Usual Suspects Fic
May. 22nd, 2006 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
knights_say_nihYay slash. Rated R.
Because I got this movie on the weekend woot! And have screencaps of little personal space of these two practically groping each other to use as evidence, mwahaha.
McManus had blood on his lips.
It wasn’t much to go on, not a great way to judge a person’s character, and not the answer to the meaning of the universe. It wasn’t even blood from a real fight, just a cut lip from a particularly nasty argument with Hockney that had escalated into something serious. Not life or death, not adrenaline crashing through his veins, or the thrill of another hit. It wasn’t that by any stretch.
It was, however, enough to make him want to lean over and lick it off and bite his lips until he knew the red there was something he had caused. Not another one of the stupid little scraps that brought the tension higher and higher with every day, but… but whatever it was that happened between them when McManus’s back connected with the wall hard enough to make his blue beyond blue eyes blink rapidly as he fought to get things to focus again and force the breath back into his lungs.
There had been betrayal in Edie’s eyes. Or at least, there would have been, he imagined, if he’d stayed long enough to see it. Edie’s eyes were blue too, though a softer, darker shade that didn’t grab you by the soul and hold on until you drowned. There would have been betrayal in them, but he found that he simply couldn’t care. Because there hadn’t been any of that in Tom’s (McManus, you call him McManus) eyes when he’d been sitting in that jail cell calling him a lawyer’s wife. There wasn’t anything but blue, and a kind of resignation that spoke of something buried.
“I don’t want to hear anything from you. I don’t care about your job, and um, I want nothing to do with any of you.” Then, when he’d looked up at him, except he hadn’t been able to look up at him, he’d had his eyes fastened across the room on Verbal, because then and only then had betrayal become a part of the equation.
“I beg your pardon, but you can all go to Hell.”
Sometimes the utter clarity of Tom’s eyes hid what he was feeling with an icy perfection. Your gaze was pulled not to the telltale signs of emotion but to the unwavering something that seemed to haunt him.
But then other times they wouldn’t. Other times it wouldn’t matter what sort of smart remark he might make, Dean would still be able to see the slight movement of his lips that meant he was pulling one lightly between his teeth. He’d note the careful, measured breath and he’d see the drum of fingers against his leg as he counted the emotion away in his head. It used to be five seconds before Tom had control of himself in his mind, and he’d count backwards from that number and be steady by the end of it. That day in the jail it was only three, and Keaton wasn’t sure if he was happy to know he was holding onto himself a little better or if he should be sorry to see the impetuous, uncontrollable burning go.
“Fuck him.”
The rest of the night he spent waiting for Edie and watching Tom, as he explained the idea with the hushed voice Dean remembered hearing sometimes in the night when Tom thought he might be sleeping and wanted to know if he felt like sex again yet, but didn’t want to wake him if he was. He didn’t know if he was sorry when she finally came and brought him out of the cell, leaving Tom leaning against the wall, asking the guard in his own noisy way for a cigarette.
He hadn’t had to wait long for a smoke, it turned out. By the time Edie had sorted out the paperwork that came with being a dead man in jail, Tom had already pushed his way outside and made it to a news stand. Black turtleneck, the one Dean thought made him look leaner, black jeans, black leather jacket; he looked like some sort of fucking secret agent and the cigarette hanging from his mouth didn’t help the image any.
Edie was saying something about the desk sergeant, about disgraces, going on in the way she did as though she could change any of it, some how. It was something he loved about her, if only he could remember why he’d thought it was endearing, it all seemed like such a long time ago all of a sudden. As though dinner with the French clients had been a universe of Mr. Keaton, and now he was back to just Keaton, the sharp bastard who’d just as soon burn you with the match as light your smoke. He fumbled with the lighter a few seconds longer than he should of, his mind torn between secret agents and persistent lawyers.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it Edie, okay?”
He didn’t know if it was the right thing to say or what she’d been talking about to begin with but it seemed to work. Quieted her enough for him to ask the question he already knew the answer to.
It was amazing, he realized, standing on the steps of the police station, how quickly a life could change. How quickly Mr. Keaton could be torn to shreds. Be it by the police spreading a few lies and a few more truths to scare the clients away, or by a night in prison to remind him that this isn’t who he was, or by a man dressed all in black watching him from across a road.
“It’s finished. I’m finished.”
With that, those words, it really was. His eyes flicked up once more to find McManus’s, staring back evenly. The man was chewing on a toothpick now, watching him unabashedly.
“They’ve ruined me.”
Mr. Keaton was ruined. The image he’d worked so hard to create, to hold on to, to fill out. The man who owned restaurants and laughed in cafes downtown and loved the woman next to him and was so painfully content with all of it. He was ruined, and he saw that reflected in the lazy triumph in McManus’s eyes, from where he leaned against the wall across the street.
What he didn’t see was the return of the quiet, reconciled sadness as the last walking shell of Mr. Keaton and his Edie ambled past the young man without sparing a glance, but that was the sort of thing that didn’t need to be shared.
The trip to Edie’s home that night was another way to delay the inevitable, though he already knew it was coming. A chain of events had fallen into place, starting with the night of the line up, or maybe that was wrong. Maybe it started long before that when a crooked cop saw a young man who’d jacked a truck and wanted a quick way out of prison and let him fall to his knees and suck for a ticket out the back door. It probably hadn’t even been that night, because that was something he could have handled. It had probably been when McManus had cornered him in the bar with a shark like grin on his lips and asked him if he felt like returning the favour and he had found, to his own amusement, that in his current piss-drunk state, he had.
He decided it didn’t matter, and he didn’t touch Edie that night, just lay next to her in the bed and told her he was tired when she leaned over to kiss him. It was something she accepted. It was something that made her smile reassuringly and lie down next to him, while he thought about how Tom would have said tough shit, and kissed him harder.
Dean was glad it was Verbal who came to him the next day. Pretending to resist him was easy, though he never thought he’d be able to actually turn away from the suggestion and the promise he’d seen in McManus’s eyes, from across that road.
He wasn’t surprised, not overly; not to hear he’d wanted to go in shooting. But then suddenly he was because it meant he hadn’t known he already had him trapped. It came as one of those terrible moments of realization that hit you at awkward times, like in the shower or over dinner or driving and made you cut yourself with your razor, break a glass or cause a fender bender. McManus hadn’t known Dean was coming back. He didn’t control him. No one controlled him.
It was, sharp-as-a-knife Dean Keaton thought to himself as he pulled away from the Miada with the broken taillight and ignored the strange looks Verbal was giving him, good to be back.
The heist went off smoothly. Or rather, as smoothly as such a thing can go. There was screaming, broken glass, and a jarring hit that rocked his spine when the van drove the car forwards and connected it with the back of the car he was driving. The nylon made the cigarette in his mouth taste fucking awful but shit did he need a smoke.
