Chapter Text
i was wrong;
the earth beneath our feet won’t last forever,
i’ll soon be gone.
…
you look so good,
you look so good,
you look so good on
paper
.
————————————————————————————————————————————————
The first thing that Bellamy notices upon waking is not the pressure-ache on his temples, nor the man in bed next to him, but the horrible taste of a hangover, thick in his mouth. He pulls a face and pushes a groan, sunlight just about punching him in the face. It hurts, everything hurts, and as awareness pours into him and the dreams ebb away like the tide, he begins to sit up. To recollect.
To notice the absolutely huge motherfucker sleeping next to him.
He’s sleeping on his back, face turned towards him, eyes closed soft and lips slightly parted. Square jaw; sharp, though — Bellamy wonders what color his eyes are, what kind of emotion they’d carry. Immediately, he figures this person is way out of his league, looking all kingly even while he’s sleeping and more than likely just as hungover as him. The covers have fallen off of him and, indeed, he’s bereft of clothing just as Bellamy is. Looking at his body makes him think, “nice fucking score”.
Looking at him also raises questions ( “What the fuck did you do to me?” ) and makes his head hurt worse, lets the fog lower over his eyes. There’s some sort of pull, right about his middle; its a feeling he’s gotten used to ignoring. Cognitively, that feeling makes no sense. It feels heavy and old in him, like it existed long before he was ever born, long before his parents and their parents. No sense, no comfort about it.
But then he looks about the room, he finds that he doesn’t recognize it at all.
Its white-walled and nearly bare; clothes on the floor but otherwise tidy. Cigarettes and a half empty bottle of water on the nightstand, coupled with a bottle of aspirin. Alarm clock that has noon flashing. Bellamy takes the aspirin and swallows some down through the cotton mouth with a gulp of water. He’s not sure if they were meant for him and the gentleman beside him, but he figures there’s no harm in taking a couple.
With that done, he goes about standing up off the bed ( and nearly falling over ) to find his clothes. Thankfully, they’re not hard to find; he finds himself slipping into his binder and his briefs, digging around more for the rest.
When he looks back to the bed, said gentleman is sitting up and watching him.
He’s got an expression set on his face that immediately strikes Bellamy as intimidating — slight frown, chin turned up. He never stopped looking kingly, but now he appears more to be a cruel and impartial sort of king through that expression alone.
“Shit, you scared me.” his laugh is slightly nervous, voice rough with exhaustion and nausea.
“Good.” he says, rubs his face a bit with a skinny hand, “You have any clue where this is, ‘cause it sure as fuck isn’t my place.”
“No.” Bellamy says, quietly, zipping up his pants. He hums a bit, raises his eyebrows in a gesticulation that says disappointment. Bellamy swallows thickly and averts his gaze. That pull pulses, proud in its way, how it disorients him. Eyes unfocus a bit as he realizes he’s fucking blanking, balking, bile-tasting.
“Are you okay?” he says it in such a way that brings him back to earth, but suggests that he doesn’t actually care.
Despite this, Bellamy finds himself not hating this man, oddly. There’s the edges of something else there, edges of a terrible, old thing that he doesn’t dare skirt. Finds himself at his center, calm, but still uncomfortable; man in a hurricane’s eye.
“Hungover.” he tells him, after a couple beats too long, long enough to make it obvious its more than a hangover, but he continues, “What’s your name?”
“We went over this, Bellamy. Its Doflamingo.”
The name comes down heavy on him, and the subsequent feelings are those edges he was terrified to skirt; he finds himself at the end of that cliff and then flung over. Doflamingo. Doflamingo. Donquixote Doflamingo.
Admiration and adoration. It burns at his skin like a flame set to paper, catching quick.
“You really don’t look okay.”
“I’ll be fine, Doffy.”
He’s not sure how that shortening of this stranger’s name crawled into his throat and bubbled out, but it did, and he freezes. Doflamingo is affording him an odd look; studying him, but still looking incredibly irate. Like he’s going to fucking rip him to shreds, maybe, if he so much as looks at him funny.
“I better get out of here.”
“Yeah.”
Doflamingo goes about putting on his own clothes as Bellamy near-stumbles to the door. When he tries the handle, pushing on it, he finds that he can’t open it. Its not locked and the door isn’t stuck, or anything; there’s something on the other side of it.
“Something’s on the other side of the door.”
“Ram it.” he tells him.
So he does, and nothing budges. Tries again, nothing doing.
“Fuck this. I’m getting the fuck out of this shit hole.” he comes to the window and opens it, poking his head outside. As Bellamy looks out the other window, he sees that they’re pretty high up. Sixth floor, maybe.
But Doflamingo goes, down the fire escape and into the morning. Bellamy gives it a minute before he’s crawling out of the window and after him, though he’s not sure what he’ll say once they reach the ground. There’s nothing to say.
His feet meet concrete; city air and noise, headache sharp. Doffy is walking away from him, lighting a cigarette as he goes, and Bellamy almost wants to go after him.
But anything he could have said melts away in his throat and the moment is gone. He watches after him for a couple moments after he’s gone down the street, leaving just a ghost in Bellamy’s head.
