifting to where Rhea had plopped down on the floor in front of the sofa, meticulously hammering studs and rivets into a trim expanse of black leather. He had no idea what event it was for—he didn't even know if she knew—but he liked watching her work. Once in a while, her tongue would poke out from between her lips, poised at the corner of her mouth, her brow furrowed in concentration as she lined up sharp bits of metal, measured with her fingertips, counted, then swept the whole mess onto the floor so she could start hammering again. 

It was hard for him to imagine a more perfect night than this—to have not just one person who fit so well into every crevice of his life, but all of them. The warmth of Dom pressed against him, Rhea always lingering just within arm's reach, Finn and JD safely tucked away in the other room. It was a kind of contentment he couldn't even imagine until he'd met them. One by one, they'd slotted into place, and a sense of peace had wrapped around him like a heavy blanket.

He had half a thought lingering somewhere in the corner of his mind—something he'd been about to say, a notion that hadn't quite formed into words yet—but it was lost in the rustle of Rhea suddenly rising to her feet. She cracked her neck and stretched her arms above her head with a soft groan and a little pop of something somewhere at the base of her spine. Dom reached out and batted at her hip, and she stepped out of the way of the television with a laugh, pivoting on her toes, practically dancing between the piles of tools and fabric and supplies. 

"You headed to the kitchen by any chance?" Damian asked, watching as she flicked the hem of her shorts back into place around her thigh.

"I think I need glue," she answered.

"You wanna grab me another drink on your way back?"

"Please," she teased and wiggled her fingers at him as she reached for his empty glass.

He rolled his eyes. "And thank you," he offered, handing it over with a small, fond smirk. Their hands brushed, his touch lingered, thumb grazing over her knuckles before he let go of the glass and let her slip away toward the other side of the space.

Damian's gaze followed her, tracking every movement through the room, lingering just long enough to see her slip around the corner of the island counter. Then he turned back to Dom, fingers sliding into his hair again, scratching gently at his scalp beneath a mop of dark waves. Dom hummed softly, a barely audible noise, tilting his head into Damian's palm and shifting ever closer against his side. His focus slipped, settled, sank—grasping onto nothing in particular, at least not long enough to matter—shifting from Dom to Rhea and back again with ease. Rhea's footsteps pattered softly against the tile, punctuated by the glide of drawers as she rummaged around. But even that faded into the background after a moment or two—a rhythmic pulse like a metronome, a steady beat for him to track her by.

Time slowed to a crawl. The movie played on without him; he didn't care. His eyes slipped closed, lashes heavy, comfort guiding the way towards a drowsy sort of almost-rest. Then Rhea's fingers brushed against his shoulder, cold and damp with condensation off his glass, and he hummed a soft sound of acknowledgment as she passed. He heard her nails scratch softly over Dom's blanket, skipping down his side and hip before he felt the couch cushion shift as she settled down and rest her back against it again. A gentle silence settled over them like a fog, warm and comforting, thick enough to sink into and soft enough to mold around his body.

He drifted, lulled by the feeling of Dom's fingertips brushing slowly up and down the side of his arm, tracing shapes that felt nonsensical at first until one curved and glided just so, and his attention honed back in on his own body. Slowly, the shapes Dom was drawing began to make sense. The swoop and arc of his fingertips traced tangled serpents and caressed the side of Medusa's face, almost—maybe entirely—unconsciously. His gaze was focused on the television, one arm tucked up against his chest, while the other hand simply trailed the lines as if he had them memorized. Damian's fingers stroked down the side of his neck, thumb tracing over his collarbone and shoulder before slipping back into his hair again, and shifted his arm a bit closer, easier to reach.

"Have you seen Adam's show?" Dom murmured, turning just slightly to look over his shoulder at Damian, his big, dark eyes wide and gentle and curious. 

He couldn't help but laugh. Of course, to Dom, it was Adam's show, even though he was only in—what?—three episodes. But he nodded, twisting one long strand of hair around his finger. In his gut, he knew what question was probably coming next, but he still offered a soft smile and said, "Yeah, why?"

Dom shrugged. "Just wondering if that's why you got her—" His fingers swooped across Medusa's face again, then down towards Damian's wrist. "Because of the story, I mean."

It was innocuous enough that Damian probably could have skirted around the subject if he wanted to. But it felt—maybe not pointless, but unnecessary. There were parts of himself he'd always kept hidden away—for good reason—and Dom's innocent question brought one of those shadowy things stumbling out of the dark to sit in the center of his chest. And, somehow, it didn't feel as heavy as it once had. Maybe time did heal all wounds or some trite, cliche shit like that; or maybe the salve they'd been applying to it over the last months—years, in some cases—had finally started to heal something. Either way, it didn't feel as deep as it had three years ago when he'd sat down in a tattoo parlor, across from a woman with the prettiest rose-colored hair he'd ever seen, and spilled the entire story over the course of a six-hour session.

He swallowed around the knot that tried to form in the back of his throat, the phantom tingle of needle pricks flaring up along his arm, and nodded again, his smile soft and genuine even if there was a heaviness still sitting just below the surface. But Dom had already seen the flicker in his expression, the slight deepening of the lines around his eyes, the way his fingertips stuttered then stilled where they rest on the arc of Dom's shoulder.

"I'm not supposed to ask that, am I?" he said—timid, a little hesitant, a trace of worry in his voice that he had upset Damian. 

But he just shook his head and gathered Dom a little closer, watching Rhea out of the corner of his eye as she set her tools down and shifted around to face them both. "No, no, it's alright, hermano. You can ask. It was a really long time ago, and I'm mostly okay now."

