A/N: God forgive me, I'm actually putting this up. It was weirdly easy to write, probably because, like with "Heroes' Reward," I don't really care about it as much as I do about other stuff. Almost done, just a last chapter to finish. Here, for the world, is my Blayden fic. Christ and all his angels help you if you think it's hot.
Blake's life was over, because his job was almost certainly over. Fuck that asshole FBI agent. It wasn't enough for the fucking asshole to just solve the case, now Internal Affairs was questioning Blake about how he'd treated Mars while under arrest. And also, incidentally, just how he'd treated about two decades' worth of crying suspects. None of those questions were good news. No gun now, for Blake, no badge. The investigation wasn't over, but he was pretty sure where it would end up.
The case was over, and Blake had nowhere to take his rage. Nobody to punch, nobody to punish, no suspects, just Norman. Fucking. Jayden.
"Carter?" Joan had begun doing her makeup elaborately in the mornings, now. Not for herself, for him. Her husband usually said he liked it, but lately he appeared to be so sunk into misery that she wasn't even sure he noticed. He was finishing his breakfast, and she had to leave for work soon. "Hey, honey."
He looked up at her. "Yeah?"
"If you want any of those records copied before the hearing, I can do them at work, you know." It was the best she could do at offering help. He never said how she could help him do anything. She was only even vaguely aware of why he was currently suspended, had to get it from the newspapers rather than his mouth. "Just, you know, give me anything you need."
"No, it's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Have a good day."
He was so efficient at shutting her out that she had no choice but to leave. He didn't finish his cereal, thought with frustration about how pretty Joan still was after all this time. The Wheaties broke up slowly in the bowl in front of him.
Carter Blake hadn't fucked his wife for ten years.
They had no kids. That made a lot of sense, really. The honeymoon period of their marriage had lasted about a week before they'd started fighting pretty hard. She was still on the pill, then, and both of them had enjoyed, to some extent – he more than her – the angry sex they always embarked on after they'd been screaming at each other for a while.
Then she'd finally said something that made him punch her right in the fucking face. He didn't slap her, didn't backhand her, just punched her, as hard as he could. He'd broken her cheekbone.
After he saw her to the emergency room, immediately admitted what had happened, the cops that showed up mostly let him off the hook.
"Not gonna happen again," he said, and he meant it. "Ever again. Ever."
"Still gotta file an incident report, Detective Blake." The request was timid.
"I understand. Do it. I fucked up. But I can work this out. I got ways."
He'd gone home for about ten minutes, gathering the absolute basic essentials he needed to keep working. Checked in to the cheapest hotel he could find.
"Fuck you, Carter," he'd said to his own naked knees when he woke up there each morning. "Real men don't hit women. Ever."
He'd stayed there for two weeks, then called Joan, told her it would never happen again. He couldn't manage the words I'm sorry, but he could stand by his promise that he would never. Ever. Hit her. Again. No matter what. She let him come back.
And he stood by it. He hadn't laid a finger on her ever since then. Unfortunately, he also never laid a finger on her. Not a finger, not a hand, not a cock. Carter was terrified by his own potential for violence against his wife, thought of Joan as being too good, too pure, to ever experience anything like that ever again. Not just the punch, but the brutality of the sex he needed to get off. He didn't hit her. But he also didn't touch her in any way more meaningful than when they traded keys so she could take his car in for repairs. Sometimes, she'd kiss him shyly on the cheek. Their bed was an uncrossable desert.
And so, for ten years, he'd grown in sexual frustration and violence. He was addicted to his own rage now, needed it to feel his balls swell, his dick harden. Sometimes he'd even kick the shit out of a suspect and then excuse himself to jerk off in a bathroom stall.
Carter didn't know what Joan did about their lack of a sex life, but he abused prostitutes unmercifully. Some of them, mostly the ones with the long lists of priors, were glad to see him when he was working vice, knew he'd let them off as long as he had a go at their damaged goods. Some of them would just start crying, because they knew the hideous pounding Carter Blake was about to give them would leave them in such pain that it was worse than being arrested. Their bruises were sometimes startlingly huge. He'd bite their breasts so hard that they bled as he slammed them into the back door of his cruiser or the brick wall of the alley he'd found them in. His two pleasures, rage and sex, were finally wed when he fucked them until they had trouble walking. He always carried condoms in his pocket, just in case he was going to be able to hammer at another hole.
But they were just whores. They weren't Joan. He couldn't do that to Joan. She was his wife. And she was a good wife. And pretty. And smart. And clean. Cleaner than he'd ever be.
Now, she had just given him a slight hug before she sympathetically left him staring at a bowl of Wheaties as she left for work.
And he had no work to go to. Suspended. Had to wait until the investigation was over. And when it was over, Carter was pretty sure he'd never, ever, work in this town again. And he didn't even have the luxury of eating his gun, because it'd been taken from him.
He laid down the spoon, left the unfinished bowl where it was. There was about an inch worth of whiskey left in the bottle in the cabinet, and he downed it all before he sank determinedly behind the wheel of his car. He knew exactly who had to pay for all this.
Norman.
Fucking.
Jayden.
