Author's Note: This is a dark AU fic that plays with the idea of both sides of Tony's psyche. I've taken his constant conversations with himself and his uncanny understanding of the dark side of man's nature to the more extreme conclusion. I've tried to keep it consistent with canon and come up with a more plausible explanation for Carol's sudden departure. This fic contains graphic sex, coarse language, and disturbing themes. I wrote it as a thank you gift for my wonderful beta, la_tante. I hope you enjoy it, too.
She flings herself at him and they connect with satisfying thud. He's probably in incredible pain. Trying to process what he's had to do in order to survive. Naked as the day he was born. But none of it matters to her. She just needs to feel him. Solid. Safe. Still breathing. And something else. His cock is pressing insistently into the soft flesh of her belly. She pulls him closer.
They break apart eventually. She drapes her coat around him, and he clutches at it awkwardly as the paramedics evaluate him. It wouldn't do to have rumors getting around the department about Dr. Hill and his unfortunate penchant for sloppy transsexuals. Of course, she knows that's not it. He's not homosexual, though he might be more flexible on the Kinsey scale than some. The answer, she thinks or would think in a quieter moment, lies somewhere in the grey areas best left unexplored. That he may have felt an affinity - perhaps even an envy - for his captor. Angelica plunged forward into realms Tony knows are off limits, but perhaps dreams of in his darker hours. In the end, the arousal wasn't about the woman, it was about the proximity of pain and violence and death. He is so very good at his job for a reason.
The paramedics release him against their better judgment. She doesn't fight him. He's sore and tired and deserves some rest. She offers him a lift home, and he accepts. He also accepts the two Paracetamol and a Nurofen she offers him when her search through his medicine cabinet comes up with no prescription painkillers. He sits on the couch as she makes tea. She doesn't want to leave him alone tonight. Something inside her is screaming out that it's not safe to leave him alone. It's a remnant of guilt, of course, that he fell into Angelica's clutches on her watch. But there is more to it than that. She senses that he needs her, so she stays.
They don't talk about Angelica and, more pointedly, they don't mention how his erection strained against her when she had held him almost painfully close. So they sit quietly on the couch together and sip the hot tea. She's been up for ages, and she feels the grit and ugliness of the day on her skin. She knows she won't be able to sleep without the shower he offered her, so she gets up and makes her way to his bathroom. She sheds her clothes without thinking on the tiled floor and turns the water up as hot as it will go. The droplets sting her skin as she reaches for the bar of astringent soap she finds in the tray. She picks two of his hairs off the soap and stares at them. It feels indescribably intimate to use his personal things, to stand where he stands each morning as he prepares for his day, to hold his dead, cast-off hair in the palm of her hand. She shakes her head at her strange mood and washes them down the drain with the soapy water.
She dries off with the towel hanging over the shower door. It is still slightly damp from the last time he used it. She brings it to her nose; it smells faintly of him. She takes a moment to compose herself - she's aware that she's acting like a silly girl and not the respectable woman she's become. And she reminds herself that she is only there to make sure he is okay. To make sure he knows he is not alone. To make sure he knows that she is grateful for his help and, most importantly, so very glad that he's alive and well. She wraps the towel around herself and tucks the end into the front so it stays put. When she opens the door, the lights in the flat are all out. At first, she thinks he's already gone to bed, but as her eyes adjust, she begins to make him out, standing across the room from her. He's holding himself so still. Rigid. Lethal. Like a predator scenting its prey. For a fleeting moment, she feels a stab of fear in her gut. This is not the same man she's been working with. The kind, distracted, vaguely avuncular fellow who seems so queer and non-threatening. All of a sudden she is seeing the part of him that understands exactly what makes Angelica Bain tick. The cold, unblinking gaze staring into the abyss and inviting it to look back into him. This is the part he doesn't show to anyone else. This is the man who when he pressed himself against her in the subterranean dungeon, was hard with bloodlust. This is the part of him that makes him so uniquely useful to her. Now she finally understands just what his special gift costs him, and she can't find it in herself to look away, doesn't want to. Her fingers move to the towel tucked in at her breast. One deft flick and it falls, pooling at her feet. She stands silhouetted by the escaping light and steam from the bathroom.
He moves so quickly that she almost cries out. He's on her in a second;his arms pinning hers to her sides, his body pressed fiercely to her, his tongue invading her mouth with single-minded tenacity. They go down hard on the damp tiles - she manages to keep her head from cracking against the slick floor. He kneels between her legs, shoving them apart with his knees. He frees his cock from his trousers and sheathes it inside her. braces her palms on the cold tile, unaware of the crack that cuts into her hand. He thrusts violently; her hips rise off the tiles. He fucks her hard, remorselessly, and, in a matter of minutes, her climax rips through her with a savage intensity she's never experienced. She whimpers into his mouth, and the sound stirs some new dark place in him. His teeth sink into the soft flesh of her lip and she tastes blood. His thrusts reach a fever pitch and he releases her lip. He groans as he spends himself inside her. The adrenaline of the moment passes, and his arms, so recently strained to their limits, quiver with muscle fatigue. Limp now, he withdraws from her. Her whole body spasms slightly as the head of his cock catches at her tight opening before slipping free. He tucks himself back into his slacks with a slight wince as rough fabric contacts sensitive flesh. She looks up at him, wondering who he is now. The urgency she felt coming off him in waves a few minutes earlier seems to have abated. He's starring at something on the floor, and she follows his gaze down to a bright spot of red on the tile. He takes her hand, and turns it palm up. He finds a small, crimson abrasion on the heel of her hand.
