leash and collar

A note on the fridge and some empty real estate in the closet. Wasn’t that how half those sappy country songs went? The only thing it seemed to be missing was one of the guns still locked in the weapons safe at the back of the closet (Jo had never wanted the code to open it, had scoffed at the thought of needing it when she could call up the power in her fingertips fast enough) and the dog the two of them had never got around to buying. Joel tugged the note out from under the magnet that held it there – the grand canyon snaking across it, the week of their honeymoon was probably the last vacation they’d taken. Out of town, just for a disposition in Virginia Beach. She’d be gone a night, maybe two. No promise to call from the road, like he could even remember what it sounded like when she’d take him on that long distance tour of her hotel room. Always too big without him, now probably feeling too small, as though she should be somewhere bigger than this tiny dot on the map.

Joel retrieved a beer from it, rolling the bottle against his brow as he stepped away from it, leaving the note in place. If she had half a clue what was supposed to be going down at the Ruby Slipper, Mystic Falls wouldn’t have felt like some tiny backwater. Ricky had promised a case here, something big, but he’d neglected to warn him that it would blow up his life in the process of taking the bad guys down. Maybe Ricky hadn’t known that Doll was here before he’d really started to connect the dots, but he wouldn’t have put it past him. Tug those lines as much as he wanted while his were the manicured hands controlling them. The minute they weren’t …

Tipping his head back, eyes fixing on the ceiling Joel took a deep gulp of the beer. He’d been let back into the investigation, once promises had been wrung out of him. Promises that would break those pinky swears he’d made with Doll years and miles away. Promises the two of them had broken before he’d even earned that badge, before Doll had ended up in that son of a bitch’s hands.

He closed his eyes, smelling the hay of the barn instead of the yeast of the beer and whatever Jo had used to clean the place before she’d left – like the both of them were heading out of town and wanted to come back to the place being neat instead of having to pour their exhaustion post-travel into straightening up. Like she was the only one who lived here.

Exhaustion tugged at him, settling his face into those haggard lines until his phone buzzed on the coffee table. Tossed aside like Ricky would hesitate to call him when he was supposedly off the clock. If he wanted to stay on the investigation and try to get Doll out of this before Dacre ended up behind bars in some super max cell, he needed to bite the damn bullet and leave that leash on.

Planting the bottle on the table, Joel rocked forward and picked up the phone. Doll. Asking if he was home instead of just being here when he opened the door. He’d imagined that he’d sensed her here a half dozen times since. That scent lingering, the feeling like he could just stretch out his hand and find hers again. The phantom brush of her fingers over him, bile rising in his throat as he realised those touches were probably trailing over Dacre instead. He shoulda said no, clung on to the professional – the only way he’d get her out of those filthy hands – but the ’yeah’ had slipped out instead.

It wasn’t a slow inch into the place this time. Doll came in like a whirlwind, scattering that scent that still had his throat feeling tight into the air as she peeled her coat off. ”Hey Doll,” he drawled soft, like he was some gangster instead of the gumshoe looking to take him down. Joel sniffed, pushing slow to his feet with the bottle still dangling from his fingertips. A shitty day, that made the two of them, but he hadn’t let himself drift back to the club the way he had before, knowing that Ricky probably had eyes on the place, looking to piss in everybody else’s cheerios tonight. ”Naw,” Joel breathed, glancing around as though his wife would melt out of that note that still hung on the fridge. ”She’s … outta town. I’m sorry I ain’t been by … work … you know …” She half did, but really letting Doll know was career suicide, and pulling that trigger gave him no real legal way to turn those shitty days under Dacre’s thumb around.

Polite.

The word echoed in his head as he wrapped one arm around Doll in that hug that brought back echoes of all those other touches, those bumps since she’d appeared out of his past like the ghost of his life past – of happiness past. Joel looked owlishly down at her, remembering the way he’d drawn her in here the last time, breathing her in, the Dolly that was so much more than the one he’d known. He wanted desperately to dip his head and breath that Dolly in, but she was already drawing back, searching his face like he was the spectre growing solid in front of her instead. ”Hey,” he echoed back soft, like a damn parrot.

