Fic Post: Settle (The Rundown, Travis/Beck, R)
Biting the bullet and posting, because I can't stare at it anymore. My eyes will go googly.
Fandom: The Rundown
Rating: R
Pairing: Travis/Beck
Summary: Set'tle v. To pay (a debt); to establish residence in, colonize; to discontinue moving and come to rest in one place; to restore calmness or comfort to.
Note 1: So, long about seven months or so ago,
strifechaos had a birthday. This is for that. Sorry.
Note 2:
terribilita and
palebluebell are both wise and wonderful in the ways of the beta. Praise them for the good, and blame me for the bad. I'm stubborn. The title is courtesy of
terribilita and Interpol and their song "The New".
Settle
This is how it starts:
Beck has always been more of a dog man, really.
Travis, though… Travis keeps turning up on his doorstep, mangy and ragged and loud, like the neighborhood stray tom, and Beck doesn’t ever quite turn him away.
It’s his own damn fault for feeding him in the first place, after all.
Even now, Beck still has no idea how Travis found him. It was done - Beck was done - and when Travis went off to Outer Mongolia, Beck didn’t leave him so much as a permanent phone number.
He had plans. There had been a small house with a modest bit of land waiting for him for more than a year, not too far from a Southern California city large enough to have a decent restaurant crowd. It isn’t L.A., but he manages. Dirt driveways and too many stars, but no one shooting at him.
Three months later, Travis is sitting on Beck’s porch swing, filthy and grinning. He’s got a diamond the size of his fist, and a story that is probably mostly true. He leaves Beck’s towels a mess, gives him hell about his apron, and snores like a buzz saw. A week later, Beck finds a check on his kitchen counter and the doors locked on an empty house.
There’s a building in town that needs some work, but it’s got a back terrace shaded by old beech trees and a view of the sunset. He hires an electrician and five kids to wait tables, and puts out an ad for a bartender. A woman old enough to be his mother answers it last, by virtue of being the only one to pass the interview. (The interview itself consists of one question: he asks what goes well with Chianti, and she does not say fava beans.) Her gray hair is sensible and she knows more than any one person should about martini mixing theory. Her name is Anne.
It’s another month before he’s ready, and then opening night finds him smiling and welcoming more customers than he can count. He checks them all, holds their eyes as he shakes their hands, but none come with anything but the honest will to eat. None of them know him, and he tells himself that’s fine.
Two weeks later, Mindy gives him an order for veal saltimbocca and the news that the guy at table three says hi. Travis sprawls in the booth like he owns it and waves.
And somehow, when he isn’t paying attention, this becomes the way of things. They have a routine. Travis shows up when he feels like it, leaves the same way. Sometimes he blows in like a hurricane, sometimes he limps in like a train wreck. Beck doesn’t say much. He doesn’t need to; Travis is never hard to get a story from. What surprises Beck is that he always listens.
*******
Beck does not date. It's very hard to make dinner conversation when your past consists of Met Bad People, Killed Worse People, Am Hiding From Other People. Not for the first time, he knows life would be easier if he were a different sort of man. Maybe one who doesn’t hate to lie.
Once, he would have avoided that issue with something casual. A quick, simple exchange of needs, nothing more expected by either side. If it was never quite enough, he could always add one more item to the list of what he could have someday, right under ‘normal life’ and ‘legal career’.
He might have miscalculated, though, because there's no one to be casual with out here. His home - and it is, now - is too far from the sort of place where transitory is typical. He's too well known by too many people who don't know him at all.
(Travis calls him Mr. Monk once he catches on. Then he starts on the steroid jokes. Beck tells him not everyone thinks with their dick, and asks if he’s been to Chicago lately.)
And so Beck doesn’t date. He keeps to himself, and he bides his time until he’s lived long enough as a normal man to have a past to talk about.
*******
A year on:
There’s a little less time between visits, maybe, and maybe the stays are getting a little longer, but it doesn’t matter, and they don’t mention it. They watch the Lakers on lazy afternoons in his living room, windows wide open and sunshine banding the floor. Travis props bare feet on the coffee table and trash talks during commercials. Beck points the remote at him and futilely presses mute. Every now and then he catches a popcorn kernel before it can hit his ear.
It’s Beck’s couch, and Travis’ beer, and it works.
They don’t know each other. They can’t. They didn’t grow up together, or fight wars together, or live in the same apartment complex. There is nothing to tie them.
Now and then, though, it’s Beck’s backyard and Travis’ beer, and it works a little differently. There are still too many stars, but from the porch here he’s managed to make the view almost familiar enough to be comfortable. Travis tends to sit here at night, legs trailing down the wooden steps and back against the rail post, bottle dangling from loose fingers between his knees. Beck flips the light off mostly to keep away the bugs, and a little bit to see those stars.