"You've hurt yourself," he says quietly.
She wants to say that she loves him, but she doesn't think that's the thing to say after a brutal fucking on the bathroom floor. Perhaps it won't ever be the thing to say to this man who is both achingly tender and disturbingly rough. So she says the only other thing she can think of to say. She lays her bleeding hand against his face and says, "I'm so happy that you're alive."
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In the morning, Tony Hill is the picture of respectability. There is no mention whatsoever of the fact that he fucked her so hard in the bathroom there is a purplish bruise where her back made contact with the tiles. She understands that the man who rutted with her on the floor and the man who served her tea and crumb cake for breakfast inhabit the same body and share a common heart. But she also understands that he is never both at once. That perhaps the trauma of his childhood fashioned twin selves to help him cope with the abuse. She loves one of them, and she desperately needs the other.
They fall into a rhythm that, if not strictly normal, is at least somewhat predictable. They become close friends. The closest of friends. Takeaway dinners on her carpet, walks in the park, even the occasional symphony, although she has learned that if they are to arrive on time she must call him an hour before she picks him up to remind him to be dressed. He is a wonderful companion. Attentive, concerned, an excellent conversationalist. Capable, she thinks, of loving her, but not capable of feeling worthy of her love in return. And she suspects, this Tony is mostly impotent. In the beginning, she had expected to be invited up after one of their evenings together, but the invitation never comes. Nor does he ever kiss her, though on many occasions she has the feeling that he truly wants to. He hugged her once, but pulled away too quickly, a blush staining his cheek, as if he felt the need to apologize for his display of affection.
The other side of him doesn't take walks in the park. He never takes her to bed after they've fucked. He doesn't have soft words for her, and, in fact, he doesn't speak much. When he does speak, it is usually pornographic. Telling her what he's going to do to her. Giving directions when he feels she needs it - "Higher, no higher! Fuck me like you mean it, Carol, or don't bother." And this Tony is very definitely not impotent. He's all potency. He's tired her out on many occasions, left rope burns she's had to cover for weeks at work; he even choked her once. Not enough to kill her, not really enough to even hurt her. And it did make her orgasm so much stronger, just like he'd whispered to her it would.
He is dangerous, but she never feels like she is in any danger from him. It's more that he entertains dark impulses and she is his outlet. When they come across a particularly violent case, she knows which Tony will be showing up at her door. Not the one bringing curry and a rented DVD, but the Tony who is all hard edges and rough hands and who never brings things but sensations. She enlists his help on more and more cases - any case she can find a way to justify to her superiors. Another vicious case brings them back to Temple Fields and makes him particularly randy. He fucks her up against a brick wall in a dank alley, only four streets from where the rest of her team patrols. He wipes his cock on the lining of her jacket, as she can't help wondering if being booked for lewd and lascivious by her own constables would actually cause her to die of embarrassment. Screwing in the streets like the many prostitutes she knows work the area. He seems to read her thoughts and tells her "You know what I love about you, Carol? You give me everything I could ever want or need and then pay me for the privilege." They had their killer in less than twenty-four hours, thanks to a profile so insightful that it practically led them to the perpetrator's doorstep. The next day, just two days after he'd fucked her raw against a brick wall, he's back at her door with curry and rented DVD. They even uncork a nice bottle of red to celebrate.
Their partnership grows - she comes to know that she can call for his aid at any hour of the day or night and receive it unfailingly. It is both reassuring and disconcerting. She realizes that she loves him a bit more than she first suspected. In fact, she loves him with every fiber of her being. And that makes things complicated. When she is with her friend, Tony, she has to keep vigilance over her words lest she blurt out that she loves him over dinner. And with her lover, Tony, she has to fight her impulse to offer him her total submission. She suspects, wisely, that giving him too much power over her would upset the precarious balance that keeps his darker urges mostly in check. And finally, for both their sakes, she decides that a little bit of distance would be prudent.
So she fights through the cases on her own, sticking to the tried and true drudgery that is good, old-fashioned police work. And she meets Spencer. He's a nice man - good looking, decent enough in bed, amiable enough that she enjoys his company but not so engaging that there is any danger of her falling in love. He's not Tony, but he is a passable distraction.
Tony finds out, of course. She's not certain if someone on the staff mentioned it to him or if he just read it in her body language, but the next time she dines with him, Tony's eyes speak volumes. He can barely make eye contact, and when he does, he's filled with such sorrow that she has to look away first. He asks her, "Why didn't you tell me?" But she just shakes her head. He sucks it up and reaches for the case file she's brought him.