He doesn’t like today already.
*
Bellamy isn’t up for this; not at all.
Shirtless and bouncing in place despite himself, headache unexorcised, he doesn’t feel much like he’s ready for this fight. But rent has to be paid and he’s fucking good at this - the best even, he’s got a winning streak wide as that laugh of his stretches out upon a victory. Good as it feels to be the best at something, for once, he’s filled with a sense of dread.
Its gonna hurt.
Maybe he needs it, though, some part of him goes. That old and knowing part of him.
Yeah, he definitely needs it. That part needs the shit beaten out of it so he doesn’t have to hear it. Not today.
The fight begins, and its some wiry fucker who’s not quite as big as him, but he’s got murder in his eyes and anger in his fists. That anger snaps out and gets him in the mouth, on the jaw, the gut. He takes it for a bit, but brings out his elbow to crack against the guy’s face.
Its so satisfying. The feeling of skin on skin, of hurting someone, and then it all comes back, a wave over him. This is that bloodlust to which he prays, his god, his messiah. Everything makes sense, gets real simple when he’s this sort of way. He laughs and he bites and taunts, shoving him back.
They call him the Hyena.
They’re cheering him on and it feels fucking golden, red shinebright inside of him. Everything else is just gone until he looks up from the fight.
Was that a punch to his temple making him see those stars, or was it Doflamingo looking down at him from on high?
He’s so fucking regal looking, even in a shithole like this, but at the same time it makes sense that he’d be here, at an underground and very illegal fight. His opponent gets one over on him, gets on top of him this time, pounds his head against the basement floor.
Bellamy takes it again — Doflamingo, Doflamingo, Donquixote Doflamingo.
It rings in his head, “Doffy wants me to kill —”
Something crawls with its claws out up his throat and he laughs bloody. He’s not moving, this isn’t him. This isn’t him shoving the other off of him, this isn’t him raining his fists down with much more force than is necessary, this isn’t him choking him —
“That’s enough!”
No its not, no its not —
Some time after he hears Doflamingo’s laugh, recognizing it without even looking at him, he’s being pulled off and to his feet. He’s breathing hard, laughter still bubbling over in his chest while he’s being shaken — “What the fuck is wrong with you, Hale?!”
He manages to get out of their grip, snapping, laughing, “He’s fine, isn’t he? Fuck off and give me my money.”
Once he gets that money, he finds he doesn’t want to stick around too much longer. So he goes, escaping out through the back of the bar, pulling on his shirt and jacket. The summer night is cool on his skin, nice in his lungs as he drinks in the air deep. He hears the door open behind him but he’s not turning around until he hears that voice that pulls strings.
“Hey — Bellamy.” he beckons, same authority, “That’s my first time seeing you fighting; do you win a lot?”
“Yeah.” he answers, and its not a lie.
He grins, but its slight, “You fight often?”
“Gotta pay the bills somehow.” Bellamy shrugs, a bit sheepish, matching his smile. Doflamingo nods, looks about the back alley some, like he’s considering.
“I wanna see you fight more, to see if you’re good enough.”
Good enough?
He practically feels his tail wagging; yes, he’s good enough. He’s going to have to be, if he wants to impress Doflamingo and learn more about him. These feelings, that need to stand out to him, hit him like a mack truck. Bellamy doesn’t protest.
“For what?” he asks.
Doflamingo laughs, quietly, and the sound is sort of … Dangerous. Worrying. “I wouldn’t give it too much thought. Just focus on being good for me, all right?”
Yes, sir, oh, God, please let me be good enough, I need this, I need this —
The fervor with which he thinks this is also worrying. Calm down, he tells himself, but the sentiment still creeps along all slow-warm along his veins. He completely forgets about what he’d wanted to ask Doflamingo, again — if he remembered what they did the night prior. Doesn’t matter, he’s needed .
“Don’t disappoint me. I’ll see you at the next one.”
“I won’t disappoint you.” he promises.
It feels like his bones turned to steel.
*
Bellamy comes and collapses into bed sometime around half an hour later; after he hopped the subway, after getting weird looks for looking so beat up, after grabbing a coffee from the joint at the end of his block. Sarquiss isn’t home; she’s been pretty busy lately, trying to make rent her own damn self.
He tries to take a sip of coffee from his position in bed but ends up spilling the damn thing; he supposes its time for that shower he was putting off out of exhaustion. As he stands under the warm spray, reveling in it, he considers sleep, fickle thing that it is for him.
Some night he can’t find sleep, some nights he dreads it and takes caffeine pills to stave it off. Some nights it finds him peacefully, and some nights still it pulls him around, jerking him through terrifying dreams by unseen strings.
What kind of night will it be tonight?
Its often not even worth the gamble.
He’ll get a couple hours of fitful rest and call it quits in a bout of frustration.
Tonight, he has the suspicion that its going to be one of the hellish nights. He’s had too many of those odd shifts, pulls, movements today. Seeing Doflamingo twice, him being needed . He’s not terribly bright, no, but even Bellamy can recognize the pattern. When he gets those feelings, the dreams get bad.