McManus made an idiot of himself, and seeing him flailing about and posturing on the top of the car was even more of a relief, in its own way, because stupidity had never been desirable. Because madness didn’t have the kind of sex to it that violence did, even though he’d breathed a sigh of relief when he found out there was no killing this time.
There was the showing off, the crows of victory, the sloshing of gasoline and the scent of it on McManus’s shoes where it’d landed. It was so fucking stupid, taking risks like that. That was why Dean cornered him the minute they got back to the workshop where they’d crashed.
“You’re still as fucking slow as you used to be.”
McManus had blood on his lips.
You know the kind. The trivial detail that was suddenly all important, the thing that grabbed all his attention and held it prisoner when he should have been looking at his eyes to try to read him. The reason when he slammed him up against the wall of the building before following the other three inside that it might have been a little harder than it needed to be and he might have lingered a little closer than he should have once he had him pinned.
“You need to cool it, McManus, or you’re going to get yourself into some trouble one day, and I don’t plan on being there to get caught in it.”
Keaton was pleased to see that Tom had to count back all the way from five again this time, before speaking.
“Get the fuck off me, cocksucker.”
If the words had been said with any sort of venom to them at all, Dean wouldn’t have worried, but to hear the haunting nothing, as he still called it, it threw him. Threw him badly enough that when the hard shove to his chest came, in order to push him away, he wasn’t ready for it and Tom managed to get free.
There was still blood on his lips, and Dean wanted to kiss him just as much as ever.
It took a while for him to get his breath back, and by the time he did and decided to come see what was happening, everyone seemed to be calm. The loot, as it were, was being assessed. It was laid out, in piles of emeralds that he could tell by looking at were worth more than they’d thought at first.
When Hockney got up in Tom’s face, even Dean could tell that this time it wasn’t McManus’s fault. He privately credited the man a little more respect, because he hadn’t decked him yet, and decided to interfere with a timely warning.
“Hey. The job’s over. Cool it. L.A.’s a good place to lay low for a while.”
“Wanna dance?” asked Hockney, leaning closer still, his face uncomfortably near McManus’s, though now the other man had eyes for no one but Keaton. He was watching him with a peculiar half-smile, almost affectionate, because Dean had always hated fighting between jobs.
The question hung in the air, unanswered, and Keaton shook his head just slightly. It was more a gesture of a resigned amusement than an instruction, though he knew Tom had taken it as such. Knew by the way his head dipped slightly closer to Hockney’s, so from Dean’s perspective they looked like they might have been taking care of the little problem of the blood. He could tell Hockney would never, and so could McManus, but the message was there. The ‘can’t control me’ that always seemed to burn in their relationship.
Once Tom pulled away, his eyes didn’t meet Keaton’s again for the rest of the day. Not voluntarily, at least. Even when he caught up with him again and pushed him back against the bricks, there was only one brief glance upwards, as though to confirm his identity though there was no one else it could possibly be.
“Get off, Keaton, I have better things to do than argue with a dead man.”
His death of course, he knew it would have to come back to that sooner or later. He’d officially not existed for two years, after all. There were a number of ways he could have heard it and McManus had already said it, that first time they’d looked across at each other in the jail cell and Keaton had told him he’d heard right.
Because of who he was, sharp-as-a-knife Dean Keaton, he hadn’t tied up any of his threads. He didn’t regret it, not in the slightest, because it isn’t possible to fake ones own death without at least a few regrets expressed by people you’ve known along the way. Of course, now, here, that particular resolution had seemed to have had and was still having a rather negative effect, as he couldn’t ever remember Tom’s eyes looking so cold. Not even when the cop had wound his hands through his hair and told him he was pretty enough that he’d let him go if it felt nice.
Tom was saying something, and he probably should have been listening because it was about so much time even though he only used the words laying low and about thought you were gone said as found a new fuck toy and even a little bit of how could you though that part was very, very hidden. He should have been listening. He wasn’t.
He kissed McManus as hard as ever, pushing up against him and with a hand on his jaw to tilt his head up, to encourage him to let the kiss go deeper. For an instant, the split second before the surprise could register and Tom could react, he remembered to perfection of hot, violent, pain laced sex.
But then he was shoved away, as rudely as ever such a parting could possibly be, and Tom’s knee connected between his legs, mercifully softer than it could have been but still hard enough to make him double over in pain.
“I’m not into necrophilia, thanks.”
As he walked him walk away, Dean reflected that maybe this was one thread he should have risked tying. His bed was cold that night.
The fight was the real reason he went to see Edie before leaving for California, though he told Verbal it was because he had to. He stood up on the landing, looking down at her, and was surprised that in seeing it he was struck again by the need to be back there, to put his arm around her shoulders and be Mr. Keaton and not get a sharp kick to the crotch in return. Verbal thought he loved her, standing there looking down at her. He even might have, he thought to himself, once, when he was someone different.
But he pulled away and walked back down the stairs, then back into the jeep where four other men, and one in particular, were waiting.
The plane ride over was uneventful. Verbal sat and stared at nothing and everything all at once. Fenster talked to Hockney, who made snide comments in return and repeatedly asked what are you saying? in an overly loud voice. This left, possibly by accident but probably not, Tom thought, him sitting between the window and Dean Keaton.
It wasn’t a game he was willing to play, he’d already decided, so instead of saying anything or waiting for explanations he’d spent two years hoping for or offering him the chance to convince him of anything, Tom did the easiest thing. He pulled out the crappy little pillow the smiling flight attendant had given them both, stuck it behind his head, and closed his eyes.
The idea, he discovered some time later, when the plane encountered turbulence, had backfired slightly. More tired than he’d realized, more tired than he should have been after just one job, but then there’d been a day of emotional shit to do as well, he’d actually at some point dropped off.
He couldn’t see the smile on Keaton’s face, though he knew it would be there, but the steady rise and fall of his shoulder as he breathed made Tom wonder just how long he’d been resting against him to have the man this comfortable with it. He should have pulled away when the turbulence woke him, of course. But it was warm and he was comfortable and not really awake so it wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes again.
To save him the embarrassment, too late, Dean’s hands shifted him gently in his sleep, leaned him up against the glass of the window instead, so when he opened his eyes again and they were in California the other man was flicking through a magazine. Tom wasn’t sure if he was glad or sorry. By the time they got off the plane it didn’t matter, he was nothing but embarrassed, especially by the knowing looks Fenster was giving him.
It was a beautiful day, though most of the days were beautiful here, and the group gathered around the Korean Friendship Bell was enjoying the change from New York. On top of the relief at the new climate, Keaton could feel another kind of excitement burning in all of them. A job wasn’t really over till the loot was traded for money, and they all wanted this job to be over, all of them for different reasons. Mostly because it had just dragged one day too long, and the all of them were sick of Hockney and McManus at each others throats every hour of the day.