The curl of the corner of his mouth was automatic, the smile as tired as Doll was accusing him of being. ”You ain’t wrong,” he admitted, drawing in a long breath through his nose. Trying to carve your life up into neat pieces, your marriage crumbling in the process, would sap the energy out of anybody. The frown slipped in, his brows drawing together. ”Before we moved … maybe … that way of tellin’ me its time for a little groomin’?” There was no trip down to the barber’s shop with their dad now, him and Vaughn coming back freshly shorn, summer tans giving way to that pale strip around their hairline.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1047

He flinched at those three little words. Acid rushing up into his throat, burning beneath the yeasty taste of the beer. It was okay because Hector had been keeping her company, putting hands on Dolly like she was nothing more than a possession, something to parade around at his bar, radiating arrogance and a choking amount of pride as other men laid their eyes and hands on her. Dolly’s gaze ducked away from his as she shrugged, like she was pushing that image away, but beneath the thought of her maybe being abandoned at the club or in whatever pimped out penthouse Dacre was living in was that image of the guy’s hands on her.

Looking down into the face that’d haunted his dreams since he’d first sound her in the club again, Joel had push aside the desire to erase each invisible mark Dacre’s touch had laid on her with his own fingerprints. A claim of what never should’ve been his, or anybody else’s. If he’d seen then, Dolly would’ve been safe. Thousands of miles away from here, living the life neither one of them had managed to find with anybody else. Little lines sprung up at the corners of his eyes, his mouth as Doll stopped just looking up at him and laughed soft as she trailed her fingers through his hair instead.

His arm was still curled around her, the hand holding the bottle settled at the base of her spine, not against her skin, he was saving her from that bite of the cold glass and the taste of his weariness. Joel hummed lightly, his brows raising, his nose wrinkling, like that’d change the growing tumble of his hair. It was definitely pissing Ricky off already – the man had probably never gone more than a week without a trim, each hair carefully combed into place in the morning, not daring to move a millimetre during the day. He tilted his head in the direction of the bathroom. ”In the bathroom,” he told her. ”There’s a wash bag.” A grooming kit. A razor, hair scissors, an emergency tooth brush. Easy to throw in a bag if he had to go undercover, the barest of basics. It’d been gathering dust since they’d got here, but with Ricky throwing that door open again maybe it was time.

Shoving his hair back with his other hand as Doll slipped away from him, Joel sank down on the arm of the chair. He watched Doll disappear deeper into the apartment, sipping from the bottle to try and wash the taste of jealousy out of his mouth for good. He had those memories with Doll, Dacre didn’t know shit about who she was or where she’d come from. The laughter bubbled up warm, his knuckles working their way across his lips. ”My dad weren’t too happy after, but yours …” The laughter echoed in the back of his mind. There hadn’t been too much of that in his own home. His dad’s reaction had been closer to Doll’s mom’s, but there wasn’t too much any of them could do at that point. ”Sometimes you’ve gotta try and read that riot act,” he murmured as she walked back in. Now her hair was closer to how it’d been before he’d got his hands on it, long enough to put into those twin braids, the others he’d severed so unevenly. Long enough to tangle his fingers in now, to pull Dolly down to him so he bask in her and those reminders of the past that weren’t covered in a pall of grief or heartache.

There was probably a picture of it somewhere, gathering dust in one of those boxes in the closet in the spare room. The past carried with him in those glossy snapshots of a life that had vanished when Jeanine had died and Doll had vanished. Joel set the bottle aside, getting to his feet slowly. He shook his hair back again, suddenly self-conscious of how long it’d grown. The rush of acid was back at Doll’s reassurance. Hector looked like he paid thousands of dollars for the coiffed look, all slicked up like a mob boss – not so far off of what he was. ”I’m surprised he ain’t got someone he calls in for that – not that I think you’re doin’ a bad job of it.” It was the opposite, so easy to see Doll’s fingers in Dacre’s dark hair, hard to stomach the thought.

Joel pressed his lips together hard as he dragged a chair over from the dining table, setting it down in that no man’s land between the couch and the kitchen, dropping bonelessly into it. He tilted his head back, the stretcher of the chair pressing into his shoulder blades in the way he imagined Doll’s body would in a moment. ”I ‘preciate it,” he said soft, reaching out a hand to curl it around the back of her leg – down near her knee, safe territory even if he wanted to slip it higher and make that claim. ”Even if he might not. It ain’t easy puttin’ yourself first when you’re tryin’ to watch out for everyone else. Now I’m mkain’ it sound like I’m Superman or somethin’.” The laugh rumbled out, even though his throat felt tight the moment his eyes were on hers. He might not’ve had a cape, but he’d be that guy for her, making sure Dacre spent the rest of his life behind bars, even if he couldn’t whale on him – bam, pow, wham.

