part of the process

Boots kicked off at the door, drying mud slowly flaking onto the mat. His t-shirt tugged off on the way through the living room, still damp, as stained as the boots were, tossed over the back of the sofa. Socks peeled off, tossed aside, BDU pants stiff enough to have his lip curling. The mud and grit that had coated him from the training course on base working deeper than his clothes. Frank could feel it grating at his skin as he tugged open the fridge to retrieve a beer. He should’ve headed straight for the shower, tried to wash it off before it dried any further but the weariness would’ve had him drifting under the spray. Room in the shower stall for his brain to skitter sideways while he was alone and he wasn’t ready for that.

Better to burn it out first. Damp it down with alcohol and mentally set alight to it before he allowed his brain to slow down.

He sank back against the counter, knees bending slightly as that exhaustion dogged him anyway. The lip of it hard against his kidneys, pressed into the knobs of his spine, anything to keep him feeling something. Frank swallowed hard, sniffed as he looked down at the bottle of his hands. Maybe it’d been too soon but … given the choice between an empty office, an empty apartment or an army base full of raw recruits to train … there’d been no choice. Just over six weeks out. Six weeks to get used to the fact that somebody had murdered Theo, that his brother wouldn’t be there to see his kid born, wouldn’t get to get married or have a dozen more. Wouldn’t get to spontaneously combust at his bachelor party or end up some wise old professor at Whitmore, the one all the students were hoping they’d get.

Theo was dead and with that scream that had torn out of his throat in the woods his own life had gone on hold. It still was in a way. Every time he gave his mind the room to just drift it brought him back around to those woods, to the bone deep numbness afterwards that made it feel like someone had dropped a frozen lead blanket on him. Little penetrating, his mind clamping down on that final image of Theo’s body, the detectives stood over it like he wasn’t even there.

Frank huffed out a breath, feeling that all too familiar burn prick at the back of his eyes as he lifted the bottle to his lips. Weeks before he’d gone back to work, his days spent huddled here with either Kit or Niko watching over him like he was some fragile doll they were terrified would shatter into a thousand pieces. Bit by bit he’d been able to convince them he wouldn’t, pulling himself together partially, managing to get back into the office, to teach a couple of classes, agreeing without argument to head to the base this morning. One required day out of the 48 periods he was meant to drill a year. Always so easy before but now draining. Maybe in a good way. Maybe not. He wasn’t sure until the bell rang and the tender skin of his inside elbow grated with the press of all that grit as he raised a hand to drag it over his face.

Bare feet padded towards the front door, slapping against the tile. The sky outside had been growing black as he’d driven back, bruised clouds that would pound their load of rain down on the town before the night was out. A light and sound show maybe enough to drive that silence back. Frank held the bottle low at his side as he tugged the door open. Dark brows furrowed, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Dominic. It wasn’t the first time he’d been to the house, although it’d been the first time he’d turned up out of nowhere. It was typically the other way around. He’d spent weeks heading to the cabin out in the woods after Christmas. Ignoring Dom’s protests and occasional hostility to set down a bag of groceries from time to time, to clear away the empties, to watch out for a guy who’d felt that same sort of violence loss carve its way brutally through his life. The guy he hadn’t seen since the day before Theo…

Shit.

The word slipped out almost silently as he hung his head, his other hand finding the door frame on the other side. Dom’s voice spitting at him like bullets even as his blue eyes skittered away from him. Frank raised his own hand, dirt smeared knuckles finding his mouth, the beer bottle still clutched in his fingers. He hadn’t even thought about what else he’d stopped doing when his world had stopped. For so long Theo had been the only one who’d known what was going on in his, the one woven through all of it and now those threads were cut. ”Hey!” The word snapped back, guilt tinging the tone as Dom stabbed a finger into his chest. He held the bottle up between them, a finger aimed in the shorter man’s direction. ”Never said you did, never said I was tired of it either. This … this is not me backing out or taking your directions for getting the hell away.” There’d been no intention to. Dom had been … gathered under his wing, as Kit had been. Not a collection of birds with broken wings but … maybe his way of trying to do some good still.

