Run Part Seven
Title: Run Part VII
Author: hannah_chapter
Pairing: Belldom
Rating: PG
Summary: AU. LA, 1951. Dominic Howard is an average guy living an average life. Until a blue-eyed stranger jumps into his car and holds him at gunpoint...
Feedback: Yes please.
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse, I just like to have fantasy orgies with them. And David Tennant. And Matt Smith. And Russell Howard. And Nathan Fillion. And Chris Evans. And Brandon Routh. And almost the entire male cast of True Blood. It's getting crowded in there.
"Matthew!"
The man in the door grabs Matthew by the shoulders and kisses him on both cheeks. He releases Matthew and turns his attention to me. I hang back, not wanting to be kissed by a strange man; I just know Matthew will spend the rest of the day making jokes about it. It falls to Matthew to make the introductions.
Dominic, this is Danny, we work together from time to time. Danny, this is Dominic. He's ... a friend of mine."
"Pleased to meet you," Danny gives my hand a token squeeze as he ushers us inside, "any friend of Matthew's is a friend of mine."
He leads us into a large kitchen and gets right down to business.
"I take it this isn't a social call."
"One thing I always liked about you, Danny, you catch on fast."
"No room in this game for slow learners, Matthew, you of all people should know that. Now, what can I do for you?"
"We need money and I need ammunition."
"Bad action?"
"It's not good."
"It never is."
"Will you help us?"
"Of course. Do you want to stay the night? You'll be safe here and I've got plenty of room."
"Sounds good to me."
"Then it's settled," Danny rubs his hands together, "you'll stay here tonight and I'll get you everything you need. Now, how about some dinner?"
That sounds good and I'm about to say so when I feel Matthew's hand on my elbow. I stay quiet.
"No, that's okay. We've got to go out for awhile, we'll get something on the way back."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. We'll see you later, Danny."
And, just like that, we're back in the car.
"Where are we going, Matthew?"
"Shopping."
"Shopping?"
"Yes, Dominic, shopping. I don't know about you, but I need a change of clothes."
I sniff my shirt. I can smell my own sweat and the sweat of the man who attacked me.
"Alright, let's go shopping."
*************************************************************************************************************
That felt so very, very good. I look at my smooth face in the mirror, then at the hairs in the sink. We stopped at a drugstore while we were out shopping and I picked up a razor, which I've just put to good use. I hadn't shaved since the morning I was arrested. Was that really only a couple of days ago? It feels like a lifetime. There's a knock on the door and Matthew comes into the bathroom. He's holding a box in his hand, the other thing we got at the drugstore.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I'm sure."
He pouts.
"But I love your blond hair, it's so pretty."
"Now I'm really sure. Let's do this."
He sighs.
"Alright. You need to take off your shirt."
"What?"
"Or keep it on, if you don't mind getting dye all over it."
I pull my shirt over my head and try to ignore the way Matthew's staring at me. He opens the box and pulls out a small bottle.
"Bend over and put your head over the sink."
I do as I'm told. A thick, chemical stink begins to fill the air. It reminds me of the times I picked Penny up at the beauty shop. I clamp a hand over my nose and breathe through my mouth as Matthew rubs the dye into my scalp. I'm trying not to think about the smell, or just how good it feels to have his fingers in my hair.
It's soon over. I look in the mirror and see a black-haired stranger. Matthew's pouting again and I ignore him. I leave him to clean up and go to the room Danny gave me. Matthew appears in the doorway.
"You left this behind," he tosses me my shirt.
I fold it and put it on a nearby chair.
"Thanks," he stays where he is and I try and hurry him along, "you can go."
"Are you sure? I could stay and keep you company, maybe sing you a lullaby..."
My shoe bounces off the doorframe and he withdraws, leaving me to sleep alone.
******************************************************************************************************
The knock at the door comes far too early. Matthew sticks his head in.
"We need to get moving."
"Already?"
"Already. Get dressed and meet me in my room. One more thing, wipe everything you touched, leave no fingerprints behind."
Matthew's strapping a gun to his ankle when I come in.
"You sure you have enough guns?"
"You can never have enough guns."
"How do you walk with all that weight?"
"Practice. Did you wipe all your prints?"
"Yeah. Why did I have to do that?"
"I'll tell you when we're in the car. Let's go."
Matthew picks up his briefcase and we go downstairs. Danny's in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Matthew gets what he needs and waves away all offers of breakfast.