When the ‘Redfoot’ man showed up, all smiles and buttery leather, Keaton found himself moving forwards to stand parallel to McManus, trying and failing to smother an instinct of possessiveness he thought he’d lost a long time ago. It wasn’t a ploy to get himself attention, though ultimately that’s what it resulted in. He didn’t like Redfoot. Not one bit.
He also didn’t like the ease with which McManus spoke for all of them, and interrupted him immediately.
“We’re always lookin’ for-”
“We’re on vacation.”
It had been a little too much; he knew the moment he’d said it, to take the reigns from McManus in the middle of things, so he wasn’t upset when they were lifted neatly away again. The job was described and as good as accepted before he stepped forwards again.
“Get yourself laid.”
Oh, he didn’t even want to think about that or what had made him say it. He couldn’t, so he didn’t. Just pressed on, leading him in the standard dance. An old name he’d recognize, a new secret. Sorry, my fault. He got what he needed out of him, too. It was the knowledge that things would remain strictly business between them. I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but you have something I want and I’m willing to go with that.
Those were actually the words he’d used the second- no, not the second, not if you counted both the time in the station and the time in the alley behind the bar, though in both those cases it had only been one of them on their knees and the other one getting the benefit. Those were the words he’d used the third time he and McManus had met. This had been a different situation, just two men visiting the same fence, selling different loot. McManus had what looked like gold wire, Keaton had a smaller load of confiscated coke he’d borrowed from the precinct and was hoping to make a profit on.
They’d watched each other, circled a few times, both made their respective deals and then McManus had caught up with Keaton on the steps on the way out of the building.
“Seems to me two such as ourselves, with old debts settled between us, could spare the time to buy the other a drink.”
He’d been so young then, Keaton knew, seven years ago, and he’d been hot and ready, willing, able. They hadn’t got as far as a drink, just to a seedy motel where no one asked questions and the rooms were cheap enough that Keaton didn’t mind when McManus told him that he wasn’t paying, thank you very much.
The rest of the scenario was something that had left both of them with bruises and McManus with bite marks and Keaton with scratches and small cuts where nails had dug a bit too deeply. It was something he had to drag his mind away from several times in the car ride back to their hotel. He was thankful he was sitting in the front seat, because things could have been considerable more awkward than they were, and as it was he thought he could see a faint flush behind Tom’s beard. As though he knew what he was thinking about. The thought made him want to pull the car over, throw the other three men out, and fuck him in the back seat until one or both of them was screaming.
It was supposed to be one job. He’d reminded them all of that, and winced at the half-amused expression on all of their faces, because he’d thought Mr. Keaton was a little more alive than all of that. All the rest of the day McManus found it in him to remind him at every turn of what it was to be bad guys again, and feel the familiar rush of it. What the others didn’t know was what convinced him was the conversation that happened when they finally did come back to the hotel.
“I want you with us” McManus said, as he shut the door behind him, and Keaton dropped the newspaper and sat up in his bed. Maybe he let a bit too much hope fill his eyes, because Tom narrowed his eyes and didn’t take another step closer.
“Verbal’s right. We need five people. I want you with us.”
He had to consider that, and as he did, he reached for the bedside table and a cigarette, and gestured at the armchair near the window. Tom made no move to go take a seat, and Keaton hadn’t expected him to.
“You know, I remember a scenario pretty similar to this, a year ago or six.”
Except then of course, it had just been I want you and Keaton had reached for him as he moved towards the bed and pulled him down with his teeth already closing possessively on his shoulder. The temptation to do the same thing now was enormous, and he stood. It didn’t surprise him that Tom didn’t move, neither to pull away or push forwards. He could see him counting in his head.
“Long time ago, Keaton.”
“Not that long.”
It came out like a question, though he didn’t mean it to at all. All the same, it’d be good to hear an answer. He just hoped he’d like it when it came.
“I was twenty when we first met. It was a long time ago.”
Now he backed up, just slightly, because he knew the door was there and didn’t want to collide with it, but sometimes reflexes just get the better of you like that and everything he’d ever learned about bargaining always seemed to go out the window when he was around Dean fucking Keaton.
“You knew what you were doing, Tom. I wouldn’t have stopped for someone who didn’t.”
It was true, though he intended it to be a lie, because he wanted this man in his bed now and wasn’t above spinning pretty words to get him there. But it was very true, and they both knew it, though neither of them expected it.
“So, what, I lost track of myself later? Because I’m pretty much not remembering any fucking stopping for me after that warehouse blew, fucker.”
Of course, they came back to that. They had to, really, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could escape talking about at some point. Even if Keaton would rather bury it, he knew it was what was standing between them and the things they could do to each other in the bed behind him.
“It was… a mistake.”
Neither of them is sure that that’s true, though Dean desperately wants him to believe it, because ever since he’s come back he’s been starting to think it was.
All the same, he can see in Tom’s (McManus, damnit, keep it straight) eyes that it’s the sort of mistake that it takes a while to deal with and he isn’t allowed to ask for forgiveness, not for a long time yet. So instead, he chooses not to make the same mistake again.
“You’ve got your five people, Tom, I’ll be here in the morning. Now, will you stay the night with me here?”
The door closes shut with more resolve than McManus has, but it’s easier to walk away from the man with every step he takes down the hall and away from his God damned hypnotic eyes.
During the next job, there was a complete and astonishing reversal of roles. It was McManus who managed a neat, precise double shot and saved both Fenster’s and Hockney’s asses. It couldn’t have been better, even if it did mean a bit of clean up work to be done on the truck. But then again, McManus had always liked guns. Undressing him had been dangerous as fuck, but worth it for the sheer perverse pleasure of seeing guns tucked in neatly, flat along the strong muscle of his leg or side.
But it was Keaton who couldn’t shoot. Who found himself repeating the same words over and over, who jumped when Verbal finally lost patience and killed the man from over his shoulder. He didn’t think any of the others saw. But he knew. Mr. Keaton was still in there, somewhere. What startled him was that he wasn’t glad to realize that, not at all.
It was a bad day. A messy, bloody, bad day. It didn’t get any better when the cases opened and there was… well, nothing good, to say the least. Keaton was, in his own way, relieved, because everyone’s eyes turned to McManus, because his fence had obviously fucked something up. It led to a heated argument, to Hockney and McManus up in each others face again.
It bothered Tom more than the others knew, except Dean could tell. There were tell tale signs, in the way he didn’t hit Hockney back when he took a swing at him, the way he lit his cigarette and sighed before taking a drag, the way he left the van quietly and without explaining where he was going.
Keaton followed. Of course he did. He followed and found him sitting on the beach near where they’d parked.
They were out of sight of the van, so no one saw and McManus didn’t complain when Dean wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close like they used to, just a tight grip on each other, holding on for comfort’s sake. Neither of them spoke, they never did, they just sat and turned things over and over in their minds.