He hadn’t backed away as Dom had jabbed at him but Frank gave a step back as Dom stalked in. Bare feet silent on the floor, his face settling into those grim lines as he shifted away. ”Close the door at least. It’s gonna fucking pour down and I’d rather not be bailing the house out. The texts … I’m sorry … things happened and … fuck.” He needed another beer, a whole fridge of them. Shots to burn the cold out. Anything to keep his mouth and hands busy as that lead settled back into his stomach. The shudder of reaction to that feeling, his ribs flexing convulsively as he tried to swallow the emotion back. Frank led the way into the kitchen, set the half finished bottle down as he opened the fridge, grabbed two more. Not enough, still never enough. He turned back, not meeting Dom’s eye as he set one on the counter, pushing it towards him. ”You thought I’d bugged out.” No question to it. Certain. He’d ghosted a guy already wracked by loss while he’d holed up here with everybody he needed around him holding him together, everybody Dom hadn’t had. Like a fucking asshole, offering up some promise of something only to let it drift away like smoke from the charred remains of his brother’s life.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER * Word Count: 1611

Kit had told him it was shock. That inescapable spot between shaking yourself to pieces with the grief and shivers and that bone deep numbness that left you feeling like you were swaddled in clouds, unable to escape no matter how hard you fought against them. His friend had held him through those first hours of it, held him together the way he had once done on the battlefield. The only blood this time had been Theo’s, staining his hands, his clothes, until Kit had peeled him out of them, cleaned him up so he wasn’t staring at the scarlet evidence of his brother’s death. It had washed away down the drain, rusty swirls of water that had done little to tear those stifling clouds away from his mind. That had days, those clouds barely giving him breathing room by the time they’d had the funeral. He hadn’t reached out to Freyja before, had left his brother’s girlfriend, the mother of the child Theo had left behind, to suffer on her own, not even knowing Theo had gone. That guilt still bit at Frank’s chest, left him lifting the beer bottle he held to press it against his chest, the cold biting deep.

Another person who’d existed on the other side of those clouds, lost in that mist of grief when he’d been battling his own.

By now guilt was a familiar feeing but each time he thought he’d felt it lifting it slammed back down, choking off the air until his body wracked itself trying to draw it in. His chest heaved slightly under the punch of Dominic’s finger, like a butterfly struggling under the pin until it was forced to go still. ”It isn’t one … it’s not an excuse either.” It was the truth but about as revealing as a damn eclipse. Fuck.

Frank’s eyelids fluttered shut, the frown cutting deep before he opened them again and shook his head. He had forgotten, trapped under the pall of what had happened he hadn’t been able to take care of himself, let alone allow his mind to wander to anybody he was supposed to be taking care of. ”It’s been …” Horrific? Did that cover it? His worse nightmare come true, one he was pretty sure Dom could fucking sympathise with given what he’d been through with his fiancé. It had been the worst six weeks of his life and given what had happened to destroy his career he’d never expected to be able to say that. You expected the blood, the grief, the loss, in war, but not in the small town that was meant to give you some sort of apple pie, white picket fence life once you left all of that behind.

Hazel eyes ticked past Dominic and up to that brooding sky. Bruise black and likely to crack with the oncoming storm soon. He could feel the pressure of it on his skin, that threatening air of ozone a tang in the back of his throat as he let Dominic into the house. Last thing he wanted to add to his conscience was the guy stalking off into that, caught up in that violence because he’d been pissed off enough with his lack of explanation to leave.

Frank flinched at the slam of the door, the hand still holding the bottle coming up to scrub knuckles bruisingly hard against his mouth. He grunted at the question Dominic threw back at him, the words an echo of his own. Gesturing back with the bottle at the door, the dark clouds that lurked on the other side. ”The rain. I don’t wanna be mopping it out.” Cause he’d left Dominic pissed off enough that he left the door open in the wake of his annoyance. Frank dropped his hand, pressed his tongue to his upper lip instead, crushing it against his teeth to ignite that bite of pain to wash the guilt away.

