A/N: So, this series is the expanded universe of "Echo in the Memory." It's just going to be cut scenes and one-shots. As I explained in "Echo," I wrote out several detailed scenes of Ambregal back story before realizing it wasn't necessary. Rather than just delete that stuff, I thought I'd post it in its own story in case anyone was interested.
Note: I completely rewrote most of the dialogue between Dean/Seth/Roman and Regal/Wade for "Echo," but I'm leaving the dialogue I originally wrote here. "Echo" is just a condensed version of this – which is my way of saying the Ambregal scenes I'll be posting here are the canon back story. Enjoy.
In the Echosphere
I. One Step Closer
"He died saving my life, you know," William said after a bit, studying his fingernails as they lay flat on the table. "Dean. Had a habit of doing that. Idiot boy."
He let the words hang in the air, heavy and damning: a judge's gavel banging down after a final sentence had been issued.
The fragile refuge they'd taken in humor collapsed under it, plunging the room into brooding silence.
William turned his hands over and balled them up into weak fists, remembering, as he did, Dean's large and oddly angular hands - how rough and strong they were.
How steady.
How one always managed to wind up splayed out or curled up somewhere on William as they slept: the weight of that touch a comfort neither of them could admit they needed.
It was one of the things he missed the most.
Especially at times like this, with the words still over his head like a hangman's noose.
William took a breath, trying to push the old ghosts into the back of his mind. "He was twenty-one when I met him. Twenty-six when he died. We spent five very bumpy years tog-well, no, technically four, since we spent a year of that separated after he attacked me. In the span of five years, we spent four together on what I can only call a rollercoaster ride of a relationship.
"I was - am - god-awful at them. I'd had a fair number before I met him. Always the same: some lovely, insecure young thing I manipulated into doing the most humiliating things in exchange for a tiny scrap of my affection. I cared more about how it felt to have that power over them than I actually cared for them. Once I grew bored, I would cut them out coldly and completely. Sometimes quite cruelly.
"My work and my whims were of paramount importance to me, you see.
"You know who Eric Bischoff was and what he did - a legitimate venture capital firm as a front for a rather vast organized crime empire - and I've told you how I became his right-hand man, so I won't belabor that. All I'll say is my ambition at the time was to see Eric gone, and myself at the head of the table. Eric was an idiot who let people manipulate him into making poor business decisions, while I was the one sat at the negotiating table with everyone from legitimate businesspeople to members of South American drug cartels and the Yakuza.
"The King of Spades, they called me." This he had never told Wade, and did so now with a certain relish. He rather missed those days sometimes. "It was meant, I think, as a play both on how I dressed and my surname. But by the time I met Dean, it had come to really mean something. As I was directly involved in the deal-making, I was the one who knew all of the ins and outs of both sides of the operation. So it was to me they all brought their questions. Even Eric. I was unofficially the man running the operation.
"I wanted that to be official, but I wasn't willing to kill Eric myself. No, indeed, I rather assumed his tendency to offend groups like the Russian Mafia or even The McMahon Group would be his undoing eventually. I was merely biding my time.
"Dean didn't really fit into that picture.
"He was the opposite of my usual: tough, irreverent, self-assured, independent. He'd been denied things like affection and kindness and encouragement as a child, but, despite a deep-seated need for them, he was generally unwilling to humiliate himself to get them. Outside the bedroom, at least. In it, he was much more, ah, subm-"
"Too much!" Wade protested, a halting hand raised.
"Sorry," William said. He wasn't, really. "He wasn't afraid to stand up for himself, and wouldn't hesitate to argue with me when it suited him. To challenge me. I didn't realize how much I needed that until he was there doing it. I found that, despite his low-class upbringing and working-class status, I respected him a good deal more than any other lover.
"Needless to say, I became quite infatuated rather quickly. I went to the bar Mondays, and he'd come home with me every other Wednesday or so. We didn't call it dating or relationship. He still had his one-offs with people at the bar, and I did dabble with a couple people from the office, too, but there was something.
"I took him to WrestleMania not long after I met him. It was a date, but I didn't dare call it that. For my birthday in May, which happened to fall on a Monday, he pretended he forgot, only to surprise me up at his flat later with dinner, dessert, and gifts. Including these." He held up his wrists to show off the brass-knuckle-shaped gold cufflinks. "It was quite nice.