"Mostly?" Dom echoed, looking up at him again, searching his face, trying to find an answer in his expression.

There was no reason to try to hide anything—not with them. They didn't need the pretty version of things—the glossed-over, watered-down, sanitized truth. It was messy and ugly and uncomfortable, but they were safe, and that was the only thing that mattered. Still, he felt that hard throb in the center of his chest, the last dying ember of a fear he'd spent years trying to extinguish and couldn't quite snuff out completely. He'd learned to live with it, to maneuver around it, and it remained largely inconspicuous if still softly smoldering somewhere in the distance. But here, now, he felt like he could pick that ember up in his bare hands and not get burned by it. It was as small a spark as it had ever been.

Rhea leaned her elbow against the back of the sofa, resting her chin on her hand, looking at Damian with a softness that made his heart ache, but he couldn't quite bring himself to meet her gaze just yet. Instead, he shifted a little and tugged Dom upright, coaxing him into his lap so Rhea had space to move up onto the couch next to them. He slipped into the space between Damian's thigh and the arm of the sofa, legs draped over and between his, shoulder tucked just under his arm, blanket folded around their limbs. 

He felt Rhea's lips fall against his cheek as she rose and took her place on the other side, her legs tucked beneath her as she reached for him and tangled their fingers together. Part of him was glad it was just the three of them, then. It wasn't that he didn't want Finn and JD to know, just that it seemed easier to deal with when there weren't so many people staring at him. The wound had healed, sure, but it had scarred, and some of those scars were thicker, deeper than others. It was hard to know where to start sometimes. He cleared his throat, blinked a few times, and stared up at the ceiling.

"Truth is," he started, gaze gliding back to the television and the credits rolling there. "I wasn't fully aware of what was happening at the time. There were just a bunch of whispered conversations I don't think I was ever meant to hear, and then, all of a sudden, I was being shipped back to New York. I didn't understand why I had to leave—just that everyone was upset all the time, and all I knew was that I was at the center of it. I thought I was being punished for something, but I didn't know what, and I didn't know how to process everything that was going on either—so I just didn't."

Silence hung heavy for a few seconds, but Damian needed that pause to ground himself—to settle into the warmth that surrounded them, the feeling of Rhea's thumb brushing over his knuckles, and Dom's hand curled softly in the front of his shirt. 

"I didn't start dealing with any of it until a lot later," he continued, still staring at some vague spot in the middle distance. "I had a coach who basically told me to get my shit together, then shoved me in the direction of a therapist. I hated it. I thought it was stupid and pointless—that there was nothing I could benefit from knowing—that it was gonna be a massive waste of time. Then, little by little, it started to help—even if, eventually, it opened up a can of worms I didn't realize was actually full of snakes. Once I started digging, I started to remember, and it hit me like a fucking truck. I had nightmares for weeks. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I could barely make it to practice. I was a wreck. And, thankfully, a lot of people gave me a lot of grace while it was happening. They didn't know—no one did—they just knew I was trying to get my head on straight and that, hopefully, I was going to come out the other side of it better."

His throat was dry, and he could feel his voice faltering, but he forced himself to keep going. It was cathartic, in a way, like taking a hot knife to an infected wound and prying it open so the poison could drain out.

"There were things that had grown around that initial memory, though—rooted into it, branched off of it—things that needed to be handled separate from everything else. But by the time I moved to Vegas, I'd gotten a hold of most of that, too. The real bone-deep pain wasn't there anymore. Every once in a while, something still flares up, and I have to sit with it for a bit, but..." he shrugged, "but at least I can sit with it now. I can look at it and acknowledge that it's there, and it hurts, and that's okay. Most of the time, it's just phantom pain, anyway; something that aches because it remembers, not because it's still bleeding."

Rhea's palm slid against his cheek, cupping his jaw as she guided his face towards hers, and he felt the slightest sting in the corners of his eyes. That was residual, too—a reflex left over from all the times he'd secluded himself in some small, dark place, hoping he might feel safe enough to cry through the pain. He blinked it away and leaned into her touch, resting his forehead against hers for a moment. He could feel her eyelashes flutter against his, her fingernails gliding softly through his beard, holding him there as he breathed deep and steadied himself. When he pulled back, he found Dom's dark eyes still watching him, quiet and curious and unassuming—a dozen different questions lingering in his gaze. Damian carded his fingers through his hair, tucking loose strands away from his face, tracing the line of his jaw with his thumb. Dom's lips twitched into a soft smile, and he pressed his cheek into Damian's palm.

"Is that why you've always been so good with me and my bad dreams?" he asked.

He laughed and nodded, his smile finally softening into something more natural. "I'm sure it has something to do with it, yeah. But you're easy to take care of."

His smile faded for a moment as he shifted his hand to curl around Dom's shoulder, holding him snug against his chest. If he'd noticed the flicker of emotion on Damian's face that time, he didn't let on; he just tucked himself in closer, drawing his knees up, and nuzzled into the solid expanse of Damian's chest. Sometimes he wondered how alike the two of them were and how much Dom kept quietly closed off for the sake of everyone else around him—to continue being the bright little ball of sunshine they all knew. But it wasn't the right time to start digging into that. He could only hope that offering this small fragment of himself would be enough that they might also feel safe in unburdening their darkness with him—more than they already had. He pressed a kiss to the top of Dom's head and shifted his gaze back to Rhea, catching the soft, sidelong glance she cast in his direction.

"I'm proud of you," she said, her voice low and warm, gentle as she drew her fingers through his hair and grazed her thumb along his temple. "You know that, right?"