"Come on, Matthew, you have to eat something."
"No time, we'll eat on the road."
"Where are you going?"
The conversation that follows is confusing, full of words and phrases I don't understand. What are they saying? Do I even want to know? We say our goodbyes and go out to the car and I can't help but notice the way Matthew drags his jacket sleeve over the kitchen table and door handles as he passes, wiping his prints away. In the car I turn to him.
"What was that all about?"
He doesn't take his eyes off the road.
"I'm just being careful. You don't want your fingerprints all over another murder scene, do you?"
"Murder scene?" I feel my eyes widen, "but Danny's not dead."
"Not yet. Soon, real soon."
I'm cold all over.
"You're going to kill him."
"No, his friends are going to kill him."
"What friends?"
"The men he's selling us out to. My guess is they won't be happy when they find out everything I just told Danny was a lie."
"How do you know he's selling us out?"
"I didn't want to believe it, but I knew it the second he laid eyes on you. It was as plain as the nose on his face. I brought a stranger to his house, Dominic. Not to his office or some neutral place, like a public park, but to his house. But he wasn't upset and believe me when I say he should have been. He should have been screaming at me for breaking the rules. You don't go to a man's house, that's not the way we do things."
"But you still did it."
"I didn't have a choice. I didn't expect such a warm welcome. I thought he'd give me what I wanted and kick us out right after. I never thought he'd ask us to spend the night, but I couldn't think of a way to refuse without tipping him off."
"Is that why you wouldn't eat his food?"
"Yeah, I thought he might drug it, I couldn't take that chance."
"Where does he think we're going?"
"Back to Los Angeles to meet another friend of mine."
"What friend?"
"You've already met him. The distinguished gentleman with the knife growing out of the back of his neck."
"But he's dead."
"Danny doesn't know that."
"What would you have done if he did?"
"I would have put a bullet in his eye."
I squeeze my temples, this whole thing is giving me a headache.
"So what are we doing, Matthew?"
"We need to get some breakfast and I need to find a phone, make some calls."
"Tell me something, do you have a plan or are you just making this up as you go along?"
"Little of column A, little of column B."
We find a diner with a payphone outside it. We have breakfast and I sit in the booth, sipping coffee and looking out the window at Matthew using the phone. He hangs up, sees me watching him and winks at me. I feel my cheeks heating up as I look away and, even through the glass, I can hear him laughing. I finish my coffee and go outside.
"You're so cute when you blush, Dominic."
"What's the plan, genius?"
"We're going to an airfield. A guy I know has agreed to fly us to New York."
"Why are we going to New York?"
"Because we are, that's why."
***************************************************************************************************************
Hell. This is Hell. I've never flown before and the plane, a bomber left over from the war, shakes and rattles all over the sky. My breakfast came back up about five minutes after we took off; now I'm sitting with my head between my knees, dry-heaving. Matthew's right beside me, rubbing my back. He's saying something to me, but I can't hear him over the roar of the engines.
We finally land and I stagger out of the plane on rubber legs. Matthew guides me along, one hand on my shoulder, the other clutching his precious, mysterious briefcase.
"It's okay, you'll be okay," Matthew's voice is gentle, "you just need to lie down."
I nod, too sick to speak. Matthew leads me out of the airfield and into a cab. We pull up outside a hotel and I stand in the lobby, trying to stay upright as Matthew gets a couple of rooms. Matthew helps me up to my room and I collapse onto the mattress with a grateful sigh. The nausea fades away and I fall into a deep sleep.
*******************************************************************************************************************
"Take a seat, I'll get us a drink."
I sit at one of the tables in the hotel lounge. I feel human again; a few hours' sleep and some food has worked miracles. Someone left a pen on the table. I pick it up and start doodling on a napkin.
"Is that Penny?" Matthew returns with two glasses.
"Hmm?" I look up from my picture, then down at it, at the girl I've drawn, "Oh. No, that's not her."
"I'm sorry I messed things up for you."
"That's okay, I know you didn't mean to."
Do you miss her?"
"Who, Penny?"
"Who else would I be talking about?"
"No, I don't miss her. I thought I would but, to tell the truth, I haven't really thought about her for days."
"I thought you were in love."
"So did I. But now I'm starting to think I never loved her. I loved what she stood for."
"What was that?"