"I found myself in the frustrating position of wanting to spend more time with him - and not being able to. In those early days, in fact, I'd ask him to join me for lunch or to come by during the day on weekends, and for the most part, he turned me down. Later, he admitted to me it was because he felt like things were becoming 'crazy intense' between us very quickly, and he wasn't prepared for it. Fighting himself over it, in other words, because he wasn't ready
"I called that our best time a bit ago, because it was.
"Despite my near-feverish frustration during the late spring and early summer, we rarely had a bad night - arguing books or music or wrestling, trying to cheat each other at cards, me dragging him along to sample all manner of New York's more, ah, exotic cuisine, him making me sit through some of the most god-awful movies known to man as punishment. We had fun, which wasn't something I'd really had with previous lovers.
"I'm fully convinced if I'd left things alone, we'd have eventually progressed beyond where we were. It would have taken time, but I never saw any signs he was bored or wanted me to stop coming 'round, so I can't help but think I just needed to be patient.
"But I wasn't patient.
"I was frustrated. I wanted.
"And on the day that I came to the bar and found out he'd been badly injured in a fight the night before, that frustration finally prompted me to reach out and simply push him into doing what I wanted."
xXx
Mid-July, and New York City was in the middle of an ungodly heat wave.
William swore to God he could feel the the soles of his shoes melting on the cracked pavement just outside CZW. He shifted his suit coat to his opposite arm as he reached for the bar's splintered black door, frowning as he did at the tacky-looking piece of plywood had been thrown up behind the bar's now-broken front window.
He checked a sigh.
Another bloody bar fight.
He wondered where Dean's bruises would be this time.
Pushing that thought out of mind, he pulled open the door and breathed a quiet sigh of relief as cool air rushed to greet him inside. It really was just an ugly hole in the wall, he reflected as he gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness, but at least the owner - Mr. Zandig, whom William had met once and had found to be rather intense and as vulgar as Dean - wasn't cheap about running the air conditioner.
As per usual Mondays, the place was mostly empty: two long-haired men in leather jackets and bandanas slouched over mugs of beer at a back table, and of course the old drunk Merle sat in his usual spot at the end of the bar. The jukebox, he noticed, was missing altogether and there seemed to be several tables and chairs missing around the floor.
Must have been some fight.
William made his way over to his own usual spot in front of the television and slid onto the stool, tossing his suit coat and messenger bag onto the stool beside him. There was no one actually behind the bar at the moment, which was a bit odd: Dean was almost always sat there reading whatever paperback he'd pulled out of the crates upstairs.
And it wasn't Dean who emerged from the back office, either, but rather Mr. Zandig himself: a stocky chap with thickly-muscled biceps and scarred hands who bulled forward rather than simply walked anywhere. He'd shaved his head completely since William had last seen him. Not a bad look for him, really, although the two big hoop earrings he had in either ear were a bit much.
He seemed tired tonight as he approached William's end of the bar. "He's upstairs," he said, as always coming straight to his point. "We had a big blow-up in here last night, and Mox-" that was Zandig's nickname for Dean, apparently as in moxie "-got the shit kicked out of him. They threw him through the fuckin' window. DJ ran him to the ER last night to get him checked out. Nothing broken. They stuck a yard of stitches in him, though. Docs said he'll be fine in a couple weeks."
The words snapped together in William's head like jigsaw pieces: Fight. Dean injured. Thrown through a window.
A yard of stitches and Dean would be fine?
Cool, dark anger slithered up William's spine like an icy snake.
He laced his hands together on the bar, imprisoning them lest they try to do something naughty.
Dean probably wouldn't approve of his boss's face being smashed into the bar, unfortunately.
When he trusted himself to speak, it was to say, "You really ought to think about the way you run your bar, Mr. Zandig. Encouraging fights the way you do is a surefire way to get someone killed. And even if no one is killed, all it would take is one disgruntled employee or an injured patron to sue you into bankruptcy."
Zandig folded his hairy, meaty forearms over his chest, eyes narrowing. "That better not be a threat, pal."
"Merely an observation," William replied.
"Yeah, well, I didn't ask for your observations, now did I? Don't tell me how to run my bar. Mox was the one stupid enough to jump into the middle it instead of going off to call the goddamn cops like he should've. I've told him I don't know how many times - one or two people, it's fine. More than that, get the cops. Six people last night - you think he was smart enough to stay out of it? No. No, he had to get in there. So it's his own fucking fault he got his ass kicked."
Unperturbed, William slid off the stool. "The point still stands, Mr. Zandig. You encourage fighting - and one of these days someone really is going to be injured badly enough to take you for everything you've got. That's monumentally stupid on your part."