That night they made another trip to the Korean Friendship Bell, to meet Redfoot again. Keaton knew there was a reason he hadn’t liked him.
The night went better than the day, they got what they wanted, the information they needed, and no one needed to die. The night went better than the day, McManus listened to Keaton when he said they’d try it his way, didn’t shoot at anyone, didn’t run off at the mouth too much. The night went better than the day, when McManus finally got angry enough to try something it was Dean’s arms that slid naturally around him and held him (close) back, away from the cocky man in his stupid leather jacket.
Kaiser Söse.
There was no such person. Keaton was sure of it. So sure that even after the talk with Kobayashi he didn’t have any qualms about taking an early night. Conspiracy theories? Fuck em.
Except he couldn’t quite say that. Because he’d seen the rather hunted expression in McManus’s eyes during the talk, and he knew it meant something to him, so that night he went to his room instead of straight to bed.
Tom sat up suddenly at the sound of the knock, and opened the door just a crack, gun in hand, so Dean knew he wasn’t imagining it, because even he wasn’t that paranoid.
“Put the piece down, McManus, and let me in.”
The half confrontational tone worked, and the door opened immediately. Keaton found himself pulled into the room, examined carefully, and then let go as McManus pulled away to head over to the window and draw the blinds shut.
“What do you know about Söse?” he asked, and was immediately rewarded by a dark glare, before McManus collapsed in an armchair.
“Fenster and I did some work with someone under him. Saw what happened when the ‘employment was terminated,’ as the note put it. Or the part of it we could read, anyways, the blood had got to the rest of it before we found him. It was our bad luck.”
To walk in on the scene, he obviously meant, and Keaton’s inclined to agree with him if the memory still bothers him this much later. This was something that bore asking, actually.
“How long ago?”
“Four, five years.”
Shit. He was young. It was strange to think of him that way because he still wasn’t old by any standard, but that was young to walk in on the kind of scene Keaton was picturing.
“Fen was worse. I’d better get to him.”
But Keaton held up a stalling hand. The tentativeness of the gesture (though there’s hardly any) was enough to make it more of a request than an order, so McManus grants it where he would have walked out in a second any other way. The two sat in the chairs by the closed window until McManus stood and stumbled his way into the bed, where he collapsed to go to sleep.
Keaton was glad he rested. Odds were, they’d all need it.
He was tempted to join him in the bed, not to try anything, but just (to be close) because it was closer, but made his way instead back to his own room and stayed looking at the ceiling until sleep found him.
In the morning, Fenster was gone. Keaton blamed himself, McManus blamed himself, and Fenster was gone.
McManus spent the whole day crashing around, swearing, raving, clenching and unclenching his hands in frustration and worry. Tear his fucking heart out he snarled. Hockney thought McManus had gone round the bend. Verbal thought he’d been pushed a little too hard. Keaton thought he looked attractive when his heart was pounding, which it most certainly was. But that he shouldn’t have to worry for his friend, though when he used the word ‘worry’ the other two looked at him strangely because they hadn’t put that name to the emotion behind the violent reaction.
By some terrible twist of fate it was McManus who answered the phone last night, and who dropped the receiver in shock at hearing Kobayashi’s voice on the other end. Keaton rescued (him) the receiver, picking it up in time to hear the rest of the message.
The location he scribbled down on a coffee stained napkin, then tossed on the dresser before turning to Tom, because some things could wait but other things (people) needed him right now. The other man was white, clearly shaken, and sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the wood of the frame until it creaked under his hands.
“Did—d’you want to wait a minute?”
There isn’t a rush. Even though neither have said it they both know Fenster’s not going anywhere, not now, not ever. This wasn’t the kind of thing you get up and walk away from, not even if you’re Dean Keaton. Fenster didn’t have a chance.
To Keaton, the pain written in Tom’s face at the sight of Fenster’s body was so obvious he couldn’t understand how the others could possibly miss it. Even before he started shouting, before the moonlight hit his face. He felt like a coward for doing it, but Dean had to turn away. He crouched, resting as comfortably as possible without letting the wet sand soak through his clothes, and watched the waves rise and fall as Tom began digging a hole in the sand to bury his friend.
No one else seemed to get it. It frustrated, hurt, startled McManus, because his friend had fucking died running and didn’t they get it? They couldn’t. They were stuck playing this to the hilt. It frustrated, exhausted, and dryly amused Keaton because it hadn’t occurred to him that they could be that stupid. They had the no-longer-living example of what would happen if they did right in front of them.
So he dropped to his knees and helped McManus bury the corpse that used to be his long-time friend, and pretended he couldn’t see the strange glint that might have been tears in the moonlight.
When they got back to the hotel it was one AM and it was obvious that something had changed in Tom McManus. Obvious at least to Dean Keaton, who was the one he grabbed by the lapel and shoved against the wall.
“I didn’t— ”
The kiss interrupted him, and it was alright because it was everything he remembered, and for that kiss he’d give up any words at all, they simply couldn’t compare.
They made it all the way to the bed before their jackets, and the stupid, fucking ugly head scarf Tom was wearing hit the floor, and spent a moment with Dean leaning against the dresser, arms wrapped tight around Tom’s waist to hold him up as he struggled out of the black turtleneck, pulling it over his head and leaving his hair a mess. Fingers tore at cloth, buttons popped off Dean’s shirt, and Tom’s teeth dug into his shoulder.
Sex that night was hard, hot, desperate, and full of want, need and control. Except they both realized that neither of them had it, not over each other and now not over themselves either because Kobayashi knew where they were and the odds were against them both surviving this.
The bed frame creaked, collided with the wall, and Tom made him roll them both off it onto the floor to continue events because someone was shouting
“I bet I’ll be the one to day” remarked McManus, casually, before extinguishing his cigarette and lying flat against the bed. The weak light was enough to reveal only hints of what might be tattooed onto all his skin, and Keaton kicked himself for trying too hard to read them in the dark and leaning closer.
As what the other man was saying sunk in he began to think about it. About walking away from this man’s body on that boat. It wasn’t something he’d thought about before, leaving him cold in the water. He didn’t like the idea. At all, in fact.
“It’s a bitch, isn’t it? Sort of creeps up on you, stealthy like, until suddenly, wham.”
Tom mimed on hand colliding with an invisible object, unable apparently to resist making small explosive sound effects. Somehow, lying naked with only a sheet covering him, he managed not to seem utterly ridiculous.
“You care.” Dean finished for him, taking a risk and reaching down to trace the mark of ink on his chest. He knew what he was getting at.
“I half hope I do go. You don’t deserve to be mourned for twice, piece of shit cop.”
The words were still said without venom, but this time it didn’t bother him, not in the slightest.
“We’ll see, Tom. Get some sleep, and stop your noise. You’re making me tired all over.”
