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Doug smirks, at himself more than anything else. "I'm discussing sociology with a guy wearing Scottish plaid bondage pants."
After an unusually long silence Doug glances over again, flicking his eyes off the near-empty road for a moment to find Tom staring out of the window, the streetlights above casting the heavy lines of his face into alternating deep shadow and brilliant blue.
"Hey," Doug clears his throat. "Not that I meant it like..." and this was new, the kind of unpredictability where he never knew whether his jibes would be received with an answering exaggerated sneer or with sullenness. "You know." And darn it, he's no good at the dealing with the latter kind of responses.
"No Doug, I don't know," Hanson's voice is unexpectedly harsh. "You're the natural."
"Hey, hey," Doug lifts his hands off the wheel for a moment, holding them up in a placating gesture. "No need to get worked up about it. They're great pants, you look great in them." Which might work for a girl, but scrap what they say about it being easier with someone batting for the same team because at least if he were sitting next to a bird right now he'd be able to fall back on some well-worn cliché. As it is, he feels like he's shooting in the dark. Tom stares steadily out the window again. Doug decides to leave it alone.
He's left his street clothes at Tom's so that's where he drives for; Tom's father's trench coat (still smelling faintly of mothballs and a cologne that's unlike Doug's own) pulling a little where it fits least at his biceps as he hauls the wheel around and the car engine purrs to a halt. Tom stomps up the shallow staircase, loud in his heavy boots, braces around his hips swinging a little a few steps before Doug, who speeds up to keep the pace but ends up arriving at the door to Tom's flat just as Tom's pushing it open anyway.
"About time, too," Doug sighs in relief as he shoulders off the pale trench coat, watching as Tom shrugs off the studded jacket (they'd had to buy that, Jude's third thrift-store sense coming through for them where the size difference between the two of them hadn't), somewhat irritably, and Doug frowns, running his fingers back through his too-greasy hair and pulling out the elastic. Ah. "You want a hand getting that out?" Tom looks up from where he's toeing the boots off, and Doug gestures upwards, to the adamant explosion of gelled hair. The black is still slightly shocking, even though it had been Doug who'd spent the time this afternoon rubbing it into the surprisingly long strands, cheap plastic gloves dark purple and his hands sweating inside, looking down at the shape of Tom's skull under the bedraggled hair, and the shape of his shoulders curved inward and relaxed.
"I think I can handle it," Tom's voice maybe not as sharp this time, but still pretty damn stiff, and he pads into the kitchen.
Shortly, Doug can hear the clinking of mugs echoing in the high cupboards. Abruptly, he's immensely tired; square shoes pinching his heels and headache beginning to pinch at the bridge of his nose. A clump of greased hair drops into his vision as he rubs his face and he takes the hint, heading to the shower.
When Tom finally climbs into bed Doug's already falling asleep, but the sudden sensory surge (after drifting in soft-worn sheets and soft-familiar smell for uncountable moments) draws him out again; Tom's breathing louder and faster than the steady, shallow rhythm Doug's fallen into, and his hair is damp, flopping and cold where it was stiff before, but he hasn't showered - the faint scent of smoke and sweat still clings to him. Doug rolls over, limbs ungainly, and the vivid heat of Tom's bare skin flares up his own body temperature, startled out of where it had settled for sleep.
Doug props himself up a little, blinks his eyes clear. The light in the room is very faint, grainy, and even though Doug's eyes are well and truly adjusted, the most he can make out is Tom's skin, ridiculously light against the black of his hair, and the dark shadows of his eyes. "Hey," Doug's voice is a little rough, he breathes out hard in place of clearing the sleep from his throat, reaching his free hand to rub clotted strands of damp hair between his fingers. Tom's mouth twists a little. Doug wets his lips automatically and drops his head. Tom's mouth is cool as well, cool and a little sharp before Tom's hand comes up to grip the angular muscle of Doug's shoulder, gripping and pushing Doug back onto his back. Doug goes willingly, but opens his eyes in puzzlement when Tom's hard mouth lifts from his again.
"What's wrong?" still hoarse, a little, and the lack of light and Tom's eyes so close is dizzying.
Tom blinks, silent for a moment. "Nothing," he says at length, voice soft and emotionless, and stops any response Doug might have had in mind with his mouth.
* * *
The kid suspects something, Doug can tell even from the other side of the cafeteria. His comfortable but tense posture, bland expression, mouth held in a way that Doug knows what's coming out of it is a relaxed monotone... It's enough to set the kid apart from the other lip-curled, shaggy-haired punks slouching around him. So of course he's the one that Tom hones in on. Ringleader, sure, but... Doug takes a somewhat savage swig of his milk and stops that thought where it is.
