Thanks to: Shadow914, Readergirl99, shiningpearls, Spencerblue, 6000j, Steinbock and The Littlest Mouse for the reviews!
WARNINGS: Swearing and, finally, gruff!fluff incoming!
I was gonna cut this one in half, but it'd be two short chapters and I thought you'd all prefer it as one big one. Let me know if you'd rather have two short ones in future and I'll factor that in. I like to keep my chapters around 3K - 5K normally, so if that works for you it works for me!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Evasion
Fields, Outskirts of Dublin
"Stop right there!"
He had stepped out into the beam of the headlights too obviously not to be seen by the driver.
The car which had followed him as he ran up the road at full pelt, screeched to a halt on the grass verge, the door flying open almost before the handbrake had been cinched on.
He threw himself over the nearest gate and into the field beyond, his heart hammering, and kept running. The sun-hardened ruts of the ploughed ground were dangerous on the ankles, but he had done a lot of rough-terrain training recently in Israel and he leapt along the furrows easily. He jumped another fence with barely a touch of one hand on the top rail, landed in the thick, tacky mud of what in wetter months was probably a bog and slogged through it until he could vault over a stile at the far side.
The man chasing him shouted after him, but Dom wasn't unduly worried; or at least not until he heard the bark.
"Stand still or I'll release the dog!"
Still, he knew how to lose a tail – even a tail with a tail; there was a small river just ahead he could use to disrupt his scent trail. If it was flowing well, it would also hide the sound of his unavoidably noisy splashing as he tracked upstream.
But when he reached it, he swore under his breath. The hot weather recently had parched the ground, the rain showers they'd had last week guzzled greedily by the soil, leaving little for the river. It was slow; almost stagnant. A large frog burped in alarm and slid off the bank, landing in a shallow, frothy pool with a hollow plop.
Dom put his hands on his knees and forced the muggy air into his lungs. All this sprinting about in Irish summer weather was taking its toll on him. He wished he'd thought to launch his hoodie in a different direction when he'd jumped a fence to confuse the dog somewhat - that and the fact he was already uncomfortably overheated, sweat plastering his t-shirt to his back.
"Stop! Police officer with a dog!"
He launched himself over the stream-bed and pounded on.
Torchlight swathed randomly in front of his pursuer. There was a sudden, sharp curse when the human didn't see the water until the last second and then...
Dom was too far ahead to hear the snap of the lead being unclipped or the command of 'Go get!', but he heard clearly enough the shout of;
"Dog loose! Stand still! Stop and stand still with your arms up or you will be bitten!"
The barking intensified and got rapidly closer, cutting out as the dog picked up pace and cleared the distance between them like a bolt of furry lightening.
Dom put one last gate between them then slowed, turning to see what he was up against. He had seen many a security dog at work, taking down grown men much bigger than himself. Faster, too. He was hot, he was exhausted and he had no desire to be bitten by a police K9 today. Although after the evening he'd just had, maybe it would round it off nicely to add a couple of puncture wounds to the steadily growing list of injuries he had to deal with.
"Alright, I'm sorry!" he called. "I'm here. I've stopped."
"Stand still! Let me see your hands!" the officer shouted, dazzling him with a torch – classic tactics.
He was quite impressed by the dog's flying leap over the five-bar gate, but even more so when it pulled up short in front of him as he stood with his hands raised up and out to the side, elbows at right-angles like he had been taught.
It barked so loudly he felt his organs reverberate in his chest, it's breath hot and humid and smelling ever so slightly of 'bacon snacks'.
The dog, he recognised instantly, was PD Wilson of Dublin Police Force.
Which meant the officer was...
"Evening, Jim," he said with an apologetic sort of shrug. "Nice night for a moonlit stroll, eh?"
"I thought it might be you. Dubs, good boy. Cease and down," Officer Holt said, somewhat tiredly.
Dubsy stopped barking immediately, wagging his tail hopefully for the tennis ball he knew his handler had in his pocket. Or a chest scratch, which he would settle for after such an easy job. To him it was all a game, of course. And this time even more so. He would have taken Dom down if Jim had told him to, of course, but as far as he was concerned, this was a training exercise; just like when Jim let him play rough with the new recruits in the yard back at the station.