Because I got this movie on the weekend woot! And have screencaps of little personal space of these two practically groping each other to use as evidence, mwahaha.
McManus had blood on his lips.
It wasn’t much to go on, not a great way to judge a person’s character, and not the answer to the meaning of the universe. It wasn’t even blood from a real fight, just a cut lip from a particularly nasty argument with Hockney that had escalated into something serious. Not life or death, not adrenaline crashing through his veins, or the thrill of another hit. It wasn’t that by any stretch.
It was, however, enough to make him want to lean over and lick it off and bite his lips until he knew the red there was something he had caused. Not another one of the stupid little scraps that brought the tension higher and higher with every day, but… but whatever it was that happened between them when McManus’s back connected with the wall hard enough to make his blue beyond blue eyes blink rapidly as he fought to get things to focus again and force the breath back into his lungs.
There had been betrayal in Edie’s eyes. Or at least, there would have been, he imagined, if he’d stayed long enough to see it. Edie’s eyes were blue too, though a softer, darker shade that didn’t grab you by the soul and hold on until you drowned. There would have been betrayal in them, but he found that he simply couldn’t care. Because there hadn’t been any of that in Tom’s (McManus, you call him McManus) eyes when he’d been sitting in that jail cell calling him a lawyer’s wife. There wasn’t anything but blue, and a kind of resignation that spoke of something buried.
“I don’t want to hear anything from you. I don’t care about your job, and um, I want nothing to do with any of you.” Then, when he’d looked up at him, except he hadn’t been able to look up at him, he’d had his eyes fastened across the room on Verbal, because then and only then had betrayal become a part of the equation.
“I beg your pardon, but you can all go to Hell.”
Sometimes the utter clarity of Tom’s eyes hid what he was feeling with an icy perfection. Your gaze was pulled not to the telltale signs of emotion but to the unwavering something that seemed to haunt him.
But then other times they wouldn’t. Other times it wouldn’t matter what sort of smart remark he might make, Dean would still be able to see the slight movement of his lips that meant he was pulling one lightly between his teeth. He’d note the careful, measured breath and he’d see the drum of fingers against his leg as he counted the emotion away in his head. It used to be five seconds before Tom had control of himself in his mind, and he’d count backwards from that number and be steady by the end of it. That day in the jail it was only three, and Keaton wasn’t sure if he was happy to know he was holding onto himself a little better or if he should be sorry to see the impetuous, uncontrollable burning go.
“Fuck him.”
The rest of the night he spent waiting for Edie and watching Tom, as he explained the idea with the hushed voice Dean remembered hearing sometimes in the night when Tom thought he might be sleeping and wanted to know if he felt like sex again yet, but didn’t want to wake him if he was. He didn’t know if he was sorry when she finally came and brought him out of the cell, leaving Tom leaning against the wall, asking the guard in his own noisy way for a cigarette.
He hadn’t had to wait long for a smoke, it turned out. By the time Edie had sorted out the paperwork that came with being a dead man in jail, Tom had already pushed his way outside and made it to a news stand. Black turtleneck, the one Dean thought made him look leaner, black jeans, black leather jacket; he looked like some sort of fucking secret agent and the cigarette hanging from his mouth didn’t help the image any.
Edie was saying something about the desk sergeant, about disgraces, going on in the way she did as though she could change any of it, some how. It was something he loved about her, if only he could remember why he’d thought it was endearing, it all seemed like such a long time ago all of a sudden. As though dinner with the French clients had been a universe of Mr. Keaton, and now he was back to just Keaton, the sharp bastard who’d just as soon burn you with the match as light your smoke. He fumbled with the lighter a few seconds longer than he should of, his mind torn between secret agents and persistent lawyers.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it Edie, okay?”
He didn’t know if it was the right thing to say or what she’d been talking about to begin with but it seemed to work. Quieted her enough for him to ask the question he already knew the answer to.
It was amazing, he realized, standing on the steps of the police station, how quickly a life could change. How quickly Mr. Keaton could be torn to shreds. Be it by the police spreading a few lies and a few more truths to scare the clients away, or by a night in prison to remind him that this isn’t who he was, or by a man dressed all in black watching him from across a road.
“It’s finished. I’m finished.”
With that, those words, it really was. His eyes flicked up once more to find McManus’s, staring back evenly. The man was chewing on a toothpick now, watching him unabashedly.
“They’ve ruined me.”
Mr. Keaton was ruined. The image he’d worked so hard to create, to hold on to, to fill out. The man who owned restaurants and laughed in cafes downtown and loved the woman next to him and was so painfully content with all of it. He was ruined, and he saw that reflected in the lazy triumph in McManus’s eyes, from where he leaned against the wall across the street.
What he didn’t see was the return of the quiet, reconciled sadness as the last walking shell of Mr. Keaton and his Edie ambled past the young man without sparing a glance, but that was the sort of thing that didn’t need to be shared.
The trip to Edie’s home that night was another way to delay the inevitable, though he already knew it was coming. A chain of events had fallen into place, starting with the night of the line up, or maybe that was wrong. Maybe it started long before that when a crooked cop saw a young man who’d jacked a truck and wanted a quick way out of prison and let him fall to his knees and suck for a ticket out the back door. It probably hadn’t even been that night, because that was something he could have handled. It had probably been when McManus had cornered him in the bar with a shark like grin on his lips and asked him if he felt like returning the favour and he had found, to his own amusement, that in his current piss-drunk state, he had.
He decided it didn’t matter, and he didn’t touch Edie that night, just lay next to her in the bed and told her he was tired when she leaned over to kiss him. It was something she accepted. It was something that made her smile reassuringly and lie down next to him, while he thought about how Tom would have said tough shit, and kissed him harder.
Dean was glad it was Verbal who came to him the next day. Pretending to resist him was easy, though he never thought he’d be able to actually turn away from the suggestion and the promise he’d seen in McManus’s eyes, from across that road.
He wasn’t surprised, not overly; not to hear he’d wanted to go in shooting. But then suddenly he was because it meant he hadn’t known he already had him trapped. It came as one of those terrible moments of realization that hit you at awkward times, like in the shower or over dinner or driving and made you cut yourself with your razor, break a glass or cause a fender bender. McManus hadn’t known Dean was coming back. He didn’t control him. No one controlled him.
It was, sharp-as-a-knife Dean Keaton thought to himself as he pulled away from the Miada with the broken taillight and ignored the strange looks Verbal was giving him, good to be back.
The heist went off smoothly. Or rather, as smoothly as such a thing can go. There was screaming, broken glass, and a jarring hit that rocked his spine when the van drove the car forwards and connected it with the back of the car he was driving. The nylon made the cigarette in his mouth taste fucking awful but shit did he need a smoke.