The cafeteria fills and empties in waves, so Doug doesn't realise at first how he's ducking and bobbing his head to see through the crowd until he abruptly realises how irritated he is. There's one other kid sitting at the table with him, pudgy and crew-cutted and blinking at him owlishly through bottle-end glasses when Doug glances over to gauge reactions to his involuntary behavior. Doug sighs. He's not sure if he's even felt so uncomfortable in his life as he feels right this moment; the ill-fitting coat as he leans his forearms on the table, the tacky smell of Tom's (now rarely-used) brylcreem, the pull of hair to the back of his neck. Tom on the other side of the room, studs spiking up over his shoulders, hair cartoon-like.
He waits, propped against the car and watching the kids rush past and onto school buses for at least 20 minutes before Tom slouches up, tossing his books into the back seat. "What took you so long?"
Tom shrugs, chews. "Looked at the teacher wrong, I guess, got kept back." Doug steps out of his way and Tom reaches into the front of the car, picks sunglasses off the dash.
"Where you going?"
"Diner down the road." He stops chewing for a moment to peer at his reflection in one of the side mirrors.
Doug breaks the pause. "What, am I not invited?"
Tom shrugs again, studs glinting a little in the afternoon sun. "It's a free country."
Doug grits his teeth and Tom straightens up. "Stepbrothers." He tilts his head down, peers at Doug over the top of the glasses.
"What?"
"We're stepbrothers, okay?" He chews open a grin. "Because there's no other way I'd choose to hang out with you in that getup."
"Hey," Doug frowns, Tom smirks. "This stuff's from your wardrobe, man, I taught you how to dress--" But Tom's already walking away in an easy, boot-heavy plod; jaw moving as he glances back over his shoulder and curls his mouth up at the edge.
The parking lot is pretty much empty by this stage. Doug gets into the car.
* * *
He walks around the block before actually going into the diner. He can see the group of them through the window, sliced up by the venetian blinds; peering in through his shadow as the glare of the low afternoon sun bounces off the glass around it. Their cars are parked in the side parking lot; low-slung and chunky, and Doug's examining the paintwork on the doors for scrapes and scratches when he hears a familiar-toned "Well what have we here?" and a hand claps on his shoulder.
He lets himself be dragged, though the curb poses a serious threat when he trips up over it, nearly slamming his shins into the concrete, only to be saved by the nail-bitten fist in the shoulder of the trench coat. The kid cusses and rearranges his grip to the back of Doug's neck, firmly steering him into the diner, with the other one grasping his bicep, both crowing about their find before shoving Doug onto a bar stool. Tom's sullen punk-mask slips the moment Doug glances over at him and Doug has to force down the urge to say aloud, What, made you think I wasn't going to show? before he has to pay attention again to the older guy posturing in front of him. ...Older guy. Huh.
Doug makes a break for it, more of a token gesture than anything else; not that he wants to be taken out back and 'stomped', but his automatic response is surprise when he feels Tom's grip on the back of the trench coat, holding him from being pulled away then splayed open and supporting, if only for an instant. Tom steps back again and Doug finds himself back on the bar stool, heart pounding as Tom goes through the motions, posturing, threatening - backpedaling - and from experience Doug knows it's best to sit back and let Tom dig himself in (or out) of his own hole. Though more often than not, Doug thinks, he carries it off on the weight of his eyelashes alone.
... And yet again. "Are you okay?" And that's Tom, there, not the punk kid from Oklahoma with an unfortunate stepbrother, peering earnestly into his face. Doug thinks he's okay. Whatever he is right now can't be put into words in present company, especially with the Brian kid watching keenly on with more brain cells than the rest of them combined, so Doug resorts to the safety of hamming it up. Tom Pascal's back, smirking before leaning back to where he's slouching against the coat tree, scowling into the slatted sunlight and ostensibly ignoring his cheesy stepbrother.
* * *
The bathrooms at the Rocket Dog Cafe are greasy like the food but blessedly empty, with doors on the old stalls that reach all the way to floor and ceiling. Which they knew before they came in, of course, from casing the joint Doug thinks incongruously, glancing around at the gaping urinals one last time before hurrying Tom into the stall ahead of him, sniggering a little as the chains on Tom's pants jingle against the brick wall abruptly at his back.
"You know," Tom whispers, the sound moist against Doug's mouth, "technically we're still on duty."
Doug rolls his eyes into Tom's hairline. "Yeah but we've been waiting for over an hour and nothing's happening. We're gonna be here for hours more yet." He licks at Tom's mouth, stifling a response. "Haven't you ever made out on a stake out before?" he breathes.
"Actually," Tom shifts his hips a little, buckles scraping against the gritty brick, to allow Doug's hand access to his belt. "No."
