Butch O´Neal has only known three ways of waking up in the morning after he´d reached his thirties. The first one was with a woman. He used to think about it as the best way, unless he´d managed to fuck of the woman´s name from his head the night before and woke up with a really bad sense of problems on the road.
Dana? Sarah? Jess? No? What about Sally?
He´s hardly guessed right on the first time and then they always disappeared afterwards, leaving only the smell of perfume on his bed. He was good with this. He preferred it this way.
That was a long time ago.
The second way of waking up included Marissa. She was the one who stayed and he was the one who wanted her to stay. Every time he bent for a kiss, she smelled like roses. Sweet. And soft. He always wondered why she didn´t break under his touch. So soft… Like a vase. Porcelain Chinese Vase. Priceless.
And then there was a third way of waking up. Drunk. Alone. Destroyed.
Those three waking up scenarios were following in Butch´s life one after another, right in this order. Few weeks ago he wouldn´t imagine any change or returning back to his old ways. When the scenery of waking up changed for once, it was for once and for all. No returning. Just as he couldn't get from Marisa to other women, he couldn´t get from his drunk self back to Marisa. It was past, however painful.
The forth way, unknown before this moment, appeared suddenly kicking itself through the door saying: "Hey, this is it. This is the next move."
Butch opened his eyes.
He found himself resting on his stomach, blanket at his feet, hands under the pillow. He felt the smell in the air. The smell of hand-rolled cigarettes, dark and spicy, comfortable and safe, filling his nostrils and burning his lungs.
And there he was. The source.
Sitting on the same bed with his back on the wall. Morning messy hair covering his face, strong lines even sharper than usually and icy stare in the distance. A lot of exposed skin.
"How do you feel?" Butch murmured into the pillow, turning his face to the side. V always knew, when he was awake. He didn´t surprise him.
"Better." He gazed at him with diamond eyes releasing a cloud of smoke above his head. "You?"
Butch watched the other man skeptically just like he would expect V not to tell the truth. But he looked alright. Maybe a little pale. Little numb as he was maneuvering his cigarette to his mouth again.
"I´m good." Tired. Drained of. But glad you´re ok. "How long you´re awake?"
"Just above an hour," he said.
Butch´s attention immediately slipped to one of V´s leg spontaneously rising up and bending in the knee following with the side effect of blanket falling away and showing his naked thigh. The fucking blanket. He didn´t even realize he was up on his elbows a second later.
"Wrath came to say a hello."
"What?"
Butch stiffened. As the last remains of the dream´s fog disappeared, he sat up on his legs.
V was looking back at him with a slight smirk on his face. He had to see, what was Butch examining before.
"Fritz," he guessed, "I didn´t tell him not tell anyone…"
"He can´t lie to the king anyway, cop. Neither could Rhage. Wrath didn´t mention if he questioned someone else about the night. But he knows that Lethre was involved too."
Butch tried to analyze in how much trouble they were exactly, but V didn´t seem to be angry or disappointed despite their obvious effort to keep this headache-vision-shit in silence.
"What did you say to him?"
His answer was calm without any visible emotion: "I said that I have it under control, which I clearly don´t."
So much for not lying to your king…
"And I said I… forced you… to help me and not to tell anybody. Yesterday was the first time you saw me having any problems. Same for Lethre."
"You´re an idiot," Butch couldn´t help his tone to be a little more furious than he indented to, "he couldn´t believe you a single word. We live together for fuck´s sake! How couldn´t I know? Same for the forcing… He isn´t stupid, V."
"Probably."
Butch watched him bent over the bed to take something from the nightstand. A glass of water. He took a sip and returned it back.
"But he can´t call me a liar without an evidence. When you two will shut up, he can´t do anything."
"Yeah, hero. And you will take all the whipping as always, right? Forget that."
Their eyes met, Butch held that gaze. He meant it.
"It´s my problem, cop."
"I said, forget that."
His face was still, but the usual stubbornness was missing. Something, what reminded Butch how bad he looked in that damn icy water refusing to wake up. He didn´t feel 100% yet. Otherwise he would have a fucking vodka instead of water in that glass. He would fight with him by now…
"I don´t get why you should take any responsibility for anything in the first place. We weren´t on the duty yesterday. Nothing bad happened. Wrath can´t know…" He stopped in the middle of the sentence, when he noticed V´s face.
"I had a headache in his presence once," he cleared out, "he told me to get checked. So he knows it wasn´t only yesterday."
"Jesus…" Butch ran through his hair desperately, "so what now? Can he do something to you? Because you didn´t listen to him? Can he make you…. I don´t know… offer a Rythe?"
"He can´t make me. But I will do it willingly, if he´ll decide to tell the brotherhood and they will feel endangered by the situation I put them in without them knowing."
"Nothing happened!"
"But it could." He frowned seriously. "It could happen in the fight."
"We all have our things, V," Butch started again, not clearly aware of the reason why he needed to defend and explain anything, "Rhage has the beast, I have the fucking darkness…"
He didn´t continue, because he knew that he was talking stupid before he could even remember another example. All those things he mentioned were permanent and they all knew about them and were prepared for them. He understood V´s point.
"He wanted to meet us later. Others have gone to the streets."
The blinds. They were up. And behind the window there was a night smiling at Butch´s disoriented face.
How long has he been asleep? His intention was to take a small nap, when there was a moment of piece, not to fucking hibernate…
"How could I not wake up, when Wrath was here?"
V´s look gave him the simplest answer. You were exhausted, even the tornado would make you hardly open one eye.
"At least he didn´t scream at me, when he saw me."
-What kind of idiot would scream at you in that state-, Butch thought noticing the black circles under his eyes for the first time. He couldn´t quickly decide if it make him look more fragile or dangerous, or both.