"Why'd you run, Dom?" Jim asked, opening the gate with a little difficultly. He was panting almost as much as his dog and wiped his brow with the back of one hand.
Dom kept his eyes away from the the torchlight to preserve his night vision, but he heard the metallic ping of the gate springs giving as it opened.
"Didn't know it was you," he said. "You should shout 'Holt, Police'. Like 'Halt' as in 'Stop', but your name so I know that it's you and..."
"Boy, why in hell's name are you all the way out here this late?" the policeman interrupted him, raising an eyebrow in the dark. Normally a man of humour himself, at this hour having chased the young Butler across two fields, a bog and a stile, he was not best impressed. "Making me run after you like that. It ain't no fun, kid."
"Nice night, isn't it?" Dom shrugged. "Went for a jog."
"And then what? You got lost?"
"Sure, if you like."
Holt snorted. "No grandson of The Butler gets lost in the Irish countryside, Dom."
'The' was capitalised by inflection and, not for the first time, Dom remembered the man knew what stock he came from and that he held them in the greatest regard.
"Hey – I did a couple of years ago. It was snowing pretty badly to be fair, but I..."
"Come on, lad. What's happened?" PC Holt asked, running the light up and down the boy.
"Nothing. Just... like I said. Fancied a jog. Nothing illegal about that, right?"
"You ain't fooling me, kiddo. You're being chatty," Jim drawled. "You're only chatty when you're hiding something."
"Not true," Dom tried. "I only chat to people I like, though. You should be honoured."
"Nice try," he scoffed. "What happened? You steal something? Beat someone up? Go back to finish that fight with those lads earlier? Just tell me son, we can sort it out... Jesus Christ!"
Dom ducked his head away from the light. He hated being called 'son'. But better he heard it from the well-meaning Jim, than from Paul.
"I saw you what – " Holt checked his watch " – like six hours ago and what in hell has happened to you since then?"
"Ah, you know," Dom muttered. "Like you said; I went back to finish the fight. White's gang followed me home and..."
"I dropped you at the gate! Don't lie to me, kid."
"Well I went back out, didn't I?" Dom said, firmly. "Else how would I be all the way out here?"
"Bullshit," said the officer plainly.
Dom opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Bull. Shit," Jim said again, with added accentuation. "No kids have done that. Not to you."
It made sense to him suddenly. The radio had been spouting chatter of a drunken male causing trouble near Durrick Court. Someone else had reported a teenager running over the back walls of their house headed for the outskirts of town and, having had more than his fair share of dealings with drunkards, Jim had shouted up for that job instead. That and the fact that 'Domonic Brady' had popped up on the force's list of missing youths almost immediately after the complaint about the rowdy male setting car alarms off and breaking down fences. Despite the fact many of them were perfectly competent, he knew there was only one officer that particular boy would turn up for. And as recently demonstrated, that would be a close call as it was. Two and two make four – and two again makes six. He'd checked up on who had reported the missing teenager and he now had a very strong feeling he knew who the 'drunken male' he'd likely be bumping into in custody later was, too.
"Why'd he do it?" he said, chucking Dubsy his tennis ball to quiet the dog's whining.
"Pissed him off, didn't I?" Dom shrugged, only just managing not to wince at the sudden movement of Holt's hand as he threw the ball.
Holt eyed him carefully. It was a wonder the kid was still standing, let alone outrunning police in the backfields of County Dublin.
"Come on kid – let's get you home."
Dom took a sharp step back and Dubsy half-rose out of his 'down', tennis ball dropping from his mouth, forgotten in an instant – was this round two of the game?
"I'm not going back there," he said, backing away. "Fuck that. No way."
"I said 'home', Junior. I know where you call home," Jim sighed, holding the gate open for him and motioning Dubsy through with a hand gesture. "Bring your ball, doofus."
The dog snatched it up, and threw it at his master's feet with a flick of his jaws, tail wagging.