"Hey, mind your own fucking business," Zandig said irritably, pushing away from the bar.
"Dean is my business."
"Yeah, well, he's still fucking half my customers," Zandig said as he disappeared into the back, "so I gotta wonder about that. He's upstairs, like I said, so get the fuck out of my bar."
William didn't even bother to dignify that with an answer, instead gathering his things and making his way up the creaky, narrow side staircase that led up to Dean's tiny flat.
Clearly Mr. Zandig had no intention of changing how he did business here, then - even if it got one of his bartenders killed.
It was not a comforting thought.
He rapped two knuckles against the thin door, and waited until a raspy, "'S open," drifted out to let himself in.
What Dean called home wasn't much: a cramped little sitting room that opened straight up into the kitchen, with a small square of a bedroom through a door off to the left and a claustrophobic closet of a bathroom off that. Not much in the way of furniture: squashy old blue sofa in the living room, a wobbly card table and two dodgy folding chairs that served as a dining table, a few crates full of books serving a dual role as tables and shelves, and a mattress and box spring on the floor in the bedroom beside a broken dresser.
The old off-white wallpaper was peeling from the tops of practically every wall, and the carpet was so worn in spots that the padding underneath was showing through. The linoleum in the kitchen area was curling up around the base of the cabinets, too.
All the charm of a torn cardboard box, this place, but Dean still seemed stubbornly proud of it.
Humble as it was, it was his - the first he'd ever managed to acquire on his own.
At the moment, the lad in question was stretched out on the sofa in shorts and a tee shirt, head propped up on a pillow and a book open on his chest.
William took one good look at him and sighed. "You look like you lost a fight with a blender."
Dean grunted a pained laugh. "I was thinkin' I lost a fight with Freddy Kreuger. 'S about how I feel."
His left eye had been punched halfway shut, the white in it gone a rather demonic red thanks to what was probably a burst blood vessel. His lower lip was puffy and split. There were easily a dozen scabbed-over slashes across his forehead, cheeks, and jaw - and probably another three dozen on his arms and legs, angry lines that crossed every which way. Thick white bandages had been wrapped around his right forearm from wrist to elbow, and his left calf from ankle to knee. Fresh pale bruises blotched the skin under and around all the cuts.
"I don't doubt." William tossed his things on the stack of crates to his right, then went to drag the least-broken folding chair over in front of the couch, noting, as he did, that there was a half-full water glass sat next to a bottle of ibuprofen and an empty plate on the crate that served as Dean's coffee table.
Dean managed a wan smile as William sat. "Hey."
"Evening," William said, crossing his ankle over the opposite knee. "I hear you had a bit of a time of it last night."
"Yeah." Dean's sigh was the scrape of rust flaking away from a pipe, harsh and grating. "Drunks bein' drunks. You know."
"What exactly happened? Your boss didn't say."
"Oh, couple guys in a group of like six got into it," Dean replied, tossing his book down beside his water. "I jumped in to try to cool it down. All six of 'em turned on me. Next thing you know, I'm flyin' out the window. I'd've been okay 'cept they came outside and kicked my ass when I was down in all that glass."
William carefully leaned back in the chair, head inclined. "Hmm. Mr. Zandig made it sound like you waded in when all six of them were fighting. Seemed to think you brought this-" he gestured at all the bruising and cuts "-on yourself."
"Yeah, I heard," Dean muttered waspishly, eyebrows pulling together. "He came up here this morning and chewed me out. He wasn't even there. And DJ didn't get out there 'til after I went through the window, so I don't know what the fuck Zandig was talking about. I didn't jump into six dudes brawling. I'm not that fuckin' stupid."
If there was a lie in any of that, William couldn't spot it. "I didn't think you were," he said. He reached over to settle a light hand on Dean's head, fingers threading through the unruly sandy curls. "How bad is it? Really?"
Dean leaned into the touch, eyes sliding shut. "Stitches are the worst part. Feel like I'm gonna rip 'em open if I move too much. And I got one bruise right over my bellybutton that really hurts. Other than that, I'm just sore. Prolly get up an' try move more tomorrow. Stretch out a little."
"I see," William said. He continued the light scalp massage. "Is your eye all right?"
"You mean Frankeneye?" Dean huffed a laugh through his nose. "Yeah, it's fine. Looks worse 'n it is." He sat up then, slowly, wincing, and plucked William's hand off his head. "Hey, c'mere 'n sit. Too far away over there."