"Security. I liked the idea of being married, having a family and a nice house, all the things I never had growing up."
"Bad childhood?"
"Tough childhood. My father died when I was two, my mother raised me by herself. She worked every hour she could, but she never made much. We lived in all the bad places, the dirty, damp places with cheap rent.. Then, just before the war began, she got sick. Cancer. I couldn't go overseas to fight like my friends did, I had to stay and take care of her. Then, three years ago, she died."
"I'm sorry."
We drink in silence for awhile.
"Have you even been in love, Matthew?"
"Once."
"What happened?"
"I got stabbed in the back," he shrugs, "I gave up on romance after that, no room for it in this job."
"Do you like your job, Matthew?"
"Parts of it."
"What about the other parts?"
"What about them?"
"You don't like those parts."
"No, Dominic, I don't."
"But you do them anyway."
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because I don't get to decide what's good and bad, right and wrong. I just do as I'm told," he takes a drink, "I said I was a mechanic, but that's not true. I'm just a tool. I go into neat little offices and meet neat little men and they tell me what's what. They tell me what I'm doing is right, that I'm serving my country, but it's easy for them. They never get their hands dirty, no blood ever splashes on them. They've never drowned a man in his bath and hidden behind the door, listening to his wife cry."
"If it bothers you so much, why do you keep doing it?"
"Because somebody has to."
He looks up. Our eyes meet and lock and something passes between us, but I couldn't say what it is, exactly. He looks away and finishes his drink.
"I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning, Dominic."
"Goodnight, Matthew."
I have one more drink before going upstairs. As I'm coming out of the elevator someone bumps my arm, hard enough to bruise. I turn to confront them, but they're already gone. I shrug and walk down the hall to my room. I'm almost there when all the spit in my mouth dries up and I begin to feel dizzy. The world gets fuzzy around the edges, goes dark ...
... hmm. Warm. Soft. Nice.
Someone's holding me, stroking the back of my neck. It feels so, so good ....
Wait - where am I? What am I doing?
I open my eyes and look into a pair of all-too-familiar blue ones.
"Good morning, beautiful."
My entire body locks up as I grasp the reality of my situation. Matthew's in my bed. I'm in his arms. I'm naked - and so is he.
Oh.
My.
GOD.
Author: hannah_chapter
Pairing: Belldom
Rating: PG
Summary: AU. LA, 1951. Dominic Howard is an average guy living an average life. Until a blue-eyed stranger jumps into his car and holds him at gunpoint...
Feedback: Yes please.
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse, I just like to have fantasy orgies with them. And David Tennant. And Matt Smith. And Russell Howard. And Nathan Fillion. And Chris Evans. And Brandon Routh. And almost the entire male cast of True Blood. It's getting crowded in there.
"Matthew!"
The man in the door grabs Matthew by the shoulders and kisses him on both cheeks. He releases Matthew and turns his attention to me. I hang back, not wanting to be kissed by a strange man; I just know Matthew will spend the rest of the day making jokes about it. It falls to Matthew to make the introductions.
Dominic, this is Danny, we work together from time to time. Danny, this is Dominic. He's ... a friend of mine."
"Pleased to meet you," Danny gives my hand a token squeeze as he ushers us inside, "any friend of Matthew's is a friend of mine."
He leads us into a large kitchen and gets right down to business.
"I take it this isn't a social call."
"One thing I always liked about you, Danny, you catch on fast."
"No room in this game for slow learners, Matthew, you of all people should know that. Now, what can I do for you?"
"We need money and I need ammunition."
"Bad action?"
"It's not good."
"It never is."
"Will you help us?"
"Of course. Do you want to stay the night? You'll be safe here and I've got plenty of room."
"Sounds good to me."
"Then it's settled," Danny rubs his hands together, "you'll stay here tonight and I'll get you everything you need. Now, how about some dinner?"
That sounds good and I'm about to say so when I feel Matthew's hand on my elbow. I stay quiet.
"No, that's okay. We've got to go out for awhile, we'll get something on the way back."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. We'll see you later, Danny."
And, just like that, we're back in the car.
"Where are we going, Matthew?"
"Shopping."
"Shopping?"
"Yes, Dominic, shopping. I don't know about you, but I need a change of clothes."
I sniff my shirt. I can smell my own sweat and the sweat of the man who attacked me.
"Alright, let's go shopping."