"But it's out of your area," Dom frowned.
"I can stretch, but I need to call it in. Half the force not tied up with Prince Charming back there will be looking out for you."
"Quiet night?" Dom muttered.
"You're an underage MISPER, in case you didn't know."
"Kids run away all the time. Why am I any different?"
"Because it was Mrs Patel that called it in and she sounded worried as all hell about you."
Dom looked down at his dusty trainers.
"People care about you, you know, kid? Including me. Now come on – let's trek back before some country bumpkin thinks it's a good idea to take a police car for a joyride. Come, Dubsy," the policeman said, as he dipped low and threw the ball again. His dog happily chased after it, chomping on it before carrying it proudly at a trot, every bit the pet on a walk. "Did you have to run so damn far? Jesus, boy just give it a hundred metres or so to save face then give it up next time..."
Jim didn't look back. He knew Dom would make the sensible decision and follow.
The Butler boy sighed and closed the gate, trudging after them across a stream, two fields, a bog and a stile.
Constable Jim Holt's Police Car, Back Roads of County Dublin - en route to Fowl Manor
PC Holt called in his found missing person on the police car's radio and got leave to take Dom across the border of the city police into the countryside beyond.
The winding roads calmed the teen, despite the fact that the very last of the summer light had long-since vanished over the horizon and the high beams threw monstrous shadows in the hedgerows.
The humans in the car were quiet. The only sound was Dubsy's panting in the mild, midnight air.
"This has to stop, Dom," Holt said after a while. "We can't keep doing this."
"I know. I'm sorry I ran. And I wasn't expecting a lift..."
"That wasn't what I meant and you know it."
Dom was silent in the back of the car.
"He could have killed you, Dom."
"Yeah, well he didn't."
"You need to press charges. Get him sorted. Banged up for a bit to teach him a lesson. He can't keep getting away with this."
The boy in the back avoided the eye contact he tried to make in the mirror.
"Dom," Jim said, changing tack. "What if he hits your mother? Does he hit your mother?"
"No. He doesn't. Just me."
"Are you sure?"
"I wasn't expecting the lift," he said again, shortly. "You can just drop me here and I'll walk the rest."
The police officer sighed through his nose, knowing he would get nowhere with the boy and their relatively pally relationship relied on him not pushing the subject. He'd pass the task on to someone the boy couldn't eject from his life. Like his grandfather. Jim himself would see if he could tackle Theresa with the idea tomorrow whilst Paul was still in lock up.
"Firstly, as much as I know you can probably run there in a few hours, you look like shit and I ain't just turfing you out," he said, dropping his pursuit of a charge for now. "And secondly, even if I was a heartless bastard, I still need to hand you over to a responsible guardian for the paperwork."
"Well Uncle's skiing on the continent with the boss and Pa will be asleep and not best pleased if we wake him up so..."
"Your Gramps is awake. I called him already to say you were missing again and I was on your trail."
"What did he say?" Dom asked.
"Good Luck, actually," Jim snorted. "Said he'd come find you in the morning if you didn't turn up."
"Harson, you arsehole..." Dom muttered.
"What's that?"
"I rang ahead too. He said Pa was asleep."
"You ring the manor?"
"Yeah."
"Should've rang his extension number."
Dom huffed a laugh. "Yeah I should. Wasn't thinking straight. I'll keep that in mind for next time."
Jim pulled a face. "I'm hoping there won't be a next time, personally."
Dom hummed and stroked the dog next to him and changed the subject slightly. "So you knew it was me you were chasing just now?"
"I had my suspicions," Holt nodded. "Then Dubsy gave me a clue. He went into 'training mode'. He does it when he's chasing officers in the yard for practice. Totally different bark."
Dom scratched Dubsy's chest absently. "Good boy."
"He'd have still bitten you – don't get too comfy back there," Jim said sternly, catching his eye in the rear-view mirror at least. The boy gave a small smile; he didn't doubt it either.
"What makes you think Pa will know you've found me?" Dom asked. "You haven't buzzed him whilst I've been in the car."