William smiled indulgently and shifted around to take a seat on the couch, tucked right up against the arm.
Without invitation, Dean dropped his pillow onto William's lap and laid his head down there, guiding William's hand to settle in the middle of his chest as he did.
"Any injuries here I need to watch for?" William asked, quietly tapping along the hard ridge if Dean's ribcage.
"Yeah, down around my belly button, like I said. One on my ribs. Right side. Low. Nothing else. I had my hoodie on at least, so I had some protection."
"I see." William settled back against the soft old couch's rear cushion, allowing his hand to wander a bit. "I really don't like seeing you like this."
"I don't like feelin' like this. Prolly not gonna be up for, y'know, screwin' around tonight." Once again, Dean's forehead furrowed. "You don't gotta stay long, if you got work to do tonight."
"I have a few contracts to read over, is all," William said. "D'you mind if I stay? I was rather looking forward to seeing what happened on Raw this week. If you're not up to it, obviously, that's all right. I can certainly go after a bit and leave you to your rest. You need it."
"I'm just sayin," Dean said through a yawn, "that you're really comfortable and you might not be able to get me up if I fall asleep."
Smiling indulgently, William said, "In that case, let me get my contracts and something to drink. Then you can sleep away."
It wasn't as if he had anything pressing to do tonight, anyway.
That, and the way Dean's face relaxed gave away that he'd hoped William would stay. "'S food in the fridge," he said through a yawn, levering himself back up, " if you want, too. Sami went shopping for me today. I dunno what all's in there, but if you find something go for it. Oh, and while you're up, how about a brownie for me?"
"You're lucky I like you, my dear boy," William murmured, shooting him a wry look. "I don't wait on just anyone hand and foot, you know."
That earned him a sunny, unrepentant grin, the effects of which were somewhat marred by the purpling bruises and slashed cut lines. Rather made him look like a horror villain for a moment. "Yeah, well, I'm awesome."
"You're an idiot." William rose and made his way off into the kitchenette. It was close enough to the couch that he didn't even have to raise his voice to add, "D'you know, I saw the window downstairs, and my first thought was 'I bet Dean did that.' I'm not happy to have been right."
Relieved, certainly, that Dean was alive and seemed relatively himself, but still.
Still.
Dean's groan sounded muffled. He'd covered his face with a pillow like a sulky child. "No lectures. I already got one of those today and now I don't got enough ass left to chew."
Skinny as he was, he didn't have much of one to begin with. William huffed a quiet laugh to himself and pulled open the ancient refrigerator, grimacing as always at the door's horrid sharp squeal. "I won't," he said. "I'll just look concerned and tell you I don't like seeing you injured. And not," he added, whipping around just in time to catch Dean open his mouth to say something, "just because it means we can't have sex. Don't you dare. You know better."
"I'm fine," Dean muttered. "Seriously, stop it."
"Stop being concerned? Again, you know better."
Unusually, there was no answer.
As he finished putting together a quick meal of a light salad with chunks of chicken and apple, William contemplated his next move. The stop it hadn't been as defensive as usual. Dean injured and craving company might well mean Dean with his guard down.
Perhaps it was time to make that move he'd been thinking about.
They ate silently, Dean wolfing his brownie hunched against the back of the couch while William steadily made his way through his salad, refusing to be rushed despite the longing looks Dean kept giving his lap.
He really didn't look well, face as pale as his tee shirt, eyes half-lidded and glassy with fatigue.
Probably explained this unusual intrusion into William's personal space; Dean wasn't terribly touchy-feely, and tended to avoid anything more than incidental contact outside of sex or sleeping - even when they sat together watching movies. For him to be doing his best impression of a cat impatient to sit on its master's lap right now likely meant he really wasn't in a good way.
He barely let William set his bowl down on the crate coffee table before he had the pillow - and his head - back down on William's lap, one knee bent up against the back of the soft couch and the other foot down on the floor.
William eyed the inch-thick stack of contracts he'd tucked between his thigh and the couch's arm beside him, but ignored them in favor of quietly surveying the damage that had left Dean looking like a horror movie survivor. Up close, he could see a whole webwork of faint red scratches in and among the deeper cuts, like bizarre species of glass spider had tried to make his cheeks and chin a home. More disturbingly, one of the longer cuts ran on a diagonal from just under Dean's right ear across to the front of his throat.
Much deeper and that one could have slashed an artery.