*************************************************************************************************************
That felt so very, very good. I look at my smooth face in the mirror, then at the hairs in the sink. We stopped at a drugstore while we were out shopping and I picked up a razor, which I've just put to good use. I hadn't shaved since the morning I was arrested. Was that really only a couple of days ago? It feels like a lifetime. There's a knock on the door and Matthew comes into the bathroom. He's holding a box in his hand, the other thing we got at the drugstore.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I'm sure."
He pouts.
"But I love your blond hair, it's so pretty."
"Now I'm really sure. Let's do this."
He sighs.
"Alright. You need to take off your shirt."
"What?"
"Or keep it on, if you don't mind getting dye all over it."
I pull my shirt over my head and try to ignore the way Matthew's staring at me. He opens the box and pulls out a small bottle.
"Bend over and put your head over the sink."
I do as I'm told. A thick, chemical stink begins to fill the air. It reminds me of the times I picked Penny up at the beauty shop. I clamp a hand over my nose and breathe through my mouth as Matthew rubs the dye into my scalp. I'm trying not to think about the smell, or just how good it feels to have his fingers in my hair.
It's soon over. I look in the mirror and see a black-haired stranger. Matthew's pouting again and I ignore him. I leave him to clean up and go to the room Danny gave me. Matthew appears in the doorway.
"You left this behind," he tosses me my shirt.
I fold it and put it on a nearby chair.
"Thanks," he stays where he is and I try and hurry him along, "you can go."
"Are you sure? I could stay and keep you company, maybe sing you a lullaby..."
My shoe bounces off the doorframe and he withdraws, leaving me to sleep alone.
******************************************************************************************************
The knock at the door comes far too early. Matthew sticks his head in.
"We need to get moving."
"Already?"
"Already. Get dressed and meet me in my room. One more thing, wipe everything you touched, leave no fingerprints behind."
Matthew's strapping a gun to his ankle when I come in.
"You sure you have enough guns?"
"You can never have enough guns."
"How do you walk with all that weight?"
"Practice. Did you wipe all your prints?"
"Yeah. Why did I have to do that?"
"I'll tell you when we're in the car. Let's go."
Matthew picks up his briefcase and we go downstairs. Danny's in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Matthew gets what he needs and waves away all offers of breakfast.
"Come on, Matthew, you have to eat something."
"No time, we'll eat on the road."
"Where are you going?"
The conversation that follows is confusing, full of words and phrases I don't understand. What are they saying? Do I even want to know? We say our goodbyes and go out to the car and I can't help but notice the way Matthew drags his jacket sleeve over the kitchen table and door handles as he passes, wiping his prints away. In the car I turn to him.
"What was that all about?"
He doesn't take his eyes off the road.
"I'm just being careful. You don't want your fingerprints all over another murder scene, do you?"
"Murder scene?" I feel my eyes widen, "but Danny's not dead."
"Not yet. Soon, real soon."
I'm cold all over.
"You're going to kill him."
"No, his friends are going to kill him."
"What friends?"
"The men he's selling us out to. My guess is they won't be happy when they find out everything I just told Danny was a lie."
"How do you know he's selling us out?"
"I didn't want to believe it, but I knew it the second he laid eyes on you. It was as plain as the nose on his face. I brought a stranger to his house, Dominic. Not to his office or some neutral place, like a public park, but to his house. But he wasn't upset and believe me when I say he should have been. He should have been screaming at me for breaking the rules. You don't go to a man's house, that's not the way we do things."
"But you still did it."
"I didn't have a choice. I didn't expect such a warm welcome. I thought he'd give me what I wanted and kick us out right after. I never thought he'd ask us to spend the night, but I couldn't think of a way to refuse without tipping him off."
"Is that why you wouldn't eat his food?"
"Yeah, I thought he might drug it, I couldn't take that chance."
"Where does he think we're going?"
"Back to Los Angeles to meet another friend of mine."
"What friend?"
"You've already met him. The distinguished gentleman with the knife growing out of the back of his neck."
"But he's dead."
"Danny doesn't know that."
"What would you have done if he did?"
"I would have put a bullet in his eye."
I squeeze my temples, this whole thing is giving me a headache.
"So what are we doing, Matthew?"
"We need to get some breakfast and I need to find a phone, make some calls."
"Tell me something, do you have a plan or are you just making this up as you go along?"
"Little of column A, little of column B."