"Come on now, kid," Jim snorted. "Like your family don't have access to all the police scanners. He'll have just heard me report back finding my MISPER and know we're on our way."
Dom smiled. He knew full well his grandfather had a number of 'stalkie-talkies' as he called them; wireless radios tapped into all sorts of security and observation channels, including those of the emergency services. He just wasn't quite sure how much the police officer knew about them.
"And don't tell me I'm right," Jim said, holding up one finger. "I don't need to know."
Dom grinned at him in the rear-view mirror and said nothing.
Fowl Manor, Dublin
Jim was right, of course.
About the access to the police radio waves and the fact Pa would be waiting for them when they arrived.
The gates buzzed open for them as soon as the cameras fell on the police car and the person operating them identified the driver. The light over the tradesman's entrance greeted them in the dark and as they pulled up in a crunch of gravel outside. The side door opened, a great shadow looming out onto the path. Dom sighed quietly. He was in for an interrogation for sure.
"He won't be mad," Jim assured him, as though reading his thoughts. "I'll talk to him."
"Please don't," Dom mumbled as he slid from the vehicle.
"Yeah, yeah, your face will tell him everything he needs to know anyway. Bring my dog - he'll only wake the whole manor up howling if you don't."
Dom let Dubsy out of the door and hooked his hood back up over his head as they trudged up the path, keeping his face low. With any look he would be able to scoot straight up to bed and deal with his grandfather's assessment tomorrow after a few hours sleep and preferably a good breakfast. His stomach growled and he tried to remember when it was he had last eaten anything he hadn't since vomited up.
"Good evening, PC Holt," Alexandr Butler rumbled, gesturing for them to enter.
"Evening Butler, how you doing old boy?"
"Fine, thank-you Jim. Hello there, Wilson."
The dog brushed the Butler's massive leg and trotted into the staff kitchen, claws clacking on the swept tiles. Mrs Callaghan would go mad if she found out. The cook was constantly screaming at the gamekeeper for allowing his spaniels in the house. Dom doubted she'd open her mouth to reprimand an officer of the law, but if she got wind of it, she would complain as though it was she and not one of the lower-ranking kitchen maids who had to scrub the floors on their hands and knees to remove the non-existent dirt.
"Will you take a tea?" Xandr asked.
"Best not – flying visit, I'm afraid. They'll want me back in town shortly, I should think."
Dom ducked through the door after the policeman, hoping to slip in during the exchange and avoid scrutiny. He should have known better, of course. His grandfather touched his shoulder lightly, signalling him to stop. Dom did so, reluctantly.
"Hood," he said quietly.
Dom dipped his head and looked at the floor.
Pa waited. He wasn't in the habit of asking twice.
And Dom knew he wouldn't.
He raised his raw-knuckled hands to his temples and lowered it reluctantly, keeping his jaw tucked to his chest.
The Butler's only audible reaction was a louder, short breath through his nose, as though he was steeling himself against doing anything rash. Then he reached a massive hand to his grandson's face, his thumb lifting and directing the boy's chin left and right lightly as he appraised the damage. He sighed deeply from somewhere deep in the gruff cavern of his throat and clicked his teeth, hand dropping back to his grandson's shoulder and squeezing gently. His eyes darkened as the boy cringed against the pressure.
"Kit room," he ordered. "I'll meet you in there. Me and Constable Holt need to have a word first."
Dom nodded, stroking the soft, velvety triangles of Dubsy's ears in farewell on the way past and nodding to Jim.
"Thanks for the lift," he mumbled. He meant it, too. He'd still be walking for several hours yet if Holt hadn't picked him up.
"Anytime, kid. I mean it," Jim said, his gaze sharp and serious. "Anytime. On duty or not."
Dom nodded again. "Thank-you."
He left them to their talking, under no doubt of what the officer would be reporting.
"You've got the bastard for this, I presume?" rumbled the giant as he left.
Jim shook his head. "No. We've got him in, but on a D and D charge."
"I don't suppose you'll let me have a little chat whilst he's in the cells?"