He tapped a couple of restless fingers against Dean's collar bone, and, on finding Dean's eyes still - barely - open, asked, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'll live," was the tired reply. "Kind of a close call, though."
"I see that."
"Kinda pissed at Zandig, too, you know? Bein' a douchebag about this." He slung his bandaged right arm over his midsection, face tightening. "Sayin', you know, it's my fault and I gotta pay my own medical bills. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? I don't get shit pay here. And, fuck's sake, I was tryin' to keep the bar from gettin' thrashed and other people from gettin' hurt. I didn't fuckin' start it."
That earlier bad taste made its way back into William's mouth, and he shook his head irritably. As if he needed another reason to try to talk Dean into leaving the bar. "You don't pay them," he said firmly. "But don't worry about this right now. It can wait a day or two. Just concentrate on healing up."
Stubborn boy, of course, refused to drop it. "How do I not pay them?"
William gave him a flat look. "Later, I said. Stop worrying about it."
Dean grabbed William's wrist and pinned it to his chest. "You better not do anything," he said. "I can take care of myself, and I don't need trouble."
"I wasn't planning on doing anything." Technically speaking, talking to Mr. Zandig - even threatening him - wasn't actually doing anything, was it? "All I meant was you have options, and I've got a few ideas, so when you're ready we'll talk about them. You can decide how you want to proceed from there. But you're clearly not in any state for that discussion right now, so I'd just as soon leave it for the time being."
"...oh," Dean muttered, gaze skittering away. "Guess that's - um. Yeah, that's cool."
William gently tugged his wrist free and moved up to card light fingers through Dean's hair again, head tipped to one side as he watched Dean stare off at the old gray clock hung over the television.
He should really let Dean sleep, but.
But a guilty Dean was a pliant Dean. A receptive one. It was as good a time as any. "May I ask you something?"
Naturally, the question earned him a wary look. "Yeah…?"
"I promise you I'm not trying to upset you," he said, figuring he might as well get that out in the open first. "I'm just wondering. Are you happy working at the bar? Is it what you really want to be doing, or is it just something you're looking at as a temporary stopover while you get back on your feet?"
He half-expected Dean's expression close down like it tended to anytime he brought anything too personal, but Dean just shifted a bit and folded his hands together over his stomach. "It's not so bad," he said. "Mean, I'm not in love with it, but it's all right when Zandig aint' bein' a dick. Is it what I want to do forever? No."
"Any idea what you do what to do?"
"Not really." Dean sighed. "I think about, like, normal stuff - drivin' a desk or even workin' at a place like this - and I just can't see myself there, you know? I can't see myself doing this forever. Mean, as much fun as I have with all the fights and shit, I get bored. Like to the point sometimes lately where I actually pick the fights. I didn't last night," he added, "I swear, but sometimes if it's just one drunk asshole I do. I'd probably do the same thing at some boring office job, too. Get my ass fired."
"Some people aren't meant to stay inside the lines, you know," William said. He dragged the backs of his fingernails lightly up over Dean's collarbones and back down. "Perhaps that's you. It's certainly me."
"Was that what you expected to be doing?" Dean asked, forehead furrowed. "Working for a criminal?"
"It wasn't what I expected to be doing, no," William replied, "but it's what I want to do, yes. I rather enjoy what I do." He paused deliberately, and added, "Well, as long no one's shoving guns in my face or trying to kidnap me, I should say."
A quickflash of bright, alarmed blue when Dean's eyes popped open. "Shoving-? Does that actually happen?"
"More often than I'd like," William admitted. Suppressing a smile. It was too easy sometimes. "It's part of the job. I'm called to negotiate with drug cartels and powerful crime organizations from other countries. They're dangerous people, but as long as you're appropriately respectful, most of them are civilized. That said, I do occasionally run across the odd group or individual who thinks the way to gain a foothold in Eric's organization is by killing me. In fact, d'you remember a few weeks ago I came back from my trip to Mexico?"
"Yeah?"
"My idiot former bodyguard insulted our hosts to the point they wanted to execute us."
Injuries apparently forgotten, Dean swiveled up sitting. "Jesus fucking Christ, are you serious?"
"As a heart attack," William said grimly. Laying it on thick: his now-former bodyguard had blundered, but after a quick word with the gentleman at the table, William had been able to smooth things over with minimal harm done. "I spent an uncomfortable amount of time with a gun shoved under my chin. I quite thought I'd finally met my end, but fortunately, I was able to talk my host into sparing us. But that blunder did quite cost us in the negotiation."