They don’t talk about anything, really. Nothing important. Travis had a dog named Jefferson when he was five. He got thrown out of nine prep schools. He hates opera.
But they don’t know each other.
*******
Sometimes, long after he has turned out the lights and slipped between his cool cotton sheets, after the house has settled with its own sighs and rustles, there will be a few quiet sounds from the next room. Never anything loud or obvious, which surprises him at first.
Sometimes, if it’s warm outside, he leaves the windows open. When the air is still, sound carries well.
He's never quite sure whether Travis knows that he's listening.
*******
Beck spends Tuesday the 23rd of September working. He opens at seven and sets the special for the day, and then loses himself in the rhythm of slice and stir. Two of his staff are out with colds, and every now and then he comes out to serve a table himself. By now, it's a familiar crowd; he smiles and asks about Mr. Arnold's children, Kelly Lindstrom's art classes, Mrs. Jordan's Cadillac.
He leaves a bit early, planning on a long shower, a good meal, and quality time with the classic movie channel or ESPN. First, though, he heads for the refrigerator to set a bottle of wine to chill.
On his kitchen island is a chocolate torte from the best bakery in L.A. and a copy of The African Queen. There is no note.
Beck turns 34 with Bogart and Hepburn for company.
*******
And then two months go by with nothing. Beck doesn’t even realize he’s noticed until Anne catches him scanning the dinner crowd and passes him something amber and iceless.
He goes home at the end of a long week and the house doesn’t look quite right. He plays the part of the oblivious everyman and palms the switchblade he keeps in his jacket along with his keys. The front door is locked, and the house is silent. There isn’t a hair out of place until he hits the kitchen.
The rear door hangs open to the night beyond. Travis sits with his back against the dishwasher, face pale and still, and doesn’t open his eyes when Beck flips the light on. Beck kneels next to him, shoulder blades crawling with the expectation of attack, but there’s only the two of them.
Travis smells like blood and sweat. His skin is cool under Beck’s fingers, his pulse too fast and light. Beck curses and reaches for the phone, but a cold grip on his wrist stops him.
Travis holds his gaze. “No.”
“Shut up.”
“No.” It’s not the word or the way it’s said, it’s the look in his eyes that does it. It’s the fact that he looked this way in a bar in Brazil, and in the passenger seat of an SUV in L.A., and not for a moment in his father’s house. He looked this way just before he chose driving off a mountainside over going home.
Beck puts down the phone. “Fuck.”
Travis slumps back against the cool metal and closes his eyes again. “Thanks.”
New plan, then. “Anyone follow you? Travis,” Quick tap to the face. “anyone following you?”
He gets a dry chuckle that ends in a cough. “Yeah. I left breadcrumbs, too. See any pretty birdies, Beck?”
Beck grits his teeth and puts a hand out to stop a sideways slide. Travis jerks back with nowhere to go, and there’s a warm, tacky feel under Beck’s palm.
He can do all business. “Shot?”
“Just a little.” Travis raises his hand an inch off his thigh and holds finger and thumb apart, then lets them drop.
“Uh huh. How long ago?” Beck’s attention is mostly on the buttons under his fingers and the breathing under the buttons.
“What time is it?”
He doesn’t stop to check. “After eleven.”
“Okay. What day?”
Which is when the penny finally drops that this is going to be a long night.
********
It’s a through and through to the shoulder, neat and professional. It’s placed perfectly, with no danger of a quick kill and every chance of a long recovery. Beck has plenty of time to admire the skill behind it as he cleans and abrades and bandages.
He has plenty of time to plan an appropriately skilled answer, too.
*******
Travis sleeps for almost two days. He spends half of the third day sleeping, too, and the rest of it bitching about everything from having too few pillows to having too many blankets. Beck retreats to the kitchen and hides behind real chicken soup. Travis adds too much salt, but he eats two bowls. It’s weirdly reassuring.
Beck calls Anne to say he won’t be in and she asks how Travis is doing. Beck hadn’t mentioned Travis’ name. He finds her particularly hard to lie to, and so he tells her they will both survive. Probably.
The morning of the fourth day, Beck registers movement in his sleep. It’s not an alarming sound, though, and he takes his time waking up and finding a pair of sweatpants. He makes his way to the kitchen, padding barefoot over the wooden floors.
Travis is upright and staring at Beck’s coffeemaker like it kills babies with cyanide. His right arm is in the makeshift sling Beck left by his bed. He reaches out and presses a button, and then another, and then a third. The machine beeps feebly in protest.