"O'course not," Doug maneuvers the tongue of the belt out of the buckle, feels it slap against the back of his hand as he fumbles with the button of the fly beneath it. "Officer Hanson, always does everything by the book--"
There's a squeal as the door to the men's room is pushed open and Doug presses his forehead to Tom's, feeling his shallow breaths cool and wet against Doug's own mouth, catching when Doug's hand slides finally into his boxers, grasping smoothly with a practiced ease despite the odd angle. Doug opens his eyes, looks down; Tom's own eyes closed and mouth open, dark blurs, and Tom's hands pressed flat against the wall behind him. There's the sound of someone pissing against the ceramic of one of the urinals, and Doug squeezes his eyes shut in an attempt to focus (the lighter feel of the army surplus pants on his knuckles where he's used to heavier denim, Tom's lashes scraping against his own eyelids, Tom's cock hot and eager in his fist) instead of grinding his hips forward. The urinal flushes and the hand-dryer roars into life, hiding Tom's gasp from anyone outside the cubicle, and he's abruptly fumbling for toilet paper with one hand and clawing at the waist of Doug's jacket with the other, then his thighs are tensing and knees folding back, locking and preventing him from sliding down the wall until he regains control a moment later.
"Ah," he huffs out, an instant after the door creaks closed again, and clears his throat. "Ahm." He straightens up and Doug steps back, still breathing hard, belly taut as Tom finishes zipping himself up, flushes, watches the water spin, looks to the door; and then the fist around Doug's heart clenches as Tom abruptly lolls forward, pressing his face somewhere between Doug's collarbone and neck and is as suddenly upward and tense again. "Better get back out there," he coughs, brushing his knuckles against his nose in a recent gesture Doug has come to know as the self-conscious hiding-my-lipstick move; and the stall door swings closed behind him and Doug is listening to the squeal of the men's room door as he leaves the bathroom.
Tom holds out the jumbo cup of soda when Doug re-emerges. "What's this?" Doug sucks on the straw, tasting watery diner coke and deciding to focus on it rather than any of the other thousands of thoughts clamoring against his skull right now, not to mention his fly. "I don't get my own?" Tom shrugs, watching him for a moment before looking down to where he's fiddling with the paper sheath from the straw. Doug hmmphs. "Cheap date."
"Free refills," Tom says in way of explanation, and they both fall silent again, the sound of ice rattling against the cardboard cup becoming increasingly irritating to Doug despite the incessant chatter and clink of crockery around them. "You know," Tom says at length, and Doug glances over to see him still fiddling with the paper, now mostly shredded. "This Brian kid is something else." Doug raises his eyebrows a little, waits. "Not that I mean..." Tom shifts a little where he's slouched against the bar, deciding on a different approach. "He doesn't seem like the other kids. He's got something going for him, you know? Even if it's just his brain. He shouldn't be with those kids."
Doug lifts his shoulders a little, drops them, takes another pull on the coke. "So what you're saying is he's in with the wrong crowd?"
"Yes," Tom says. "No. Yes. I don't know. He just..." he frowns hard. Doug realises he's holding his breath. "I'm not ready to bust this kid just yet."
"Because of that Lancer character?"
"Yeah, I suppose. He's part of it. But it's more about... About Brian. He doesn't deserve this stuff. He doesn't deserve whatever we're in this gig for."
Doug picks up a menu because his hands need to hold something now, and he's glad of the fact that it's laminated hard enough not to buckle in his grasp and give him away. Tom turns away again, turns back. Retrieves the soda from the bench between Doug's elbows.
"Maybe you're right," Doug shrugs again, staring down at the menu without actually reading any of it. "But someone's going to end up in jail, whichever way this one goes."
Tom grunts in response, and they lapse into silence again.
* * *
Doug tries to be rational, but finds it hard when he can't even get his thoughts in order. Or more specifically, can't identify the particular thought that's making him feel somewhat irrational. More than somewhat. He glances at his watch what feels like frequently, but every time he does it seems another hour has slipped by and they're still cruising around the dark streets, or lounging against the car in an otherwise empty parking lot, drinking and smoking and waxing lyrical on the many benefits of Anarchy. At least that's what Steve, Spooky and Tober are doing; Tom and Brian have been chatting quietly beyond Doug's hearing for the past hour or so when he finally can't take it anymore. Whatever it is.
"Yo Tom," he blurts at last. "It's late. Dad's gonna kick our tails up and down. Come on. Night-night already, huh?" Tom turns to face him at last, but he's got everyone else's attention as well. Tom doesn't move to follow him and Doug finds himself - irrationally - fighting to keep his features merely impatient instead of screaming to the sky in frustration. And Tober chooses this moment to instruct Doug on the many virtues of following the punk lifestyle, after which Doug's tension has - impossibly - ratcheted up several notches further, not helped by Tom's smirk in the background. Screw it. If nothing else, he needs to check in with Fuller. He leaves.
The biggest problem, Doug surmises as he gasps under the harsh spray of the hot shower, relieving at last his severe case of blue balls somewhat fiercely; is that the irrational way he's been feeling for the past few of days might not be as irrational as he's been forcing himself to believe. Irrational in the way that it's a gut feeling, sure, but not irrational in the way that it has no basis in reality. And now that he thinks about that he's not so tired after all, in fact he's wide awake and skin itching from the scalding water and stomach roiling with the last weak beer he tossed into it. And he's never wanted to be asleep and oblivious more in his life.