"You – who the fuck cares about the negotiation?" An angry flush had worked its way up the pale skin on the back of his neck. "You had a gun in your fucking face."
"It's not the first time."
"Not the – Jesus Christ, William! Seriously, what the fuck are you doing?"
"My job," William said implacably. "It's not without its perils, admittedly. But so far – knock on wood – the only serious injury I've sustained was a broken collarbone when I was kidnapped two years ago."
Dean looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel, his face was so red. Anger and worry. A thing of beauty. "Wh-? Fuck. How did you get – no. No, you know what? I don't care. You didn't fucking tell me you almost got killed in Mexico, you asshole."
"You didn't tell me you nearly got your throat slit last night," William said, pointedly looking down at the nasty slash across Dean's jugular. "So."
"I was fine."
"So was I."
"You could have gotten killed." Stubbornly. A dog with a rotten bone it refused to give up.
"So could you," William replied. "All it would have taken was one stray shard of glass. Don't tell me I'm not right to be concerned when you just said you're starting fights out of boredom. All that would take is the wrong word to the wrong person."
"I can take care of myself," Dean said waspishly.
William eyed the bandages again. "Clearly."
"Hey, I'm not the one getting guns shoved in my face. Jesus Christ. Are you out of your mind?"
"No, you're the one being thrown through bloody plate glass windows and turning up with new bruises every time I see you." He held up a hand. "Before you say it, I know you can handle yourself in a fight. I've seen you. It doesn't mean I don't worry. As I said, all it would take is you distracted and one angry drunk with a broken bottle."
Dean's swollen mouth tightened. "What about you, asshole? One wrong word to some crazy drug dealer or something, and you got a fuckin' bullet in your head. That ain't exactly something I wanna think about."
Once again pleased by the anger and worry - tell me again you don't have feelings for me you, you rotten bastard - writ large in Dean's expression, William shifted. He reckoned he now knew what a climber who'd finally found a foothold on a smooth rock face felt.
This could not have gone better if he'd scripted it.
"Then don't," he said. "I have an idea, actually. It would get you out of the bar and it would give me someone I know is good in a fight - and that I could actually trust - to watch my back." He leaned forward to settle a hand on an uninjured spot on Dean's knee. "I've been thinking about this almost since I met you, you know. I have it every time I see you wade into a bad situation." Three or four times now he'd seen it. No fights ever broke out - Dean typically wasn't in the mood for it Mondays - and the speed with which Dean could have the would-be fighters showing their bellies was quite amusing.
"The way you carry yourself, the way you aren't afraid to fight - I think you'd make a good bodyguard." He watched some shadow flicker across Dean's expression, a cloud blotting the sun, and leaned forward a bit more. "With training, of course. I don't mean stick a gun in your hand tomorrow and expect you to know your elbow from a hole in the ground. But. You're not stupid. You know how to fight. You could learn is my point. And then you could break away from this monotony. Travel the world with me. That way we don't have to worry about randomly finding out one or the other has been killed, you've got something interesting to do that'll pay you obscenely well, and I've got someone reliable and trustworthy to keep an eye on things."
A kind of strained silence fell between them, tense, as if two people were playing tug 'o war with the air between them.
Dean's battered face held nothing readable; nor did his eyes, those odd things in their seas of red and white. When he finally ventured to break the quiet, it wasn't to give an answer. "How do you do it, though? You're one of the smartest people I know. You could be doin' your negotiatngs and deal makings or whatever for a legitimate company. So how the fuck do you get mixed up in all this crime shit?"
When William had told Dean about all this back in May, he'd expected a question like this.
Dean had never asked; in fact, he'd barely said a word about any of it after William's hushed nighttime confession of the exact nature of his work. They'd never discussed it. Dean didn't appear to begrudge an occasional stray reference, but he didn't encourage it.
Still, William was just as ready with his answer now as he'd been then. "I don't think about the illegal nature of most of it that often. Most days I'm busy in meetings and having paperwork drawn up. I do it because I enjoy the challenge. Matching wits with members of rather powerful crime organizations across a negotiating table. Devising ways to hide and launder money. Figuring out how to stay a step ahead of the authorities. Even coming up with ideas to help our legitimate businesses prosper. It engages me." He tapped the side of his head. "There's not a legitimate job out there that offers that could match this.