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How much simpler would everything be if he could go back to that happy past (the specks of anger or regret weren’t enough to darken those memories)? Hop back to the moment when the clumps of Doll’s blonde hair had streamed to the floor like ribbons, cut the tragedies that would come later off just like those golden locks. Never end up here, never end up torn between the law he’d sworn to uphold and the one person who’d been the centre of everything for him for longer than anybody else. Even for a warlock time didn’t work that way though, you couldn’t turn back the clock, you just had to deal with what was right there in front of you … and that was the case.

That was Dacre.

The man’s name was a fishbone in his throat as he tipped his head back slightly to look up at Doll as she combed wet fingers through his hair, the echo of that laugh, her smile, still there for him to drink in. Warmth of a different kind radiated through his palm, rose in his cheeks as Dolly pressed in closer. Her leg might’ve been safe territory, but there was nothing innocent of the way his gaze drifted down the curves that packed out her t-shirt. He’d seen so much more of them before, losing himself in the lush offerings that he’d been blind to for so long, the sort he shouldn’t have partaken in while that ring was still around his finger.

Joel let out a slow breath, letting his chin drop forward for a moment, taking his gaze with it. Doll’s fingers were gentle in his hair, sending tingles rippling across his scalp. The gold band might’ve burned its way through his finger and he still would’ve been fighting the twin urges to just lean into the comfort of Dolly’s warmth and to pull away, his hands, the ring that should’ve been the symbol for his loyalty to his wife held up like a shield. He drew in a deep breath, forcing his head up to meet Doll’s eyes as her gaze drifted down to him, what he was taking as a compliment (undeserved) slipping from her lips. ”Clark Kent maybe,” he admitted with a rueful chuckle. ”I ain’t got Superman’s powers, If I did … it’d be easier, y’know...” To get her out.

God, he wished it was that easy. Walk in there, burn Dacre and his place up with laser vision and stroll out with the woman he rescued without anybody having a clue who’d done it. Ricky would lose his shit, seeing his case go up in smoke, but the prosecution of the assholes screwing with this town wasn’t his prime motivation here. His was brushing her thumb over his cheek, sending that warmth rolling into his stroke, stoking the thirst for what he wasn’t meant to have.

Doll pulling away was like being hit with cold water from the hose on a hot day, a tem”porary quenching of the heat that would rush right back in soon enough. She’d screeched in the blast of it with him more times than he’d been able to count when they’d been kids, cleaning up the barn ending with the two of them standing there, dripping wet, laughing, knowing that the lecture would come after, but not caring. Water cooled his skin where the wet strands of hair curled over his brows and ears, a sharp contrast to each spot Doll touched. Jesus. His eyes slid shut slowly, his body swaying back into those touches, chasing the feel of them, biting back the needy little sounds that tried to well up in him. This was a hair cut, what the hell was wrong with him?

Joel hummed his agreement to her suggestion, the sound choking off as Doll pressed it again. The moan wasn’t entirely held back this time. He swallowed, sucking in a deep breath that did nothing but press his back more firmly into … ”Long as it’s neat ‘nough to stop my partner yappin’ ‘bout it,” he rumbled lightly. ”I don’t think how you like it’s gonna be how he does. He’s probably had the same barber since 1952.” Amusement dried up in his throat. Ricky would take one look at this and would blow, anger filling his face with that ugly puce wash, dark hair finally breaking free of the neat comb tracks. Maybe this was what he needed to crack that shell finally, although the thought of Ricky laying a single hand on Doll had something more than that razor’s edge of the lust he was still trying to deny cutting through him.

Doing as she asked, he kept his head right where she guided it, feeling his pulse thump against Doll’s fingertips. If she hadn’t been holding him, he would have let his head fall back into the pillow of Doll’s chest. Joel chuckled tightly, trying to draw in enough air to get his pulse to slow again. ”I dunno about that, darlin’. Might not be much that can manage that this days.” Not when his life was falling apart, the pieces of it he did have a hold on caught in a death grip. His breath puffed out, his attempt at keeping his head up failing. Joel let it bump back into Dolly’s chest, those curves as warm on the back of his neck as the fingers she was dipping under the collar of his shirt were.

Blue eyes opened slowly, peering up at the soft hazel of Doll’s. He’d looked into them a hundred times a day, but til he’d found her here, he’d not really seen them, not the way he should’ve done. ”Yeah,” he managed weakly, his hand dropping to wrap around her thigh again, higher this time. ”I ain’t the only one … Doll …” He started to turn, not sure if he was gonna screw up the hair cut, not particularly caring as he pressed his forehead to her instead, his lips brushing against the bared skin of her belly. ”You smell like home … like everythin’ I’ve been been missin’.” Everything he’d wanted. Water to a man dying of thirst, nectar to the bees, affection to a man who’d been starved of it for so long that it was gonna kill him in the end.