See, it was never meant to be this way. It was meant to be a bit of fun, something to keep them entertained in the endless monotony of the school days (and school nights); something to look forward to after class, something to help them wind down and they compliment each other in every other way, so why not? So why does Doug feel like he's about to hurl right now, thinking of Tom somewhere on the streets of the city with a bunch of punk kids? They'd complimented each other so well until they'd had to switch places (and damn it if he wasn't still cursing Fuller for that little self-satisfied plan) and... Well. Tom seemed to be so much better at being Doug than Doug himself was. To the extent that Tom's (and Doug's already scraped raw, inside and out, so he's surprised at how much it stings to admit) falling in love, essentially, with himself. The kid that doesn't belong, the one that doesn't deserve what he's getting, the one that deserves better and dammit if Tom isn't going to be the one to give it to him.
Doug forces down a glass of lukewarm water in an attempt to rinse the bitter taste from his mouth, but it clings to the back of his tongue and leaves his teeth brittle. It's a cold night and any residual heat from his shower has already diffused into the dry air of his apartment, so he layers up - thermal underwear under his boxer shorts and stretched tee-shirt and he lies on the couch for a couple of hours before admitting to the fact that he's not going to drift off any time soon, and climbs to his bedroom.
He wakes up without realising he's fallen asleep and it's almost nine but gauging from the fact that it feels like someone's rubbed sand under his eyelids, he can't have slept more than a few hours. He's alone in the bed. He lies still for a while longer, then ventures downstairs. It's just as empty as it was the night before, comforter rumpled on one side of the couch, a couple of dirty dishes on the bench, Tom Hanson Senior's pale trench coat slung over the back of one of Doug's kitchen chairs. No sign of anyone in the world but Doug, so Tom must've made it back to his own place last night some time after Doug left. He's sick of thinking about what other possibilities there might be.
* * *
School's over when the day begins; slouching out of the school with the useless stack of books under his arm when he walks towards the park and looks up from the green when he hears excited voices. His chest lurches despite itself. "Hey, Doug!" Tom's still chewing, looking a little bedraggled and a little stupid with his hangover face and burgundy baseball cap, wide shoulders tapering down to his waist and white thermals showing through the rips in his jeans. He gestures towards the scraggly, black-studded huddle. "Come play some football!"
Above all else, Doug Penhall has no trouble admitting, he's a guy; a guy who has no problems putting all else aside in order to partake in some football. Not that the game lasts longer than a few minutes; the group of them pulling in like threads through a button-hole to where Brian watches on as Lancer riles up the local patrol. Doug exchanges a glance with Tom, sees Tom's forehead tight and jaw clenched; it's this part of the job that Tom's never good at being undercover in -- Doug's kinda glad he spent the first few months before the Chapel recruited him as a traffic cop on his bike instead of in a black and white.
"All three of them are defectives," Brian mutters as the car finally drives away with Lancer in the back seat, the small angry knot of them by the telegraph pole unraveling and drifting away with their usual diner plans so blatantly scrapped. Tom watches Brian go and his face is still and blank when he turns back.
"Come on, then," he says to Doug, the cheerful, bold demeanor of earlier as he goaded the others into following him onto the green lost beneath the new heaviness in his brows.
* * *
The kids are restless, stirred up by Lancer's display and also, Doug suspects, by the obvious flatness and reticence of their leader towards Anarchy. Tom's not helping, standing often just as sullenly beyond Brian's shoulder, exchanging monotone comments and occasional smirks as Doug watches on.
Eventually the car can't contain the energies approaching crescendo and Brian pulls the car into the usual picnic park -- which Doug's sure that if he ever saw it in the daytime, would be scattered with more scuffed earth and exhausted cigarette butts than grass -- with clots of other leathered kids studding it unevenly. Spooky, Tober and Steve scatter as soon as they climb out of the car but Tom follows Brian's slower walk to an empty, graffitied picnic table, mimicking the brooding hands-deep-in-pockets stride until Brian pulls something out of his pocket and holds it to his mouth -- huh. Doug's suddenly reminded of watching cheesy black and white films on his mom and pop's blocky old set, his mind automatically associating the harmonica's strains with mournful jailbirds.
"Hey."
Tom's rubbing his knuckles against the underside of his nose again, and he glances up as Doug comes to stand before him, has to look up higher than usual with his back propped against a much-carved tree trunk and his legs half-splayed in front of him. The pale white light from the street mingles a little with one of the garbage-can fires a few tables over, and the dim yellow of car headlights, casting Tom's jaw and cheekbones into sickly relief.
"So you didn't go home last night? I heard Fuller was pretty mad." Might as well get straight to the point.
Tom huffs out a brief laugh. "Yeah, he was a bit." He licks his lips, glances up at Doug again. "I slept at Brian's house."
"Oh." Not that Doug had had anything planned to say. Not that he trusts himself to open his mouth right now.