"I'm thirty-one," he went on, "and I've done more in two years than most people do in a lifetime. And I'm sat in position where if Eric gets himself killed like I think he will, I'll be the one person equipped to walk in and take the reigns. I know all the players. I know where all the pieces are. I know where all the bodies are buried. I know better than Eric does. It's just a matter of time."
Dean's expression remained infuriatingly inscrutable. He pushed WIlliam's hand away from his knee. "So, what, 'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven'? That kinda where you're going with this?"
Pleased all over again, William nodded, "That's where I'm going."
"And all the illegal shit you guys are doing - you don't care."
"If it isn't us, it's someone else." William hitched his elbow up onto the couch's arm. "The demand for what we sell, what we bring to the market, has been around since long before Eric went into business. It'll still be there long after we're gone. People will simply look elsewhere for what they want. It's a choice. Lest you forget, no one is forcing them to buy what we're selling, or even forcing them to buy it from us. It's their choice, and what they choose to do with what they buy is not my concern."
"So you sell a gun to some asshole who walks in and shoots up a school, and you just - you, what, you just say 'Oh well'? Not my problem?"
"You pour a drinks all day for an alcoholic who then goes home and beats his wife and children to death," William countered. "Does that make you responsible?"
Dean closed his mouth, uncertainty cracking his self-righteous indignation.
Another foothold. "It doesn't." William said. Brisk. Assured. "Because those sorts of acts require a conscious choice, and no one is responsible for those choices except the person making them. Giving someone a drink, putting a gun in their hand - it still doesn't make that act happen. We're not out there saying 'take this gun and do this' any more than you're saying 'you're drunk enough now - go do that.'" He inclined his head. "The responsibility for those sorts of acts ultimately lies with the people who actually choose to do them - not me, or the people I work with. Or you, in the other case.
"That's not to say I don't feel bad, because I do." 'Bad' might have been overstating it, but it felt like the right thing to say. Dean's scabbed-over fists, balled up on his thighs, unclenched. "You never like to see a waste of life like that. But. I'd ask questions like 'What went wrong in that person's life that brought them to that point? Were there signs that were missed? Why did they feel like they needed to take that action in the first place?' It's never as clear-cut as 'I sold him the gun, so I caused him to go shoot someone.' That's a crap argument. There's virtually always something else driving it."
After another a long, considering pause, Dean nodded. Looked a bit grudging, but it was good to see nonetheless. "I guess you got a point there," he admitted. "It's like, I serve these people drinks at the bar and they get drunk, but I don't know what they're gonna do once they leave. Mean, if I think something's gonna happen, I might call somebody, but otherwise, how the fuck do I know?"
"You don't." His hand, that wicked thing, stole out again and found its way back to Dean's knee. "You can feel bad it happened and feel bad for the people involved, but you're still not responsible for something like that happening. That's my point. All I do is facilitate selling people things. What they do once they what they've been sold is neither my business nor my problem."
"Yeah, I get it," Dean said, yet again pushing William's hand away from him. "So you're really okay with it?"
"Yes," William said. This time he took hold of Dean's wrist, openly defying him to shake the touch off. "Some people are meant to stay inside the lines, to stay on that gerbil wheel to nowhere, to grind out a menial and mundane existence. But I'm not one of them, and neither are you - and you know it." He tightened his grip. "I really think you'd be good at this. As I said, you'd have to be trained, and it's in the training we'd find out for certain, but I absolutely believe it's worth a try. I guarantee you you won't be bored. You won't be wanting for a fight, either. When you're training, you'll be doing rather a lot of that with men twice your size - who can take a punch."
Dean jerked his arm away. "Don't fuckin' touch me," he snapped. "And it sure is funny - you freak out if I'm fighting here at the bar, but hey, it's okay if I'm doing it where you want me to be."
"I'm not actually worried about the fighting," William pointed out. Struggling not to lose that foothold. "I do know you can handle yourself. I just don't want you getting injured or killed because you were bored here at the bar. At least if you were working for me, the fighting you did would either be for training purposes or would be out on a job. You'd be earning a lot of money from something you seem to want to do anyway - while keeping me safe, traveling extensively to all manner of exotic places, and not being stuck here. Perhaps I'm missing something, but where's the downside?"
There was no immediate answer; Dean sat tapping his fingers on his thighs - pinky to forefinger and back - while he mulled it over, shoulders pulled in and eyelids looking heavy with fatigue. "I don't wanna be around drugs," was what he said. "I'm - I put that shit behind me, but, you know, temptation…"
"You won't be," William assured him. "That's not my world. I only broker the deals that give us the supplies to sell. I never see any of the merchandise myself - nor do I want to. You won't either."