Travis doesn’t look away from the promise of caffeine. “I think it’s broken.”
Beck growls and nudges him aside. Gently. “Not yet, but keep trying.”
He presses the right button, and gets an appreciative gurgle. Travis grunts happily. Beck adds the right everything to two mugs - cream and sugar for himself, straight sugar for Travis - and eventually the coffee itself. Travis takes a mug and shuffles to the back door, and then stands blinking at it blearily. Beck snorts and undoes the lock, then holds the door open. As Travis slides past him, he grins like he’s gotten away with something.
Travis settles in his usual spot, and Beck grabs the rocking chair he bought a little while ago. The sun clears the back trees before either of them says anything.
“Was it about Billy?”
Travis shakes his head. “No.”
“Chicago?”
“Nope.” He grins into the mug.
“Cops?”
“Strike three, big boy. Really, you suck at this game.”
He puts enough of a rumble into it to be convincing. “Travis.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He keeps the grin for a moment, and then lets it slide off. “Wrong place, wrong time, actually. Pretty sure no one there even knew my name. There were some bad guys who wanted the same thing I wanted - the Kingston Cross, which, by the way, was awesome - and didn’t care so much how they got it. Which, by the way, they did.” The bitter twist to his lips says it all.
“You pissed them off.” It is nothing like a question.
Travis tilts his head back against the porch post and laughs. “Man, everybody needs a hobby.”
*******
They spend day five watching Indiana Jones movies. Beck makes tortellini soup and sorbet. Travis dozes off on the couch, and Beck tosses a blanket over him and leaves a glass of water and a handful of pills on the coffee table.
He goes to bed with the window closed.
*******
And then on day six:
It’s a small sound. Just one small, wrong sound, but he’s been waiting for it for nearly a week.
Beck is out of his chair and across the room before the faint chime fades. They have five minutes; he’s set the alarms to be precise. He opens the cabinet by the TV and pulls out items with swift, practiced motions, laying out the tools of his trade. He finishes with a handgun, flipping the safety off as he faces Travis.
Travis turns wide, horrified eyes on him. “Fuck. Beck…”
He lets an eyebrow quirk up. “Friends of yours?”
“Son of a bitch. I didn’t think they’d… Jesus. I didn’t…” He’s shaking it off enough now to be fighting out of the sling and looking for a weapon. Beck hands him the Glock, and he blinks at it.
“You didn’t think. Do I look surprised?” He stands to the side of a window and watches the tree line. There’s nothing there, but then he didn’t expect them to make it easy.
Travis is going strong on a litany of fuckfuckfuckfuck without really pausing for breath. Beck is impressed.
“Travis? Shut up. I have to go kill people now. You have to help. Pick up the damn gun and let’s go.”
And Travis’ mouth snaps shut. Then he says, “You have a plan.”
Beck snorts.
Travis snickers. “You have a plan for this. Shit.”
There. Just a twitch of color by the corner pines. Game on. “I have a plan for everything. Head for the barn.”
He turns, and Travis is standing two feet away and staring at him like Beck’s the coolest thing since sliced bread met convection heat. It’s unnerving.
Travis gives him that bright, manic grin. “You know what? Fuck it. You can kill me if we live.”
And then he grabs the back of Beck’s head and hauls him down and kisses him. Hard. With tongue.
And Beck… doesn’t really do anything. Travis pulls back fast and Beck manages to blink him into focus, and the grin is gone but his eyes are still glittering dangerously. He shrugs, and winces, and then he’s out the door and Beck is blinking at his own blank, cream-colored walls.
That was not in the plan.
*******
Beck does not hate guns; he respects them. He prefers not to touch them, and this is because he is very, very good with them.
Mostly, he doesn't like who he used to be.
When he worked recoveries, he refused to carry. What you carried you might use, and assault is a very different thing once ‘with a deadly weapon’ gets tacked on. Beck has never been to prison, and intends to keep it that way.
Half of the job had been intimidation. If you are big enough and threatening enough, you might not have to hurt anyone at all. While he knows plenty of people who use guns as a scare tactic, the man who taught him how to fire one wasn't among them. Before Beck loaded his first clip, he knew to never pull a weapon he wasn't prepared to use. It’s not a lesson he's forgotten.
When he reaches for the 9 mm inside the freezer, it's with this in mind.
*******
Travis doesn’t ask for help. Ever, really.
He wheedles. He begs. He flips people upside down and backwards and occasionally off, but he doesn’t ask. When he wants something, he makes it happen.