Tom shifts, straightens a little, stares determinedly at Doug's chest. "We kinda… kinda connected last night, you know? I didn't want to flush I all down the drain by going home…"
"Home to your stepdad's, yeah," Doug finishes, and Tom's mouth curls up a little in something like bitter humour.
"Yeah. Brian doesn't have a dad either, you know."
"Oh." And it's more that he doesn't know what to say this time, with Tom staring him straight in the face now as well, and Doug doesn't realise he's edged closer until Tom glances down again and Doug can see the powdered clumps of understated mascara sticking Tom's lashes together.
"I don't know, I…" Tom's hand lifts again, brushing his nose. "Doug." He looks into Doug's eyes then breaks the gaze by glancing over to where Brian's head is bent over his hands, the other kids tightening in their orbit now they've burnt off some of the excess jitters. Tom blinks back up at him. "It's just… He could be me. If…"
"If you'd decided to give up on the schoolwork in favour of some burnt-out wannabe punk rocker?"
"No," Tom's face creases into a heavier frown, jaw clenching before he leans in closer to look up into Doug's face. "If I'd had the guts to stray from… from the path, I guess. If I'd known I could do it."
"Only he can't," Doug adds, and Tom stares up at him for long, silent moments.
"He can," Tom says at length, voice soft but no less vehement than if he'd shouted. "In ten years, heck, in five years this kid'll be so beyond this place, he just can't flush it all away now…"
…Like you did, Doug doesn't speak aloud this time, half because the fist clenched in his chest is squeezing too tightly. He takes a quick, deep breath. "Hey," he says at last, and grips Tom's shoulder fiercely in the best approximation of step-brotherly physical interaction he can manage at this point, and also to hold Tom at that length when all his body wants to do is press forward and crush him against the tree, crush him against Doug and bury him and make him forget everything that's pulling his forehead taut and his mouth low and tight-pressed. Doug curls his mouth up in a gentle approximation of a sympathetic grin. "You weren't exactly made for police work, you know that?"
Tom shrugs, tipping his head ruefully. He blinks hard a couple of times, and Doug can see his teeth clenching in the bunching of his jaw. He straightens up further. "Only if you think 'police work' means the kind of thing Ballhouse's henchmen get up to."
Doug drops his hand from Tom's shoulder then reaches up to the collar of his own shirt, reaching inside to find the fine chain resting against his collarbone and drawing it out. "Here." He lifts it quickly over his head, presses it into Tom's palm.
"What's this?" Tom opens his hand, tilts it a little and peers to see it in the patchy light.
"It's my class ring, what do you think it is?" Doug quips, but Tom doesn't answer with even a slight grin.
"What, are you giving me family heirlooms now?" Tom's voice is a monotone, which Doug supposes is a step above downright unimpressed, though he knows from experience that this kind of tone from Tom could mean a number of things.
"It's a medallion. Saint Michael. Patron saint of policemen and servicemen." Doug's glad he didn't mention what it was straight off, or where he got it.
"But I'm not Catholic."
"Hey you work in a Chapel, might as well buy into it all the way, huh?"
Tom looks up at him, expression inscrutable, and Doug doesn't realise he's stopped breathing until Tom breaks their gaze again, like a line of thickening glass snapping when the glass-blower's flame focuses too hard on the clear liquid. "Hey. Just… wear it, okay? Take it, at least." Tom's head is bent down, and he rubs the dime-sized medallion, silver worn smooth on the edges, between the pad of his thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger. "No class ring crap. Just…" Doug remembers what his mom told him, remembers the moment she slipped it over his head and the way it looked so strange against the dark blue and gold-stitching of his stiff-starched uniform. To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death. "I think it suits you more than it does me. Like the earring, eh?" he flicks his finger against the fine silver cross dangling from Tom's left ear, skull and crossbones on the lobe fat and gleaming.
Tom finally looks up. "Sure. Okay." He hooks the long chain over his neck, pulls it tight then twists and wraps around again, finally, pulling the collar of his undershirt away from his skin to let the medallion drop beneath it. Doug breathes.
* * *
It's not that Doug's never seen a holding cell before. Heck, he's seen plenty, several even from the inside. It's just that he's never shared one with fourteen disgruntled adolescent anarchists. At first he paces, still infuriated by the riot gear like pretty much everyone else in the cell, shrugging his shoulders out of the awkward angle the cuffs had pulled them into, burning off the last trickles of the adrenaline that surged up automatically upon being chased by a bunch of faceless visors with nightsticks and Alsatians.
They hadn't all been picked up, though; out of their group Steve and Brian had made it to the car in time, while Spooky's sulking beneath his mop of hair, crammed onto the steel bench between two Mohawks, and Tober's hanging off the bars at the front of the cell. Doug glances to Tom yet again; wedged in the corner with his booted feet up in front of him, one hand jammed in his pocket and the other hanging limp by his hip. The skin under his eyes are smudged into physical shadow; the result of tear gas and sweat on eyeliner. Tom glances up and Doug looks away.
