parrishfm:
“Nah”, he drawls, weightless as anything, “they don’t, actually. I’m practiced.” On the table, his hand turns. A point drawn in the tide. He begins twirling his fingers, one by one, inches in the air. His palms still drip with water from the glass. He notices how the indent dug itself into his skin; a taut whiteness, a line paler than the rest. Lucky me, to have first pick at you. Stopped here on your way home? Dominic holds his gaze, stern like a fistful of hair.
Then his jeans brush against his leg: no small mercies, no small wingspan of damage. It laps right across the patch where his ankle is bare. Rough, scratchy like intent. The end where it connects blooms like a barb, as if a line had been drawn over months, over miles between them, and wedged here below his calf. A shiver, instead of a weal. It’s fucked up, messed in a million ways with nothing to do with Finch, to realize how little could throw him off. That this should amount to anything, God damn anything at all, in the bizarre tally of his want. Circus bloody tot up. Without a sound, Dominic pulls back his legs.
And here’s the truth: he stirs at the touch. Inevitable that he does—not because it’s been months, not because he’s out of it right now, starved of sleep & grounding & God only knows how many other things, things he didn’t even pick up on needing until this very moment. Not because he’s been a hair-trigger away from snapping through this whole conversation; not in that manner Petrow does, either, jaw clamping around thin air, but loaded and final. Not even because it feels like coming home. It’s because it’s Sasha. So, in a way, yes. All of those, none of those. Inevitable, once again; and irreversible underneath it all. He drowns it out.
“Lawer voice”, he repeats. Not a mimic; Petrow’s weapons are not his, which feels, all of a sudden, perversely true. Even sicker that it stays true the other way around. That he’s grateful for it. An upper edge—where before he never felt he needed one, not around Sasha. “That’s fair enough. They do drill it into us.” He turns his profile in the light. Blinks at the window, once or twice, morning somehow still streaming through. Christ. It feels like he’d been cooped in there for hours; like he waited, and waited, and there it was at last. He exhales. It’s that stillness, chest-deep, between forgetting something and calling it back home. His eyes drift, mellow & unfocused over the parking lot. “No need to play into anything. One would think you’d be happy. A childhood pal in the bar association? Man, it’s the stuff of dreams.”
Why come here over a tragedy? Why come here over anything, short of those things adults must cross the unspeakable for, push their heads back under—that unpleasant, but temporary chain, like dead relatives and unpaid mortgages and leased terrains? Why come here like it’s consolation, like it’s the mouth of some river you were never quite allowed to look at, for too long? It’s just a place, in the end. Its myths are nothing but a quiver of moments. It’s just people, in and out of rooms. In and out of things once born from meaning. Finch is out there, now, isn’t it? This thing that nearly drove him mad with its mystery. With its hunger for promises, for secrets, for wanting to be loved. One corner folded over so many others. Bleached asphalt, wheel-scorched and tired; empty squares save for one spot of red. Dominic wipes his hands down his jacket. He takes a tenner, smooths it out under the glass, and nods at the waitress to keep the change. One place where the economy froze dead, he supposes; one place where nothing else did. He gives the same nod towards Petrow. “Give me a call if you need anything, further down the road. Nostalgia discount.”
He raises from his seat, walks out the diner.
⋆⋆⋆
here’s the trouble: now he has him, he can’t let him out of his sight. it’s hypocritical, is what it is, petrow always being the first to scoff and roll his eyes, to raise his eyebrows at another’s weeping. no patience for tears shed over broken teacups, and all that. do whatever you want, man, but own up to your shit. everything has consequences. live with it. move the fuck on.
because this was his decision, yeah? his decision, a hundred little times over. a thousand. every ignored text, every skipped facetime. every scoff where there should have been a smile. less a gun he loaded than a fucking– death shroud he wove, a year’s worth of little evasive twists, over and under, over and out. who is he to gasp now, when the linen is pulled over his eyes?
fuck. alright. so he’s a hypocrite. a year’s worth of resolve, undone in a few minutes in the middle of a georgia shake shack. dominic’s eyes sliding over him like water; his fingers turning in the air. fucking hell. what a time to be alive. what a time for revelations. namely: that he’s a lot weaker than he thought, and his expectations haven’t been particularly high lately as it is, so. jaka szkoda, and all that. because it’s always turned on the question of what’s deserved, hasn’t it? hasn’t everything? and what he deserves right now is… his hands pressed into the linoleum. a kick in the jaw, probably. or, even better, if he’s being honest, more than anything: to let dom move on. to never cross his mind again.
which leads to, next revelation: he fucking sucks. like, more than he even knew. because he sits there for a moment. edge of the tabletop pressing into his fingertips, turning them white and bloodless. doesn’t even register dom’s comments, y’know, intellectually, shocked in the same way people are after gunshots, like the protagonist in the action flick slowly looking down at the knife in his chest, registering the blood as nothing but cold. nothing but wet. and yet: not really that upset about it? he should be murderous, right. pulled ye olde daddy felon card, dear parrish did, in his own little elegant way. gift-wrapped as an offered kindness too, that smooth bastard. cool and collected as butter from the fridge, while sasha just burned.
instead he sits there for a moment, blood run cold, knight in fucking plastic armor that he is… and then he’s bolted. not even knowing if whatever money parrish dropped was enough to cover both their shakes. boots squeaking against the tiling, bird bell above the door chiming, and he’s out. has his hand around parrish’s wrist in seconds, pulling him– nowhere, just– “hey, hey,” says it like calming, like be reasonable, like he’s not the one who usually– always– needs it. “stop.” doesn’t say please because he can’t but– “stop, okay?”