So Travis doesn’t ask for help, except for that one time when he asked Beck. Except for every time he’s shown up on Beck’s porch or couch in the last year and a half. And every time he's shown up, Beck hasn't told him to get out.
Beck isn’t sure what to do with that.
Right now, what he’s doing is improvising. His plan was good, and three of the men sent for them found that out (briefly), but there are still at least two more and he hasn’t seen Travis in more than a minute.
And then he comes around the barn and he does. Travis is on his knees, head bowed and breathing hard. There’s one man in front of him in the dirt, not moving and very probably dead, but it’s the one behind him that has Beck’s attention. That one has a gun against the back of Travis’ head, and the look of a professional having a very bad day.
Travis is not asking for help, and that makes no difference whatsoever.
“Hey.”
Beck waits just long enough for the gun to clear Travis’ head on a reflexive arc to Beck himself, and then fires. It’s a good, clean thigh shot.
Travis spins on his knees and grabs the gun from the dead hitman, and then holds it one-handed on the living one. He clamps the other hand to his shoulder and stays kneeling. Beck makes a note of this as he walks over and hauls the assassin onto his feet. A solid slam against the barn wall and gun under the chin serve as attention getters.
“I’m a reasonable guy, most of the time.” He hears the soft laugh from behind him. Might as well put on a show. “There are two ways this can work: Option A, you do not leave this place. He and I do, and your boss does not find us. End of story.”
He pauses to let that sink in. “I like this house, though. Option B: I let you leave. You tell your boss that we are not a problem anymore. You get paid very well. I am not forced to hunt you down and remove your balls with a fillet knife.”
For once, someone has some sense.
*******
He burns the bodies. Well. A good forensics team might even be able to tell that something carbon-based was here, once upon a time.
Travis is waiting for him at the kitchen table. He’s got a glass of ice water and a chair already pushed out. Beck doesn't say, Honey, I’m home, but it’s a near thing.
“So.” Travis stares at him levelly.
Beck downs the water, because he’s thirsty and because he doesn’t have words. Then he puts the glass back into its condensation ring, carefully. “So.”
“I’m sorry.”
“This does not happen again.”
Travis nods, eyes on his fingernails. “Yeah, man. I get it. I -”
Beck stands and doesn’t watch for a reaction. “Get your shirt off. You’ll need more stitches, at least.”
The silence behind him is priceless.
He plays doctor competently enough. Travis straddles the dining room chair and digs his fingers into the table edge, but doesn’t complain. Beck pulls a chair behind him and goes to work. He decides against the stitches after all, and places a large white bandage over the whole area instead. He smoothes the tape into place with his thumb, and then doesn't take his hand away. He leans forward, puts his mouth against the curve of Travis’ ear, and says, “This does not happen again.”
Travis’ breath catches, and he freezes. After a moment, he leans very deliberately into Beck’s hand. Given the state of his back, it has to hurt like hell.
“So… not going to kill me then.” Beck hears the grin forming.
“Not yet.” It comes out reasonably dangerous, but the effect is limited by the way he slides his hand over to unbruised skin. He covers by setting his teeth against the curve where neck meets shoulder.
Travis makes a sound without enough air to be a moan and lets his head drop back onto Beck’s collarbone. One hand releases the table and finds Beck’s knee. Then it slides higher. A thumb strokes determinedly over Beck’s inseam.
Beck closes his eyes. It's been a very long time since anyone has touched him.
*******
This is how it ends:
It doesn’t.
It will be six more months before Travis decides what to do with his life. That small, Southern California city is also not far from a college. It isn’t Stanford, but the degree will be his own. So will the next one, and the position it earns him teaching. Someday, it will let him find history and tell people that he has.
Just over a year after Travis enrolls, a tall, thin man will stop by the restaurant and Beck’s blood will freeze at the sight of him. The man will ask Mindy ever so casually about someone very much like Travis, without using his name, and she'll tell him with wide-eyed sincerity that she knows someone like that. Beck will run through three escape plans before she'll say, “But he moved on last summer. Don’t know where. Sorry.”
This last, too, will be very sincere. If he weren’t looking for it, he would miss the subtle look Mindy will shoot Anne, silently searching for approval. Anne will give it with a quiet smile, and then turn that smile on Beck. He will decide she deserves a raise.
No one else will ever come looking. Beck will secretly wonder if Billy has something to do with this, but he won’t mention it to Travis. There’s a good chance the bad guys never had a name to search for at all. They'll never be sure, and eventually it will cease to matter.
And one night, when the house has sighed and settled its way to sleep, and Travis has thrown an unconscious arm across his chest and mumbled about silver rabbits, Beck will realize that he has accidentally achieved normal.
And it will be perfect.