"Now this is more like it." It's Tober, eyes wide and as vacant as ever, smile open-mouthed. "Hey Douglas? This is what anarchy's all about. Sticking it to the man!"
"Tober, we're in jail," Doug explains as simply as he can. "How is that sticking it to the man?"
"We're being oppressed, man!" Tober bounces a little on the spot, gazing up earnestly into Doug's puzzled face. "What better reason for anarchy than being oppressed?"
By the time it gets to four am and the concentration of cell inhabitants have thinned out a little, Tober's less enthusiastic about the idea, hunched on the bench next to Spooky, listening somewhat dejectedly as the other kid mutters to himself, "Overnight, man, my old man's gonna be so pissed, and I have a chem lab due tomorrow… man, aren't we out of here already?"
"I wish I had an old man," Tober says miserably, and Doug glances to where Tom's dozing against the concrete wall, or at least pretending to. When he looks back Spooky's slung an arm around Tober's sloping shoulders.
"Never mind man, I'll bail you out. You can stick it to my old man, he's the one who pays the credit card bill."
Doug has to try very hard not to snort aloud, and when he looks away (back to Tom by default, yeah), he sees Tom's eyes open and eyebrows raised. Doug shakes his head and Tom mirrors the disbelieving lift of his mouth.
"Thomas Pascal," calls the cop on duty, peering through the bars with his clipboard held in front of his chest.
"Finally," Tom drawls, rising lazily and stretching before strolling leisurely out. The heavy door clangs closed again and Doug has never been more grateful for the fact that they always choose surnames in close alphabetic proximity.
The cop at the processing desk is far too amused at the fact that this is the second kid in a row who's pulled out a badge in place of a student ID, but waves Doug on without too much fuss. Doug groans aloud when he sees that Tom has a polystyrene cup in each hand. "Coffee. Yes."
"Don't get too excited," Tom says, grimacing over the rim of his own cup as he hands over Doug's. "This ain't nothing to write home about."
Doug closes his eyes and breathes in the bitter steam nonetheless, pointedly ignoring the uniformed desk job that stops short upon walking into the tearoom to find them standing there, then edging around them, mug held at shoulder height as if to protect him.
"I used to know one of the patrolmen in this precinct," Tom says as Doug takes his first sip and pulls a face. "I saw him just outside. He said he could give us a lift to the Chapel."
"Work?" Doug pulls a worse face. "Already?" The sun's only just beginning to glow coldly through the high, blinded windows of the station.
"My mustang's there," Tom continues. "There's an IHOP just down the street."
"Now that sounds like a plan," Doug agrees fervently, and dumps the rest of the foul-tasting coffee, cup and all, into the trash.
* * *
By the time they start heading to school Doug's quite comfortably full of food and coffee and contemplative after their discussion with Fuller enough that his mind doesn't automatically switch on alert when Tom starts talking, wrists resting on the top of the steering wheel as they wait at a traffic light. "What's going on, Doug," less of a question and more of a sober opening statement. "What are you thinking."
"What, right now?" Doug looks up at Tom's tense profile, then out the window again as the car takes off slowly with the green light. "Hoping I won't get busted for not having done my English homework."
Tom's brows gather. "You know what I mean. Why are you acting so weird?"
Doug's silent, shifting back in his seat, propping an elbow on the edge of the door.
"What is it about this kid that you don't like so much?"
"Look," Doug is more abrupt than he intended. "It's not about the kid, all right? I don't give a damn about the kid."
Tom's posture has stiffened further, though if you had asked Doug whether that were possible thirty seconds ago he would have denied it. "So what is it," Tom keeps at it. "You don't give a damn about the kid, you don't give a damn about the case?"
"No, no, that's not it," Doug attempts to backpedal, feels his throat go tight as he tenses further, breakfast now sitting uncomfortably in his stomach, cluttered and congealed.
"But there is an It, right," another non-question. "What is it Doug? The usual? You like the kids fine until you get in there and realise you're still the outsider?"
It takes a while for Doug to close his mouth and work up enough saliva to talk again. What? "What are you talking about?"
"What are you gonna get me to wear your football jacket next? I'm working here, Doug. Whatever happens with this kid has nothing to do with you."
Again with the inability to talk. "You think I'm jealous? Of a bunch of try-hard punk kids?"
Tom doesn't answer, but Doug watches his jaw work fiercely.
"Whatever it is you're thinking, Hanson, you're way off the mark." Doug feels sick.
"What's on the mark, then?" The car is slowing, at odds with Tom's harsh tone.
"Nothing that concerns you," Doug lies, and Tom calls him on it.
"That's the biggest load of--"
"Look, maybe you should focus on your own motivations for a change," Doug spits, giving as good as he got before Tom can push it further. "Me the outsider? I've never seen a cop enjoy undercover so much in my whole damn career. Give you a boner, does it? Busting the kids that caused you hell all through your high school years?"
Tom slams on the breaks as the student-laden car in front of them stops abruptly in the crowded car park, and Doug takes the opportunity to make an exit, slamming the door behind him and getting halfway across the front lawn before he realises he's left his books in the back seat.