In the end, they catch their killer, but she fears her delay in bringing the matter to his keen insight may have cost more lives. She dismisses Spencer from her life with the predictable stand-by "it's not you, it's me," and vows not to make the same mistake again. Later that night, Tony bends her over the arm of the couch in an effort to fuck her more deeply. He hisses in her ear, "Did you think you could replace me with someone so pedestrian? Did you honestly think I'd let you?" She can only groan as she comes.
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It's a good two months later when she finds out that she's pregnant. She knows it can't possibly be Spencer's child - she'd insisted on a condom every time. A barrier against a certain intimacy that she had never felt he deserved. There's a part of her, quite a large part of her in fact that desperately wants to keep the child. She holds her hand over her belly and imagines what it would feel like, when the baby kicked. But there's her career to think of, all she's worked so hard to accomplish. And her relationship is crowded enough as it is. She cries when she goes in for the termination, even with all the commotion of that mouthy prostitute demanding to jump the queue. Afterwards, though, her eyes are dry and she is certain she has made the right decision. Although she feels guilty not telling him, she still is positive that he's better off not knowing. But then there are those damn rings, which she knows she's seen before and she asks him, her friend, to try to extract the memory from her while in a suggestible state. He inadvertently extracts a great deal more. He doesn't try to shame her or treat her with disdain, even though she thinks he must suspect Spencer is the father and that this must hurt him. He is kind and solicitous and brings her ice cream. If her lover knows anything of the matter, he never mentions it. She is grateful for small mercies.
Things settle back into their familiar rhythm. She gives up her notions of depending on him too much. In fact, she resigns herself to needing him. Needing to spend quiet nights in with him. Needing his help on cases so dark that they give her constables nightmares. Needing to feel him pounding deep inside her, leaving scratches across the white expanse of her back. And then the unthinkable happens - he's proven mortal after all. A blow to the head illuminates a more serious problem - a tumor that will prove fatal if it isn't removed, but may very well kill him in the process. But she needs his help, dammit, people are dying. Shot down in the streets like dogs, and no one has a clue what's going on.
He's not helping though, he's making things worse. He's confused and incoherent. Rambling about cards and gambling, but not making any sense. And then he's looking at her, right at her, and he's scaring her because he's saying, "Do you ever wish we were still lovers?" And he's telling her, "We should do that again." But the part of him that fucks her doesn't talk like that. He just does and takes and, dear god, it's been too long since he's come to her.
They catch their sniper, but the scary thing is, they catch him by chance. Not because Tony is brilliant at what he does. Not because his baser desires drive him so deeply into the minds of murders that he has to drown himself in her body to keep from becoming one. Not even because, though she's made some mistakes, she's a good cop who cares about her job. Tony runs into him through dumb luck, and it nearly costs him his life. She sees him holding the gun to his head and pulling the trigger, and it's all she can do not to scream out, "No!" and run for the building as fast as she can. They take him out, and Tony collapses. She rides in the ambulance with him though he is not conscious of that fact. She pleads with a higher power she doesn't truly believe in to please, please, please save this man who means everything to her. Whatever the cost, she'll pay it. She promises.
Tony's doctors pronounce his surgery an unparalleled success. The tumor is gone, and despite some missing hair and a scar that will fade in time, he is no worse for wear. He smiles at her, that sheepish, lopsided grin that he reserves especially for her, and her heart clenches. She takes him home and cares for him. They talk and laugh and eat a bit more junk food than is strictly good for them. But she still has an uneasy feeling that something isn't right.
When the doctors finally clear him for work again, it doesn't come too soon. She's enmeshed in a grisly case of serial murder. Dark stuff, rattling even her stern resolve, and she needs him more than ever, in every way. She drops the file off at his flat and goes home to wait. She paces her living room, waiting for him to beat on her door and tell her what she needs to know. To revel in the horrific details and then fuck her so fiercely that he'll leave faint blood stains on the sheets.
He doesn't show up that night, though, and she feels sick to her stomach. And deep down, she already knows he's not coming. But she doesn't want to believe it. Doesn't want to admit to herself that while she loves everything in him that is good and kind and true, she needs the dark places in him that any sane person would run from.
Her phone rings bright and early the next morning and she dives for it. His voice crackles on the other end of the line.
"I'm so sorry, Carol. I just can't seem to get a bead on his motivations. I stayed up all night, trying, but honestly, nothing came to me. It was the strangest thing...."
She thanks him. Tells him not to worry. To call her if he thinks of anything. She tells him goodbye. Only, he doesn't realize that she's actually telling him goodbye.
Carol spends the rest of the afternoon sending her resumé out to the far reaches of the world. Everywhere, anywhere but England. She's not picky about the location - she just has to get away from here. From him. Because he's just not himself anymore. And she can't live without him.
She doesn't call him again. She sneaks away in the middle of the night like a thief. She tells herself it's for the best. If he's managed to purge the darkness from himself, she hopes he can find some good, gentle woman to love him and appeal to his better angels. Someone who doesn't need him to guide her through the darkness.
But secretly, she hopes that his baser instincts are merely lying dormant. Recovering. Waiting to resurface. If her lover reawakens, she knows he will be angry. And she knows he will chase her to the ends of the earth.