McManus made an idiot of himself, and seeing him flailing about and posturing on the top of the car was even more of a relief, in its own way, because stupidity had never been desirable. Because madness didn’t have the kind of sex to it that violence did, even though he’d breathed a sigh of relief when he found out there was no killing this time.
There was the showing off, the crows of victory, the sloshing of gasoline and the scent of it on McManus’s shoes where it’d landed. It was so fucking stupid, taking risks like that. That was why Dean cornered him the minute they got back to the workshop where they’d crashed.
“You’re still as fucking slow as you used to be.”
McManus had blood on his lips.
You know the kind. The trivial detail that was suddenly all important, the thing that grabbed all his attention and held it prisoner when he should have been looking at his eyes to try to read him. The reason when he slammed him up against the wall of the building before following the other three inside that it might have been a little harder than it needed to be and he might have lingered a little closer than he should have once he had him pinned.
“You need to cool it, McManus, or you’re going to get yourself into some trouble one day, and I don’t plan on being there to get caught in it.”
Keaton was pleased to see that Tom had to count back all the way from five again this time, before speaking.
“Get the fuck off me, cocksucker.”
If the words had been said with any sort of venom to them at all, Dean wouldn’t have worried, but to hear the haunting nothing, as he still called it, it threw him. Threw him badly enough that when the hard shove to his chest came, in order to push him away, he wasn’t ready for it and Tom managed to get free.
There was still blood on his lips, and Dean wanted to kiss him just as much as ever.
It took a while for him to get his breath back, and by the time he did and decided to come see what was happening, everyone seemed to be calm. The loot, as it were, was being assessed. It was laid out, in piles of emeralds that he could tell by looking at were worth more than they’d thought at first.
When Hockney got up in Tom’s face, even Dean could tell that this time it wasn’t McManus’s fault. He privately credited the man a little more respect, because he hadn’t decked him yet, and decided to interfere with a timely warning.
“Hey. The job’s over. Cool it. L.A.’s a good place to lay low for a while.”
“Wanna dance?” asked Hockney, leaning closer still, his face uncomfortably near McManus’s, though now the other man had eyes for no one but Keaton. He was watching him with a peculiar half-smile, almost affectionate, because Dean had always hated fighting between jobs.
The question hung in the air, unanswered, and Keaton shook his head just slightly. It was more a gesture of a resigned amusement than an instruction, though he knew Tom had taken it as such. Knew by the way his head dipped slightly closer to Hockney’s, so from Dean’s perspective they looked like they might have been taking care of the little problem of the blood. He could tell Hockney would never, and so could McManus, but the message was there. The ‘can’t control me’ that always seemed to burn in their relationship.
Once Tom pulled away, his eyes didn’t meet Keaton’s again for the rest of the day. Not voluntarily, at least. Even when he caught up with him again and pushed him back against the bricks, there was only one brief glance upwards, as though to confirm his identity though there was no one else it could possibly be.
“Get off, Keaton, I have better things to do than argue with a dead man.”
His death of course, he knew it would have to come back to that sooner or later. He’d officially not existed for two years, after all. There were a number of ways he could have heard it and McManus had already said it, that first time they’d looked across at each other in the jail cell and Keaton had told him he’d heard right.
Because of who he was, sharp-as-a-knife Dean Keaton, he hadn’t tied up any of his threads. He didn’t regret it, not in the slightest, because it isn’t possible to fake ones own death without at least a few regrets expressed by people you’ve known along the way. Of course, now, here, that particular resolution had seemed to have had and was still having a rather negative effect, as he couldn’t ever remember Tom’s eyes looking so cold. Not even when the cop had wound his hands through his hair and told him he was pretty enough that he’d let him go if it felt nice.
Tom was saying something, and he probably should have been listening because it was about so much time even though he only used the words laying low and about thought you were gone said as found a new fuck toy and even a little bit of how could you though that part was very, very hidden. He should have been listening. He wasn’t.
He kissed McManus as hard as ever, pushing up against him and with a hand on his jaw to tilt his head up, to encourage him to let the kiss go deeper. For an instant, the split second before the surprise could register and Tom could react, he remembered to perfection of hot, violent, pain laced sex.
But then he was shoved away, as rudely as ever such a parting could possibly be, and Tom’s knee connected between his legs, mercifully softer than it could have been but still hard enough to make him double over in pain.
“I’m not into necrophilia, thanks.”
As he walked him walk away, Dean reflected that maybe this was one thread he should have risked tying. His bed was cold that night.
The fight was the real reason he went to see Edie before leaving for California, though he told Verbal it was because he had to. He stood up on the landing, looking down at her, and was surprised that in seeing it he was struck again by the need to be back there, to put his arm around her shoulders and be Mr. Keaton and not get a sharp kick to the crotch in return. Verbal thought he loved her, standing there looking down at her. He even might have, he thought to himself, once, when he was someone different.
But he pulled away and walked back down the stairs, then back into the jeep where four other men, and one in particular, were waiting.
The plane ride over was uneventful. Verbal sat and stared at nothing and everything all at once. Fenster talked to Hockney, who made snide comments in return and repeatedly asked what are you saying? in an overly loud voice. This left, possibly by accident but probably not, Tom thought, him sitting between the window and Dean Keaton.
It wasn’t a game he was willing to play, he’d already decided, so instead of saying anything or waiting for explanations he’d spent two years hoping for or offering him the chance to convince him of anything, Tom did the easiest thing. He pulled out the crappy little pillow the smiling flight attendant had given them both, stuck it behind his head, and closed his eyes.
The idea, he discovered some time later, when the plane encountered turbulence, had backfired slightly. More tired than he’d realized, more tired than he should have been after just one job, but then there’d been a day of emotional shit to do as well, he’d actually at some point dropped off.
He couldn’t see the smile on Keaton’s face, though he knew it would be there, but the steady rise and fall of his shoulder as he breathed made Tom wonder just how long he’d been resting against him to have the man this comfortable with it. He should have pulled away when the turbulence woke him, of course. But it was warm and he was comfortable and not really awake so it wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes again.
To save him the embarrassment, too late, Dean’s hands shifted him gently in his sleep, leaned him up against the glass of the window instead, so when he opened his eyes again and they were in California the other man was flicking through a magazine. Tom wasn’t sure if he was glad or sorry. By the time they got off the plane it didn’t matter, he was nothing but embarrassed, especially by the knowing looks Fenster was giving him.
It was a beautiful day, though most of the days were beautiful here, and the group gathered around the Korean Friendship Bell was enjoying the change from New York. On top of the relief at the new climate, Keaton could feel another kind of excitement burning in all of them. A job wasn’t really over till the loot was traded for money, and they all wanted this job to be over, all of them for different reasons. Mostly because it had just dragged one day too long, and the all of them were sick of Hockney and McManus at each others throats every hour of the day.