* * *
Doug doesn't know if he can restrain himself from blowing his cover if Lancer drawls one more dumbed-down incendiary 'anarchist' catch phrase, the only thing stopping him now being the knowledge that he can't arrest someone for not being able to wear eyeliner well.
The kids around him are poised, though, coiled like kittens and ready to spring, tails lashing with increasing urgency as Lancer riles them up further. "When the system breaks down, there's no use trying to fix it," Lancer speaks slowly, as if what he's saying is the most obvious thing in the world. "Better to start over."
Doug glances down at Tom's bent head, listening to the murmurs increasing in volume around them. Brian speaks out. Tom's head drops further.
* * *
They're as silent on the drive to the Chapel in the morning as they were in the back of Brian's car the night before; the world just as chaotic and loud around the as it was when surrounded by screaming kids and smashing mail boxes. Doug feels stripped raw, inside and out, and Tom looks about as tired as Doug feels, and then some. He looks away.
Fuller knows something is up -- Doug doesn't feel the urge to clue him in on anything, still bitter about Fuller's casting in the first place, moreso now than ever, but it's hard not to feel guilty when the Captain is still listening to Tom's fervent promises with more tolerance than downright disproval. Another chance, and Doug can almost feel the tension in the air like the tang of ozone before a lightning storm. The word bloodbath doesn't strike him as one that Fuller would use often; and his neck feels light and bare without even the slight weight of the medallion hanging from it, something so familiar that he notices it more now that it's gone.
They go their separate ways out of the Chapel; Doug's not even sure if Tom ends up at school even though he spends most of the day keeping an eye out for the usual studded jackets and styled hair. The boom box is even conspicuously absent from the cafeteria at lunch time, though Doug can't say he misses the whine of KKK that has permeated so much of his recent memory.
Tom's leaning against the car when the final bell rings and Doug gets the hell out of there as quickly as he can. "Chapel first," Tom says. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week. Not that Doug's looking very closely. "Then the park."
By the time they're heading to the final destination the sun has well and truly set. There's a snub gun strapped onto Doug's ankle and he hands Tom the thick manilla envelope Fuller had given to him, glancing over from time to time as Tom gears up; zipping up the pocket with his badge, hiding the gun near his chest, taping down the wires. "Make sure the mike is on," Doug says. "Fuller wants it all on tape."
Doug has a bad feeling about this, and thinks he might not object right now even to another Ballhouse riot-gear crackdown, especially when Lancer decides it's time to impress the kids with fire and shotguns. It's Tom's turn, though, and he seems to handle it just fine with the occasional supporting shout from Doug -- sorry, fink number two -- in the background. Nonetheless, it feels like someone's removed the pins from Doug's knees when Lancer finally high-tails it out of there (and without any of the shotguns), taking a few moments for the relief to wash over him and leave him clean, clear, as if he's been mired in a tar pit for the past week and only just forced his head out into the air just now.
"Hey, it's Penhall," he says into the receiver of the pay phone down the street, not staying longer than necessary to watch Tom leave with Brian after he's sure there's no more threat from the crowd of angry kids, who seem just as content to go home and watch TV as engage in a complete breakdown of society. "Yeah, he did it. Lancer was heading west last I saw. No, not driving." Fuller sounds like he knew it was going to be fine all along. Doug thinks he might do nothing but sleep for the next month.
Doug's only half-way back to the park when a black and white woops past him, and he comforts himself with the idea of Lancer being manhandled into the backseat instead of letting himself get riled up when he discovers an encircled A sprayed onto his driver's side door.
Darn vandals, he thinks as he climbs in, and then takes great pleasure in taking a moment to pull the elastic out of his hair, shaking it out of its slicked-back mould for freaking ever.
* * *
He doesn't realise what wakes him at first, blinking his eyes open into the dim light of his living room, realising he's lying on his sofa half-propped on the arm, and then he hears it again; the close jingle of a chain, and his name, whispered. Doug sits up, still too asleep to work out how he feels about the fact that Tom is standing in the archway between Doug's living room and his front hall. Doug guesses Tom must be smiling, it's too dark and his eyes still too blurry to tell. "You should really find another hiding place for your key," Tom's still speaking in a whisper.
"Why," Doug croaks. "Then you won't know where it is." He fumbles behind him for the lamp, turns the screw on and squints at the subsequent flooding of relatively soft light, pressing the back of his wrist to his eyes until it doesn't hurt so much. Tom's still standing half-way in, half-way out, staring at him. "What?" Doug wakes up enough to feel alarmed. "What's happened? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Tom chokes out a laugh, abruptly makes a move from the archway to the sofa; Doug has to pull his legs up and out of the way for Tom to sit down. Doug peers closer, and Tom glances up to return his gaze, his eyes wide, face pale. Doug swallows, represses the urge to touch. Waits.
Tom sits on his hands, stares down at his knees. "Brian," he starts. Stops. Starts again. "Brian came onto me today."