Bellamy throws on a t-shirt and some boxers before he collapses on the couch. He zones out to television for a good hour or two, and as it sometimes goes, sleep wraps its chains around him and pulls him under whether he wants it or not.
And that’s what he dreams about.
There’s a laugh that snakes around and pierces his ears and his lungs are screaming before he even registers. He feels cold and tired, so fucking tired , a heaviness in his extremities coupled with a weakness and shakiness the likes of which he … Felt a long time ago.
Water, all around him. There’s a hand at his head and that fucking laugh, now dulled and filtered into something quiet and deadly, muddled further through the water.
Eyes screwed shut tight, there’s someone undoing his belt.
The last thing he feels is his words bubbling up to the surface, unheard by the man behind him, “Please, kill me.”
Its unheard, but its heeded.
Bellamy wakes neither gasping nor sweating, but breathing steadily and deep, only mildly shaking. His eyes snap open and he rolls off the couch in a foggy sort of stupor before he really gets a look at where he is.
The clock on the wall, barely seen in the dark of the late night living room, reads 3:19. Witching hour. He wakes up at three a lot, actually, and it always makes him feel like someone is constantly behind him; such are the strange superstitions his mother has stitched into him.
He grabs a cigarette and another cup of coffee, before he considers the rum in the freezer. That goes into the cup, which turns out to be more alcohol than caffeine.
So it goes; Bellamy stays at the kitchen table and his cup never quite empties, filling it again and again with rum and coffee. He’s more drunk than wired by the time he decides he’s finished — he’ll have another hangover tomorrow, of course, and he’ll regret drinking immensely but it helps in the moment and that’s what matters.
When he finds himself asleep again, deep in a blanket cocoon in his bedroom, he goes dreamlessly into the morning.
*
Doffy hears the front door shut when he’s in the shower.
It doesn’t worry him much, and he figures he knows who it is, so he takes his time with the rest. Washes himself twice and brushes his teeth twice and he even blow dries his hair. By the time he gets out of the bathroom he’s fully clothed and completely correct about who came into his apartment.
Rocinante is sitting on the couch in the living room, drinking out of Doffy’s favorite mug and reading the newspaper. Doffy hadn’t brought it in, yet.
“Finally.”
“What are you doing.”
“Waiting on you.” he folds the newspaper up and turns, affording his brother a smile and then the classic up-down and quirk of an eyebrow, “Are you going somewhere today?”
“No, not really.” Doffy takes a seat and checks the emotional forecast today. Clear skies, no real measure of irritation or hatred or paranoia, “Why?”
“Wanted to know if you wanted to do lunch or something, since we’ve both been busy.”
Doffy rubs at his chin in mock-thought, hmmm, like he really has to consider. Roci frowns.
“You came in here instead of called so I couldn’t refuse, right? Too bad I’m not afraid to send your ass home right now.”
“Christ, can’t you spare a couple hours for your precious little brother?” Roci sits back, sounding genuinely offended. He’s a good actor; a very good actor, in fact. Doffy knows he shouldn’t fall prey to it, but he does genuinely want to spend some time with Roci. He snickers and nods.
“I guess I can, but you owe me.”
*
They go to this little hole in the wall diner where Doffy gets a burger as big as his head and Roci sucks down two cokes before they even get their food. Doffy asks Roci about his “dear, precious, sweet, sweet” husband and Roci asks how his weekend was, which he considers. Pauses, picks at a fry and shrugs.
“Bad. Weird. I woke up next to Bellamy.”
Roci quirks an eyebrow again, “Who’s Bellamy?”
Doffy shakes his head some and, yes, it makes sense that Roci wouldn’t know who the other is. It felt, tumbling out of his mouth, like he was just talking about some old colleague or acquaintance.
“This blonde musclehead who, turns out, actually fights in our circuit.” he snickers around his straw, “Pretty mouth, even if he’s a bit messy—”
“Hey.” Roci warns, flicking a balled up straw wrapper at him and barely missing, “I don’t think I’ve seen him.”
“Maybe you would have if you actually attended a fight or two. Appearances , Roci.”
Roci hums and looks away, “I’m above it.”
He grins, telling Doffy that he’s just joking, so the elder steals one of his brother’s fries. Doffy then steers their conversation back around to mundane shit, not daring to touch that weird feeling that feels like a swell, a crescendo of cruel laughter in his chest.
Thoughts intrude, however, as he talks, and that gives his sentences pause.
“Caesar’s been … Been fucking … Missing.” he goes, shakes his head as if to get himself in order, and worry creases Roci’s brow.
“Are you okay … ?”
“Don’t play that, I’m fine.”
Doffy swallows and flags down a waitress, asking for the check before Roci can further broadcast his concern.
“Do you know where he’s been?” Roci asks, and Doffy thanks him silently for showing the tact to not press him.
“No idea, probably went on a fucking bender. And I’ll cover this, don’t worry about it.”
“Good, I was hoping you’d do that!”
“I take it back.” Doffy says, and Roci pulls a frown.
“You’re a dick.”
The pair bickers, and Doffy still pays for the both of them anyway. Even on the way out of the place they continue to bicker, and Doffy grins through it all, because it feels like home.