When the ‘Redfoot’ man showed up, all smiles and buttery leather, Keaton found himself moving forwards to stand parallel to McManus, trying and failing to smother an instinct of possessiveness he thought he’d lost a long time ago. It wasn’t a ploy to get himself attention, though ultimately that’s what it resulted in. He didn’t like Redfoot. Not one bit.
He also didn’t like the ease with which McManus spoke for all of them, and interrupted him immediately.
“We’re always lookin’ for-”
“We’re on vacation.”
It had been a little too much; he knew the moment he’d said it, to take the reigns from McManus in the middle of things, so he wasn’t upset when they were lifted neatly away again. The job was described and as good as accepted before he stepped forwards again.
“Get yourself laid.”
Oh, he didn’t even want to think about that or what had made him say it. He couldn’t, so he didn’t. Just pressed on, leading him in the standard dance. An old name he’d recognize, a new secret. Sorry, my fault. He got what he needed out of him, too. It was the knowledge that things would remain strictly business between them. I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but you have something I want and I’m willing to go with that.
Those were actually the words he’d used the second- no, not the second, not if you counted both the time in the station and the time in the alley behind the bar, though in both those cases it had only been one of them on their knees and the other one getting the benefit. Those were the words he’d used the third time he and McManus had met. This had been a different situation, just two men visiting the same fence, selling different loot. McManus had what looked like gold wire, Keaton had a smaller load of confiscated coke he’d borrowed from the precinct and was hoping to make a profit on.
They’d watched each other, circled a few times, both made their respective deals and then McManus had caught up with Keaton on the steps on the way out of the building.
“Seems to me two such as ourselves, with old debts settled between us, could spare the time to buy the other a drink.”
He’d been so young then, Keaton knew, seven years ago, and he’d been hot and ready, willing, able. They hadn’t got as far as a drink, just to a seedy motel where no one asked questions and the rooms were cheap enough that Keaton didn’t mind when McManus told him that he wasn’t paying, thank you very much.
The rest of the scenario was something that had left both of them with bruises and McManus with bite marks and Keaton with scratches and small cuts where nails had dug a bit too deeply. It was something he had to drag his mind away from several times in the car ride back to their hotel. He was thankful he was sitting in the front seat, because things could have been considerable more awkward than they were, and as it was he thought he could see a faint flush behind Tom’s beard. As though he knew what he was thinking about. The thought made him want to pull the car over, throw the other three men out, and fuck him in the back seat until one or both of them was screaming.
It was supposed to be one job. He’d reminded them all of that, and winced at the half-amused expression on all of their faces, because he’d thought Mr. Keaton was a little more alive than all of that. All the rest of the day McManus found it in him to remind him at every turn of what it was to be bad guys again, and feel the familiar rush of it. What the others didn’t know was what convinced him was the conversation that happened when they finally did come back to the hotel.
“I want you with us” McManus said, as he shut the door behind him, and Keaton dropped the newspaper and sat up in his bed. Maybe he let a bit too much hope fill his eyes, because Tom narrowed his eyes and didn’t take another step closer.
“Verbal’s right. We need five people. I want you with us.”
He had to consider that, and as he did, he reached for the bedside table and a cigarette, and gestured at the armchair near the window. Tom made no move to go take a seat, and Keaton hadn’t expected him to.
“You know, I remember a scenario pretty similar to this, a year ago or six.”
Except then of course, it had just been I want you and Keaton had reached for him as he moved towards the bed and pulled him down with his teeth already closing possessively on his shoulder. The temptation to do the same thing now was enormous, and he stood. It didn’t surprise him that Tom didn’t move, neither to pull away or push forwards. He could see him counting in his head.
“Long time ago, Keaton.”
“Not that long.”
It came out like a question, though he didn’t mean it to at all. All the same, it’d be good to hear an answer. He just hoped he’d like it when it came.
“I was twenty when we first met. It was a long time ago.”
Now he backed up, just slightly, because he knew the door was there and didn’t want to collide with it, but sometimes reflexes just get the better of you like that and everything he’d ever learned about bargaining always seemed to go out the window when he was around Dean fucking Keaton.
“You knew what you were doing, Tom. I wouldn’t have stopped for someone who didn’t.”
It was true, though he intended it to be a lie, because he wanted this man in his bed now and wasn’t above spinning pretty words to get him there. But it was very true, and they both knew it, though neither of them expected it.
“So, what, I lost track of myself later? Because I’m pretty much not remembering any fucking stopping for me after that warehouse blew, fucker.”
Of course, they came back to that. They had to, really, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could escape talking about at some point. Even if Keaton would rather bury it, he knew it was what was standing between them and the things they could do to each other in the bed behind him.
“It was… a mistake.”
Neither of them is sure that that’s true, though Dean desperately wants him to believe it, because ever since he’s come back he’s been starting to think it was.
All the same, he can see in Tom’s (McManus, damnit, keep it straight) eyes that it’s the sort of mistake that it takes a while to deal with and he isn’t allowed to ask for forgiveness, not for a long time yet. So instead, he chooses not to make the same mistake again.
“You’ve got your five people, Tom, I’ll be here in the morning. Now, will you stay the night with me here?”
The door closes shut with more resolve than McManus has, but it’s easier to walk away from the man with every step he takes down the hall and away from his God damned hypnotic eyes.
During the next job, there was a complete and astonishing reversal of roles. It was McManus who managed a neat, precise double shot and saved both Fenster’s and Hockney’s asses. It couldn’t have been better, even if it did mean a bit of clean up work to be done on the truck. But then again, McManus had always liked guns. Undressing him had been dangerous as fuck, but worth it for the sheer perverse pleasure of seeing guns tucked in neatly, flat along the strong muscle of his leg or side.
But it was Keaton who couldn’t shoot. Who found himself repeating the same words over and over, who jumped when Verbal finally lost patience and killed the man from over his shoulder. He didn’t think any of the others saw. But he knew. Mr. Keaton was still in there, somewhere. What startled him was that he wasn’t glad to realize that, not at all.
It was a bad day. A messy, bloody, bad day. It didn’t get any better when the cases opened and there was… well, nothing good, to say the least. Keaton was, in his own way, relieved, because everyone’s eyes turned to McManus, because his fence had obviously fucked something up. It led to a heated argument, to Hockney and McManus up in each others face again.
It bothered Tom more than the others knew, except Dean could tell. There were tell tale signs, in the way he didn’t hit Hockney back when he took a swing at him, the way he lit his cigarette and sighed before taking a drag, the way he left the van quietly and without explaining where he was going.
Keaton followed. Of course he did. He followed and found him sitting on the beach near where they’d parked.
They were out of sight of the van, so no one saw and McManus didn’t complain when Dean wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close like they used to, just a tight grip on each other, holding on for comfort’s sake. Neither of them spoke, they never did, they just sat and turned things over and over in their minds.
That night they made another trip to the Korean Friendship Bell, to meet Redfoot again. Keaton knew there was a reason he hadn’t liked him.