The apology came as he padded into the kitchen, weak, broken, not enough obviously. He heard the tone of Dominic’s snorted voice, felt his shoulders bunch at it. Frank gritted his teeth, grimaced in the weak light of the fridge, only schooling his expression again when he turned back. A weak excuse but how the fuck did you just come out and say to someone the other half of me is dead? That ice solidified in his chest again as he pushed the bottle of beer towards Dom. Frank sagged back against the counter, eyes still on the tile beneath his feet. He lifted the half drained bottle, took the rest down with vicious gulps before he let the bottle clunk back against the counter, empty, loose in the grasp of his fingertips. ”I’m sorry.” A little more strength to his voice now.

He sucked in a breath, let it out in a strained laugh as Dominic launched straight back in. The guy would’ve made a hell of a boxer, unafraid to just land blow after blow, the final low enough to take the wind out of him in that breathless laugh. Frank sniffed, reaching for the full bottle. He took a moment, not bothering with the can opener, just levering it against the edge of the counter in a way that’d have him bitching himself out when he saw the gouge in the wood later. ”I’m not wrestling it out of your hands. I just needed … this to.” His throat worked hard, the bitterness of the last beer still lingering as he swallowed hard. He met Dominic’s eye, his face settling back into those grim lines. ”I had shit going on but it’s not an excuse … my … my brother died and I was a fucking mess. I should’ve still … I shouldn’t have left you twisting in the wind. Wasn’t right. You … you doing OK?” His brow furrowed, eyes burning beneath with those tears that always seemed a fucking inch below the surface now. He’d held them at bay all day, losing himself in the rigid order of the job but the minute that shell of who he’d once been fell away all that fragility was left on the surface again, just waiting for the next blow to land to open up all those cracks and shatter him for good.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER * Word Count: 1052

He’d been the steady one. Not the old man of the team in age but the steady guy, the one who always looked like he had his shit together. He was a Westpoint graduate and the son of a decorated Green Beret, a famed operator, that counted. Head up he’d tried to live up to that but stood in his kitchen, his heart still a shredded mess in his chest, Frank knew it hadn’t been that guy who’d walked onto base that morning, it hadn’t been the guy who’d opened the door to someone he’d helped hold together at Christmas with liquor and a safe harbour when Dom himself was the one drowning in his grief.

The tide had turned, leaving him the one caught now. Trying to find some way to get his head above it just long enough to tell him the truth. It wasn’t anything he’d done to push him away.

It had been Theo.

Just the thought of his brother’s name had been enough to send him under at first. Drowning in tears he’d rarely ever let free. Loss in the field, the IED, the injuries that had left him torn apart to be pieced back together like a puzzle by the docs at Bethesda – none of it had brought on tears like the ones he’d cried in the last couple of months. Theo had been the crier, the one to sob at the drop of a hat. Happy, sad, pissed off enough that he should’ve been exploding and the tears had always been there on his brother’s face.

Frank felt them burning the back of his eyes now even as he made his apology, the laugh that always felt like it was on the brink of hysteria following the words out. Even if the conversation was already leaving him drained he wasn’t snatching it back and kicking Dom out into the night. The guy deserved more than that and the words that would give him that were stuck there right in his throat as Dominic glared at him. The truth slipped out with no less pain this time but the words worked their way loose in the end. Fingers tightened around the bottle he held, the icy cold of the glass matching what he’d felt in his bones since he’d sunk to his knees in that clearing.

Fuck, man. It couldn’t have been said with anymore accuracy. Hazel eyes remained locked on Dom’s, the ache in his throat intensifying until he was frowning and lifting the bottle. Trying to wash it all away in the wake of the truth, the beer feeling lodged above that fist before he convulsively swallowed. ”Fucking is,” he managed hoarsely, his voice barely more than a rasp. There were echoes, too many, with what had happened to Dominic’s fiancé. Flesh carved, two decent men killed on what was meant to be the safe streets of a perfect little town.