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Little compliments had slid from Jo’s lips in the afterglow of their first time. She’d never been the sort to lay them on honey thick, but her lips had curled up at the corners, her fingers trailing idly along a scruff littered jaw - ’you’ve got the prettiest eyes, like a 4th of July sky. Beautiful wasn’t what he was, but he’d lit up like that sky, laughing as he rolled them both and stole any other words right out of her mouth.

Joel’s brows drew together faintly, his lips pursing before Dolly’s cooed words softened the line of them. When was the last time he’d heard anything like that out of Jo’s mouth? He’d tried. Under the doc’s suggestion he’d spent those first couple of weeks of counselling trying to recapture something of what had been – to notice his wife – but none of it had been reciprocated. The cheek he’d skimmed his lips over might as well have been marble for all the life that was in their marriage. Even the brush of Doll’s fingers over his chest was more contact than he’d had with Jo in as long as he could remember. That starvation wasn’t an excuse for him to melt back into that touch, but he did it anyway, basking in that compliment from someone who’d always meant so much more than anybody else.

The sigh slipped out of him as Doll’s cheek brushed his and his hand settled on that curve of firm muscle and soft skin. ”Never as good as you, darlin’.” Joel’s fingers flexed as he spoke, trying to make sure Doll heard the truth in his voice. It might have taken him too long to realise that she wasn’t just his best friend, but he’d never been blind to how pretty she’d been. Covered in scraps of lycra or baggy denim and flannel – either way Doll was beautiful.

In the sun her eyes had looked like a lioness’, gold streaked in their hazel depths. He could see it now, fields of grain and the summer sun reflected there – the life that felt a million miles away in the cesspit of this town. Doll was everything that could be right again. Clinging onto that, onto her, probably meant letting the rest of his life fall away, but it all would’ve been worth it. For her. Joel puffed out a whisper of breath as she whispered his name. It slipped over his skin like the breeze through the fields, lifting the short hair at the back of his neck as Doll’s fingers slid into the locks she’d cut. ”Let me,” he whispered against her skin. The truth spilled out right there, pressed into tawny skin by the brush of his lips.

She was home.

Joel brought his other hand up, anchoring Doll close. The scissors clattered down, lost in the mass of things that didn’t matter now. Doll was so close and something in his chest was opening up to drink in all that she was giving him. His hands slid up slowly, catching Doll’s hips as she settled on his thighs. ”I missed you the minute you were gone,” he whispered into the hollow of her throat. The rose coloured glasses had started to fall away the minute Jeanine’s body had been found, but it was all so clear as Doll had walked down the porch steps, leaving him standing there seeing all the things he never had. ”Come with me, Doll. It can just be the two of us. We’ll go back home, we can be …" Together. With Dacre left here, those grubby hands peeled off of Doll’s skin for good – hopefully snapping his fingers in the process. He could do it with barely any effort, the tenderness that had him turning his head to kiss the underside of Dolly’s wrist, tasting her pulse, absent.

The imagined scent of Doll in the apartment had left him aching for her for weeks – aching now. The slow roll of Doll’s hips only stoked it, left his hands pulling her closer, a needy sound rolling out of him. ”When you’re here nothin’ else matters. Doll.” A bomb could’ve gone off in the apartment and he wouldn’t have heard or felt a thing while Doll’s lips were pillow soft on his. The starving man had been given just a mouthful and now he wanted to gorge himself on the feast that was right there.

Joel clutched at Doll’s hips, moving with the roll of her body in a rhythm he hadn’t forgotten from when she’d ride on Cisco right up in front of him. This time her legs bracketed his, powerful thighs anchoring them together. Joel groaned into the hollow of Doll’s throat again, his mouth trailing a hungry line down between her collarbones, nuzzling at that soft canyon that was still hidden beneath too many clothes. ”Let me touch you baby. Let me .. God.” The word rolled out of him on a sigh of desire that felt like it whispered through every part of him. He slid his hands down to her thighs, clutching at Doll as he pushed to his feet. That swell of her ass was so warm, so firm in his hands as he blindly charged towards the bedroom. His mouth didn’t stop, sucking on the pulse that pounded heavy against his mouth. Everything he could see, everything he felt was her. Soon Doll would be all he could taste too. Spilling down on the bed with her, he was already working his way down, his hands blazing a trail that his mouth followed towards that cradle of her hips.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 939