The night went better than the day, they got what they wanted, the information they needed, and no one needed to die. The night went better than the day, McManus listened to Keaton when he said they’d try it his way, didn’t shoot at anyone, didn’t run off at the mouth too much. The night went better than the day, when McManus finally got angry enough to try something it was Dean’s arms that slid naturally around him and held him (close) back, away from the cocky man in his stupid leather jacket.
Kaiser Söse.
There was no such person. Keaton was sure of it. So sure that even after the talk with Kobayashi he didn’t have any qualms about taking an early night. Conspiracy theories? Fuck em.
Except he couldn’t quite say that. Because he’d seen the rather hunted expression in McManus’s eyes during the talk, and he knew it meant something to him, so that night he went to his room instead of straight to bed.
Tom sat up suddenly at the sound of the knock, and opened the door just a crack, gun in hand, so Dean knew he wasn’t imagining it, because even he wasn’t that paranoid.
“Put the piece down, McManus, and let me in.”
The half confrontational tone worked, and the door opened immediately. Keaton found himself pulled into the room, examined carefully, and then let go as McManus pulled away to head over to the window and draw the blinds shut.
“What do you know about Söse?” he asked, and was immediately rewarded by a dark glare, before McManus collapsed in an armchair.
“Fenster and I did some work with someone under him. Saw what happened when the ‘employment was terminated,’ as the note put it. Or the part of it we could read, anyways, the blood had got to the rest of it before we found him. It was our bad luck.”
To walk in on the scene, he obviously meant, and Keaton’s inclined to agree with him if the memory still bothers him this much later. This was something that bore asking, actually.
“How long ago?”
“Four, five years.”
Shit. He was young. It was strange to think of him that way because he still wasn’t old by any standard, but that was young to walk in on the kind of scene Keaton was picturing.
“Fen was worse. I’d better get to him.”
But Keaton held up a stalling hand. The tentativeness of the gesture (though there’s hardly any) was enough to make it more of a request than an order, so McManus grants it where he would have walked out in a second any other way. The two sat in the chairs by the closed window until McManus stood and stumbled his way into the bed, where he collapsed to go to sleep.
Keaton was glad he rested. Odds were, they’d all need it.
He was tempted to join him in the bed, not to try anything, but just (to be close) because it was closer, but made his way instead back to his own room and stayed looking at the ceiling until sleep found him.
In the morning, Fenster was gone. Keaton blamed himself, McManus blamed himself, and Fenster was gone.
McManus spent the whole day crashing around, swearing, raving, clenching and unclenching his hands in frustration and worry. Tear his fucking heart out he snarled. Hockney thought McManus had gone round the bend. Verbal thought he’d been pushed a little too hard. Keaton thought he looked attractive when his heart was pounding, which it most certainly was. But that he shouldn’t have to worry for his friend, though when he used the word ‘worry’ the other two looked at him strangely because they hadn’t put that name to the emotion behind the violent reaction.
By some terrible twist of fate it was McManus who answered the phone last night, and who dropped the receiver in shock at hearing Kobayashi’s voice on the other end. Keaton rescued (him) the receiver, picking it up in time to hear the rest of the message.
The location he scribbled down on a coffee stained napkin, then tossed on the dresser before turning to Tom, because some things could wait but other things (people) needed him right now. The other man was white, clearly shaken, and sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the wood of the frame until it creaked under his hands.
“Did—d’you want to wait a minute?”
There isn’t a rush. Even though neither have said it they both know Fenster’s not going anywhere, not now, not ever. This wasn’t the kind of thing you get up and walk away from, not even if you’re Dean Keaton. Fenster didn’t have a chance.
To Keaton, the pain written in Tom’s face at the sight of Fenster’s body was so obvious he couldn’t understand how the others could possibly miss it. Even before he started shouting, before the moonlight hit his face. He felt like a coward for doing it, but Dean had to turn away. He crouched, resting as comfortably as possible without letting the wet sand soak through his clothes, and watched the waves rise and fall as Tom began digging a hole in the sand to bury his friend.
No one else seemed to get it. It frustrated, hurt, startled McManus, because his friend had fucking died running and didn’t they get it? They couldn’t. They were stuck playing this to the hilt. It frustrated, exhausted, and dryly amused Keaton because it hadn’t occurred to him that they could be that stupid. They had the no-longer-living example of what would happen if they did right in front of them.
So he dropped to his knees and helped McManus bury the corpse that used to be his long-time friend, and pretended he couldn’t see the strange glint that might have been tears in the moonlight.
When they got back to the hotel it was one AM and it was obvious that something had changed in Tom McManus. Obvious at least to Dean Keaton, who was the one he grabbed by the lapel and shoved against the wall.
“I didn’t— ”
The kiss interrupted him, and it was alright because it was everything he remembered, and for that kiss he’d give up any words at all, they simply couldn’t compare.
They made it all the way to the bed before their jackets, and the stupid, fucking ugly head scarf Tom was wearing hit the floor, and spent a moment with Dean leaning against the dresser, arms wrapped tight around Tom’s waist to hold him up as he struggled out of the black turtleneck, pulling it over his head and leaving his hair a mess. Fingers tore at cloth, buttons popped off Dean’s shirt, and Tom’s teeth dug into his shoulder.
Sex that night was hard, hot, desperate, and full of want, need and control. Except they both realized that neither of them had it, not over each other and now not over themselves either because Kobayashi knew where they were and the odds were against them both surviving this.
The bed frame creaked, collided with the wall, and Tom made him roll them both off it onto the floor to continue events because someone was shouting
“I bet I’ll be the one to day” remarked McManus, casually, before extinguishing his cigarette and lying flat against the bed. The weak light was enough to reveal only hints of what might be tattooed onto all his skin, and Keaton kicked himself for trying too hard to read them in the dark and leaning closer.
As what the other man was saying sunk in he began to think about it. About walking away from this man’s body on that boat. It wasn’t something he’d thought about before, leaving him cold in the water. He didn’t like the idea. At all, in fact.
“It’s a bitch, isn’t it? Sort of creeps up on you, stealthy like, until suddenly, wham.”
Tom mimed on hand colliding with an invisible object, unable apparently to resist making small explosive sound effects. Somehow, lying naked with only a sheet covering him, he managed not to seem utterly ridiculous.
“You care.” Dean finished for him, taking a risk and reaching down to trace the mark of ink on his chest. He knew what he was getting at.
“I half hope I do go. You don’t deserve to be mourned for twice, piece of shit cop.”
The words were still said without venom, but this time it didn’t bother him, not in the slightest.
“We’ll see, Tom. Get some sleep, and stop your noise. You’re making me tired all over.”
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Date: 2006-05-22 10:33 pm (UTC)And so many slashy screencaps. Those two were so physical with each other.