A wave of images abruptly rush into Doug's mind, still too sleep-addled to hold them back; Tom's hands in Brian's hair, Tom on his knees, Brian astride. Doug feels sick. "What happened?" His voice is very soft.
Tom's body jerks forward, as if involuntarily. He closes his eyes. "I was at his house. We were talking. He tried to kiss me." Tom swallows, corrects himself. "Kissed me."
"Ah," Doug nods, resists the urge to get up and start pacing. "Was this before or after he found out you were a cop?"
Tom licks his lips involuntarily, closes his eyes. "Before."
"And?"
"And nothing," Tom almost gasps it, arms curving in toward his chest despite the fact that his hands are trapped beneath his thighs. "I stopped it. I--"
Doug doesn't realised he's moved until he feels Tom's stomach muscles jolt against his palm, but he continues to slide his hand around nonetheless, feeling Tom's breaths heave in and out and Tom's wrist cold and shaking against his thigh. "He did it, Doug," Tom breathes, and turns to look into Doug's face, eyes close and open. "He was driving the car… the one with the kid…"
Well, shit. Doug's heart lurches in sympathy. "Well, guess you can't save them all," and that's a stupid, unfeeling cop-out of a thing to say, but Doug follows it with a kiss that Tom falls into so he doesn't feel too bad about it.
Tom's still breathing hard, mouth clinging, melting back into the sofa and pressing forward with Doug's hands, and Doug feels like some cheesy lead in a romance novel until Tom's hands come up to fist in his hair and pull him closer, against his teeth, almost snarling into Doug's mouth.
"I'm…" Tom gasps, wet against his lips, and Doug wonders how long it's actually been since Tom relaxed, got some real sleep, tuned down the anxiety that had been wrapping itself tighter and tighter around them all week. Not yet, it seemed, from the way his hands jitter from Doug's head to his shoulders, down his chest, to his hips; followed eagerly by Tom's gaze, mouth hanging open with Doug's forgotten until Doug pushes forward again, scraping teeth against the edge of Tom's jaw and shoving his hands up under Tom's undershirt. "Sorry--" Tom grips the edge of Doug's shirt, jerks it upward.
Doug obliges, leaning backward to pull them hem over his head before leaning back in closer, pressing automatically against Tom's hands against his bare skin. "What for?"
"Don't know," Tom mumbles, tilting his head in under Doug's ear as his fingertips brush the top of Doug's boxer shorts. "Just… sick of this." Doug closes his eyes involuntarily as Tom sighs wetly against his skin. "Stupid."
Doug murmurs in agreement, "Both of us," and pushes up Tom's shirt further with his wrists before Tom grunts in dissatisfaction of that arrangement and draws back momentarily to struggle off the leather studded jacket and pull the white undershirt over his head. His chest is bare but for the medallion, and Doug can look at nothing else for long moments; silver shining against the smooth skin and warm against Doug's fingertips and then Tom's pushing him back into the sofa and slinging a knee over Doug's thighs, straddling him, leaning in to kiss him hard, one hand pressing the back of Doug's neck and the other the base of his throat, sliding down to deftly unbutton Doug's fly.
Tom arches his back as his hand slides around and grips the both of them together; and he starts stroking in a jerky, not entirely efficient rhythm that Doug decides not to correct, instead leaning back to look up to where Tom's looking down at him through his lashes, over his cheekbones with his head tilted back. Doug strains up further and Tom tilts forward, letting loose a steady, breathed stream of curses against the skin of Doug's neck, Doug's fingers scraping bluntly up the line of his spine, hooking onto his shifting shoulder blades, sliding down again to fit against his ass and pull him further forward. The medallion presses between their chests and it feels like just another part of their flesh, metal chain tasting like blood between his tongue and Tom's neck.
"Better?" Later, when Tom's been lying muscle-less against the back of the sofa, one leg still sprawled over Doug's, breath gradually slowing against Doug's cooling shoulder, and Doug can't bear the thought of him falling asleep just yet.
Tom nods, not opening his eyes, and licks his lips lazily. Doug smirks, then slides them both down onto the sofa, pressing his face against Tom's collarbone and breathing deeply until the rise and fall of Tom's own chest lifts him into the same rhythm.
* * *
When Doug wakes up again the morning sun seeping around the edges of his blinds make the still-burning lamp look dim and lifeless and the body beneath him shifts restlessly before he peels his cheek away from Tom's skin and blinks dazedly. "I can't feel my legs," Tom groans, then makes another small noise of disgust as Doug finally manages to sit up, drawing back his gaze. Tom's fingering his hair distastefully, crushed spikes flaking off gel and sticking to his fingers. "Give me a hand with this, will you?"
The still-fresh dye runs purple until the steady stream of hot water from the shower, and Doug runs his fingers through it, breaking up a pattern over the smoothly defined muscles of Tom's back until Tom clears his throat pointedly and Doug grins in response, closing his eyes to step under the water one last time.