Frank dropped the hand holding the bottle and lifted the other to drag over his face. He glanced down at his feet, shaking his head. ”I’m not…” He looked back up, shaking his head. Not in the state Dominic had been at Christmas but he’d had Kit there almost from the minute it had happened, Freyja to help take of since, duty and family had kept him from sinking that deep. Frank sucked in a breath, his bare chest rising and falling. The ozone had been building in the air on the way back from the base and now the crackle of the storm building in the air had the hair on his chest, on his forearms rising. ”I’m OK, as OK it gets. We … buried him six weeks ago. I … had Kit around … his girlfriend too. He was … gonna be a dad. Kid’s screwed huh? Me as an uncle?” The guy who was gonna bear Theo’s face, confusing as hell for that little kid looking at the reminders of his dad around the place, seeing only the man who looked like him, the one who was maybe meant to be the one to actually die.

Lifting the bottle, he pressed the base of it against his side, where the thin line, still pink and raised against the flat winter pale skin was the only sign of the mugging that had left him bleeding on the sidewalk weeks before someone had lured his brother out into the woods. He flinched as the rain started, a sudden rattle against the windows that reminded him of the gravel pelting the underside of the truck in the minutes before the IED had sent shrapnel tearing through the floor instead. Frank hissed a breath, pulling the bottle away from his skin, eyes twitching back to Dominic as the smaller croaked out a curse. He studied his face, reminded of the way Chaco had always paled when desert storms had rolled in, the thunder leaving him pacing inside of a tent that provided about as much cover as an umbrella against the ferocity of the untampered storm. Nothing to shield them in the middle of all that flat ground. The house offered more now but the windows beyond the drapes were already lighting up at the edges with the flash of lightning.

Automatically in his head Frank started counting off as he waited for the thunder to roll in. He nodded, extending the hand with the bottle as he stepped towards Dom again. Trying not to press the cold, sweating bottle against the nape of his neck. The heel of his hand settled at the base of Dom’s neck instead, steering him towards the couches. ”It’s meant to clear in an hour or two … you can stay if you want, the … the sofa bed’s still there. Freyja’s been … I left it set up for when she was here.” He sank down on the couch as he reached it, hitting the cushions heavily before he drew a foot up onto the edge of the couch, setting his beer bottle on the knee of the mud splotched pants he still wore. ”I was … pretty out of it afterwards. It wasn’t til the funeral that I really started coming out of it. I’m still … I’m still sorry that I didn’t remember man. I meant what I said before. You been doing OK? Eating OK?” Not drinking all of his calories, he didn’t need to ask. It had been that note in Dominic’s voice at Christmas that had first caught his attention, that fire spit in the liquor store before that tell-tale glimmer had been there in his eyes, the one Frank imagined was in his own eyes as that thunder finally rolled in again now. Five seconds. Five miles and sure to get closer.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER * Word Count: 1134

Padded fists and padded tongues. Everything softened when your world shattered. Apologies quick, that tender touch like they were all afraid you were going to shatter and crumble at a rough touch. Docs at the hospital, Theo, Kit, even Freyja. All palpating the edges of that pain in their own way. No wanting to force the damage deeper, to make what already felt like mortal wounds permanent in a way. Each of them not wanting to increase the agony. Cotton wool soft, wrapped in layers of their own grief and concern. Grey clouds of it swaddling but always handled with that caution. Frank knew he’d done the same for them, always would, it was a natural instinct but not for Dominic.

God it felt like he needed that right now. The sucker punch accusation shoved firmly in his gut the minute he’d opened the door. Deserved. Overdue. Cutting through that swaddling to what was still raw, forcing the truth out of him. A lancing. A relief rushing in as he finally admitted aloud the truth. The first time outside of the family and Frank was sure now that it wasn’t going to choke him. He wouldn’t die from it, poisoned by the loss and all he had to hide beneath that swaddling. For their sake, for Theo’s, for his own sanity.