We find a diner with a payphone outside it. We have breakfast and I sit in the booth, sipping coffee and looking out the window at Matthew using the phone. He hangs up, sees me watching him and winks at me. I feel my cheeks heating up as I look away and, even through the glass, I can hear him laughing. I finish my coffee and go outside.
"You're so cute when you blush, Dominic."
"What's the plan, genius?"
"We're going to an airfield. A guy I know has agreed to fly us to New York."
"Why are we going to New York?"
"Because we are, that's why."
***************************************************************************************************************
Hell. This is Hell. I've never flown before and the plane, a bomber left over from the war, shakes and rattles all over the sky. My breakfast came back up about five minutes after we took off; now I'm sitting with my head between my knees, dry-heaving. Matthew's right beside me, rubbing my back. He's saying something to me, but I can't hear him over the roar of the engines.
We finally land and I stagger out of the plane on rubber legs. Matthew guides me along, one hand on my shoulder, the other clutching his precious, mysterious briefcase.
"It's okay, you'll be okay," Matthew's voice is gentle, "you just need to lie down."
I nod, too sick to speak. Matthew leads me out of the airfield and into a cab. We pull up outside a hotel and I stand in the lobby, trying to stay upright as Matthew gets a couple of rooms. Matthew helps me up to my room and I collapse onto the mattress with a grateful sigh. The nausea fades away and I fall into a deep sleep.
*******************************************************************************************************************
"Take a seat, I'll get us a drink."
I sit at one of the tables in the hotel lounge. I feel human again; a few hours' sleep and some food has worked miracles. Someone left a pen on the table. I pick it up and start doodling on a napkin.
"Is that Penny?" Matthew returns with two glasses.
"Hmm?" I look up from my picture, then down at it, at the girl I've drawn, "Oh. No, that's not her."
"I'm sorry I messed things up for you."
"That's okay, I know you didn't mean to."
Do you miss her?"
"Who, Penny?"
"Who else would I be talking about?"
"No, I don't miss her. I thought I would but, to tell the truth, I haven't really thought about her for days."
"I thought you were in love."
"So did I. But now I'm starting to think I never loved her. I loved what she stood for."
"What was that?"
"Security. I liked the idea of being married, having a family and a nice house, all the things I never had growing up."
"Bad childhood?"
"Tough childhood. My father died when I was two, my mother raised me by herself. She worked every hour she could, but she never made much. We lived in all the bad places, the dirty, damp places with cheap rent.. Then, just before the war began, she got sick. Cancer. I couldn't go overseas to fight like my friends did, I had to stay and take care of her. Then, three years ago, she died."
"I'm sorry."
We drink in silence for awhile.
"Have you even been in love, Matthew?"
"Once."
"What happened?"
"I got stabbed in the back," he shrugs, "I gave up on romance after that, no room for it in this job."
"Do you like your job, Matthew?"
"Parts of it."
"What about the other parts?"
"What about them?"
"You don't like those parts."
"No, Dominic, I don't."
"But you do them anyway."
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because I don't get to decide what's good and bad, right and wrong. I just do as I'm told," he takes a drink, "I said I was a mechanic, but that's not true. I'm just a tool. I go into neat little offices and meet neat little men and they tell me what's what. They tell me what I'm doing is right, that I'm serving my country, but it's easy for them. They never get their hands dirty, no blood ever splashes on them. They've never drowned a man in his bath and hidden behind the door, listening to his wife cry."
"If it bothers you so much, why do you keep doing it?"
"Because somebody has to."
He looks up. Our eyes meet and lock and something passes between us, but I couldn't say what it is, exactly. He looks away and finishes his drink.
"I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning, Dominic."
"Goodnight, Matthew."
I have one more drink before going upstairs. As I'm coming out of the elevator someone bumps my arm, hard enough to bruise. I turn to confront them, but they're already gone. I shrug and walk down the hall to my room. I'm almost there when all the spit in my mouth dries up and I begin to feel dizzy. The world gets fuzzy around the edges, goes dark ...
... hmm. Warm. Soft. Nice.
Someone's holding me, stroking the back of my neck. It feels so, so good ....
Wait - where am I? What am I doing?
I open my eyes and look into a pair of all-too-familiar blue ones.
"Good morning, beautiful."
My entire body locks up as I grasp the reality of my situation. Matthew's in my bed. I'm in his arms. I'm naked - and so is he.
Oh.
My.
GOD.