"And you really think…? I mean, you're not just blowing smoke up my ass, right? Like you really want me to do this. You think I can."
"We won't know that for sure until you've begun training, obviously," William said. "But, having said that, yes, I really do. You're a sharp lad, and I don't think you give yourself enough credit for that. You're a fighter. And you're not afraid to get in there and get your hands dirty. That's exactly the sort of attitude I need in someone who's going to protect me. I want you to do it because I genuinely believe you can."
It might have been a trick of the light, but he he swore he saw color creep into Dean's slashed-up cheeks.
"So come to work for me," he pressed, fingers yet again finding their way across the gap. Dean's thigh, this time, near one balled-up fist. "At least give it a try."
"Okay, okay, all right," Dean muttered down at his legs. No question about the color in his cheeks now. "All right. Fuck. Fine. You really want me to - like if you really do - I'll give it a shot. Somebody's gotta keep you from getting your stupid head blown off. Seriously. You're – fuck, all this time, and I didn't even realize I might not fucking see you again. Fuck you for not telling me sooner."
"I'm sorry," William said. "I should have."
"Yeah." He swallowed. "But so you know, I don't know dick about that kind of job. So if I suck at it, it's your fucking fault. I wanna protect you. I fucking will. But – yeah. I don't know the right way or anything. If you really want me to, like I said, if you're sure, I will."
William released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and permitted himself a small smile. The mountain had been climbed, and now it was time to relax and enjoy the view. "That's what the training is for, idiot boy," he said fondly. "And no, I don't want you to work for me at all, really. I just enjoy lying to you and making a fool of myself for your amusement."
Sometimes Dean was the most unpredictable person William knew.
Other times, he was so predictable it was quite hilarious.
Now, for example, just as William anticipated, Dean's mouth twitched, mirth breaking through the gruffness in his expression. "I knew it," he said, tired eyes rolling. "You're such an asshole."
"Oh, hush," William fluffed the pillow on his lap. "Lie back down, will you? You look like you're about done in."
"Well, I was gonna try to take a nap," Dean said through a yawn, "but somebody had to jump my ass when I told him not to. Hope you're happy. I got, like, negative ass now."
"Not to hurt your feelings, but you didn't exactly have-"
"Shut up." Dean stretched himself back out, knees popping as he propped his feet up on the couch's other arm. "You're gonna have to give me a couple weeks to get shit arranged here, you know. I ain't just gonna up and walk away from Zandig 'til I know what's what about these medical bills. And, you know, prolly have to find a new place to live."
As tempting as it might have been to offer Dean the use of his guest room, William resisted. He wasn't quite ready to have Dean so completely in his space just yet - nor did he think Dean was ready to. "We've got our own in-house real estate person," he said instead, fingers sneaking down to pluck at the bit of fabric right over one of Dean's nipples. "It's a job benefit. We tell her how much you want to pay in rent, and she'll find you something. All of our employees get that opportunity."
Through a yawn, Dean said, "What's the pay like?"
"For now, I think the rate is something like four thousand a month while you're in training, and double that when you're full-time. You get bonuses and raises, so you'll be pulling in six figures inside a year if you stick with it."
Dean's eyebrows hitched. "Six…? Holy shit."
William shifted a bit to put the pillow more evenly across his legs. "I believe - as does Eric - in taking care of the people who take care of me. And, on top of that, we'll get to spend more time together. That can't be a bad thing, can it?"
"Well, no, but…" A hint of anxiety in the way Dean's swollen lower lip disappeared between his teeth. "You know I'm not gonna stop fucking other people, right?"
"Yes, I do actually know you a bit, dear boy," William replied dryly. "As long as you're not chasing them in front of me, do whatever you like. When you're with me, however, it's just me."
"Always is. Just - same for you."
"Yes, yes, of course. Now hush. Just rest. We can discuss this more at length later."
Dean's eyelids drifted shut. "Don't let me sleep through Raw."
It was still two hours until it started, according to the clock over the television. William picked up the inch-thick stack of contracts he'd set beside him when he'd sat down earlier. "I won't."
There was nothing but a sleepy nonsense mumble of an answer.
William smiled indulgently down at the - his - boy's battered face and, for the first time in quite a long while, felt something like contentment settle in.
No, they weren't where he wanted to be just yet, but they were on their way.
[Finis]