"So the vision," he started carefully after a minute of silence, choosing the right words, "did you have any?" He heard a small hope in his own voice as he was asking.
Vishous heard it too, but he shook his head instead of a positive answer.
"It was no vision. It was something else." And you know what it was.
"Are you sure you are having those headaches because of the visions then?" Butch needed to ask, not because he was doubting V´s sixth sense, but because of what he´d seen in his head before.
"I´m sure," he said with no place for dubiousness. He looked up on Butch. Frowning.
"I was thinking and now I know who´s death it will be."
Butch had a bad feeling that he knew it too, but didn´t want to admit it.
"I care about all my brothers and my friends," Vishous uttered the words without any feeling of love or anything else coming out to confirm his statement, but it wasn´t necessary. He was telling the truth.
"But everything… this pain, shit… " he shook his head again, not looking on Butch, like he lost the track of his own thoughts, "it feels like the vision can´t come, because I´m not ready, because I would not handle it."
Butch didn´t interrupt him.
"I think," he took a deep breath in, "that it´s gonna be either your death or mine." The weight of the confession was hanging in the air like a hawk preparing for a hunt. "And I don´t care so much about my life. So it´s probably gonna by yours after all."
Butch was moving closer to the spot, where V was watching the wall, but when he heard the last sentence he stopped in the movement.
"What did you say?"
Finally Vishous looked at him again. Seriously.
"Next time…" he paused, "if it will happen ever again," he rather corrected himself, "you can´t touch me, you get me?"
They were sitting close. So close that Butch could see a worry in those cold beautiful eyes.
"What do you mean, not to touch you? How the hell am I supposed to get you home then?"
"That´s the thing... you aren´t." Butch realized he had his hand on V´s arm.
"You can´t see your own death, cop. You don´t want to. Trust me."
He almost started to laugh.
"So I should do like what? Leave you on the street unconscious?" he barked out with ironically smile crossing his lips. "You can´t be serious."
But he was.
"That´s not going to happen, V. Come on… We always have each other´s backs, true? If you can see your death I can see mine too." I only need to know you´re good. Safe.
This wasn´t exactly the truth. Butch was scared as hell to see his last seconds in this world, but he was even more scared of what these vision attacks were doing to V. No way he could let him cope on his own.
"You´re so stubborn." There was a small hint of admiration presented in the words. Watching V´s lips making them up was a dangerous threat to Butch´s attention.
"No surprise."
"Cop, stop to play a hero."
"You first."
Shit. One could never know how V felt about the person. But then he says something like: - Well, I have those crazy killing headaches because my brain cannot process you dying – and it´s just much more than anything else he could say or do. Because you know he cares. You find it weirdly sweet and attractive. Even more because when you look at him, you know, he has no clue how much he is telling you between the lines.
"I wanted to apologize," Butch suddenly remembered, "you know… I didn´t mean to get in your head. It just happened." Maybe not the best idea to bring this up now, but better now than never.
His face hardened.
"I know." It seemed like the next words weren´t mean for Butch or for anyone in particular. "I would never wanted you to see that…"
"Is he alive?"
Silence.
"No."
"Did you kill the bastard?"
"No. Payne did."
Payne. His sister.
Oh God, how he would like to do it himself. Rip the guts from the fucker´s body and feed him with it. What a son of bitch could do such horrible things to his own child? Butch watched V curiously. He could see his personality formed by his godforsaken father.
He realized something.
"Wait, so when we were last time… ehm… together… The reason, why you suddenly stopped?" He didn´t need to continue. In the moment it all came clear. Butch played the last scene from his memory-trip with gritted teeth in his head. Vishous. On the table. Doctor with pliers. He hadn´t seen the end. Fuck.
He knew he made him feel uncomfortable. This was his room and he couldn´t run away from the situation.
"I don´t want to talk about it right now, Butch."
"I won´t pity you, if this is the problem. I just want to know, V." I need to know.
He turned away. "No." For a quick moment he looked like he wanted to get up. Butch just turned him back with the force receiving a quiet growling with his fangs visibly drawing out from parted lips.
"Leave me alone." Hell, was it even his voice?
"No way," he spat the reply back at him. "Don´t I deserve it? How many times will I have to ask for your thrust? I won´t leave you."
His eyes widened after the last sentence and Butch knew he hit the target. This was dangerous. He felt it. They could very easily break into fight.
"I´ve never thought it could come to this point…"
What? What point?
"We should end it now."
Butch froze to a statue.
He didn´t mean it. He fucking didn't mean it.
Vishous stood up, blanket around his waist. He stayed turned with his muscled back to Butch, not moving.
"You kissed me, remember?" Butch hissed after some time of the deep silence, still sitting. Was it a shock? Well, it wasn´t that serious between them… so why he was feeling so…
"You kissed me back."
He started to move towards the door.
"You have no future with me anyway. More time we spend together, the worse it will be, when you find someone good for you."
"Worse for who?"
He didn´t expect him to reply.
Butch jumped out of bed, surprised by the fury he felt.
"You can´t start something with me and then just walk away. What am I to you? A toy?"
Damn, either they were fucking or fighting, they always ended pinned to something. A door this time.
"I know what this is about," Butch was trying not to yell, but it was hard. "You aren´t perfect, V, deal with it. Hey, look at me! I´m not perfect. Do you think that it´s easy for me when you touch me after I inhale those motherfuckers? Every time I feel so dirty that I´m afraid of you getting infected too."
They stayed quiet for some time, close.
"That´s a bullshit, cop."
"Yes it´s a bullshit, but on the both sides."
The seconds were passing by. Faster than usual, because Butch´s heart beat faster. Because he was afraid.
And then at once he was completely calm.
There were some times, when he couldn´t decide if Vishous wanted to throw a punch or kiss him, but there were also some times, when he knew.