He huffed out a breath, amusement crackling through it like the lightning through the black bellied clouds. Lifting the bottle, he took a deep draft and shook his head, an appreciation lighting those hazel eyes. ”Ah well, too late to take it back now.” That tight grip on his throat he had to swallow past. Gratitude tightening it as Dominic’s chuckled words gave way to reassurances. That ache in his sinuses, behind his eyes as the tears wanted to well at it. A pinch of his mouth, a nod all Frank managed instead. Gonna be. In time. The way Dominic would be.

Grief eventually losing that razor sharp toothed grip. Maybe. Each of them bearing the scars in the end but not gushing blood anymore, not feeling that tearing pain deep down inside. Hands not …

Remembering what Dom had shared over Christmas, what he’d seen since, Frank let his eyes drop Dominic’s hands. Ready to hurt himself that first time, now tight on the beer, echoing the constriction of his voice as the storm rolled in. Bare knuckled jokes giving way to that unanticipated fear of what was raging in the sky over the town like mortar fire.

Just a handful of hours later and he would’ve been laid in bed, sheets pulled tight to his bare chest instead of his hand settling on Dom’s neck. A weight to stop the jump in the shorter man’s nerves. A weighted blanket against what wracked him. Frank sat, feeling Dom sink heavily down beside him, watched as he stared at his bottle, thumbing the condensation on the bottle. A distraction that was failing to work, every rattle of rain against the window, each distant rumble another pull out into that storm.

Frank huffed out a thin thread of his own humour, sinking against the back of the couch, bare shoulder blades to worn leather. Hazel eyes warming as he winged a brow at him. ”That makes you Uncle Dom in a way, I guess. Although a sixteen year old and a sister … that beats trying to learn how to change a diaper without pulling out a gas mask.” A son, Freyja was sure she was having a boy and continuing that streak on both sides. Frank rolled his lower lip between his teeth, chewed as he shook his head. ”Naw, Freyja’s … Freyja’s good … tough. She’d kick your ass too if she thought you were picturing her up in here all sore boobs and swollen ankles.” He had the bottle in the air though, sweating base tipped out for the clink of Dom’s drink, a silent toast to liking dudes, as he’d put it.

The nerves were sparking faster though, wires cut loose and left raw under Dom’s skin. The beer going down, palms rubbed against thighs like just getting the sweat off would do something. Frank tucked his bottle between his thighs, shaking his head sympathetically as he slid a couple of inches closer. ”Women are always right, even when they’re a pain in the ass but you let them pull the whole ‘I told you so’, it only makes them smug.” He watched that crack of thunder crack Dom’s scant composure, driving him back into the couch cushions, eyes wide like a frightened animal. A rabbit in the headlights, frozen and waiting for that impact.

Another inch in and Frank was settling an arm around Dom’s shoulder, pulling him into his side like he’d once down Chaco as he snagged the remote from the coffee table. Music, something just enough to drown out the worst of the that thunder. ”I told you I was watching out for you, didn’t I? I fucked that up once man, not doing that again. This is what friends do. What don’t you give me a short guide to how to deal with women in the family til this is gone and if it gets late … I meant it, there’s always a bed for you here.” That shift, settling in with that solid weight of another against his side. Brothers in arms, watching each other’s backs. No matter how long it took.



He hadn’t counted off the minutes, not that he could’ve heard the tick of the clock on the wall. It’d just been one rumble into the next for what felt like hours, Dom’s shivers palpable through his own muscle and bone as he’d eventually sunk down on the couch. A sharp inhale in the wake between those arms of the clock trailing around, not sleep shook off exactly but that pall the storm had draped inside the house giving way as he squinted up at the ceiling.

Frank licked dry lips, swallowed and still tasted the dregs of the beer he’d polished off at some point during those first few minutes of it. He cleared his throat now, shifting his arm under Dom and grunting at the complaint of stiff muscles and reluctant scar tissue. ”When did it roll out?” he asked hoarsely, shifting enough to know that the storm had settled into his bones as much as he it had done Dom’s fear. Complaints deep as he turned his head to squint at the clock. Nothing to obscure the quiet tick, tick, tick that had marked every gutting moment since a storm of another sort had claimed Theo and it had been his own voice crying out instead of the thunder.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER * Word Count: 1148