"You know I can't do that, Butler."
"Well, when's he out then? Drunk and Disorderly isn't a 24 hour hold, is it?"
"Just until he sobers up enough to have the charges read to him," said Jim, with a shake of his head. "Mid-morning at the latest, I would think."
"Can you give me a ring when you let him out?"
"Butler, the best thing you can do is get m'laddo there to press charges. I don't want to see you arrested in connection with a missing person."
"Oh he wouldn't missing for long, I can assure you," Pa said with a harsh bark of laughter. "And no offence, Jim, but you haven't a hope in hell of pinning it on me when he's found."
The officer sighed heavily. "I know. But would you at least try it the legal way first?"
"Illegal is always faster," said the giant, matter-of-factly. "I'd only be doing you a favour."
"Butler..."
"James?"
Kit Room, Fowl Manor, Dublin
Domovoi was sat for a surprisingly short amount of time on the familiar wooden benches of the kit room. Only just long enough to fall into the 'recharge' meditation his grandfather himself had been trying to teach him to do for years now. He'd found it incredibly difficult as a youngster, and was only just beginning to see the benefit of being still at any other time than that in which he was actually asleep.
He opened his eyes when he came in, the left one opening slower; the eyelid puffy and sore. He closed them again.
Butler sat himself down next to him, carefully. His joints were not a supple as they once were; though much more supple than the average fifty-year-old, it had to be said – and he was much further into the second half of a century than that, by now. Closer to completing the third quarter of it, if he was honest. In the wee hours of the morning, though, everyone was a little creakier than they might be in the daylight, right?
He said nothing, for the longest time.
A few years ago, Dom would have broken first; starting the exchange with a protest or a statement that would damn him for the remainder of the conversation. But tonight he just sat. They had all night, after all. Or at least what was left of it.
He felt his grandfather's obsidian-blue eyes scrutinising his every feature, and opened his own again. Two pairs of identical irises connected, boring into eachother for several long moments. Neither blinked.
"Well," Pa said eventually. "Paul is a very lucky man that your uncle isn't here."
The comment was two-pronged. Firstly, it was possible had he been present that Myles Butler would have needed physically restraining from leaving The Manor under the guise of 'seeing to an errand' that would keep him otherwise engaged until dawn and the manor's furnace for such things busy burning clothing for a while after his return.
And the second; Xandr couldn't very well leave Fowl Manor without a Butler, could he?
Dom knew both of the reasons, of course. A normal teenager with this knowledge might have taken offence; the man was essentially stating outright that his job was worth more than his grandson's safety, after all. But not Dom. He had been aware of that since before he could walk. Well, technically just as he was learning to walk and had fallen face first onto the carpet when Artemis had turned around too quickly and knocked into him. The young Fowl boy had been holding a cup of hot tea and Xandr had made the split second decision to steady the boy's hand and prevent him from spilling it down himself, instead of catching the baby Butler. The younger boy had held no grudges about it and his grandfather had congratulated him heartily on executing a perfect forward break fall. But the metaphor was there for anyone who wanted to see it.
"Let me see that head wound," he gestured and Dom turned away from is piercing stare at last.
The blood had trickled down the back of his neck into his fresh clothes, the padding Pash had painstakingly stuck to the back of his skull with the medical tape had, as suspected, not quite done the job.
"Should have used duct tape," the man mused, peeling back the dressing with a whistle of air through his teeth. "Well, that's going to need a stitch or two..."
"I know. They didn't have any," Dom muttered.
"Who's 'they'?" hummed the giant, dragging a chair out from under the wall-desk and gesturing for him to take it.
Dom stood stiffly and sat back down into it. "The Patels. Nice family."
"Ah, yes. I know who you mean," Xandr nodded. He kept tabs on all his grandson's associates, after all.
"I holed up with them until he found me again," said Dom. "Then I legged it. Then Jim and Dubsy found me. I rang Harson, I take it he didn't pass the message on?"
"He'll probably tell me in the morning, the durak," his grandfather snorted. "And nice or not, what kind of family doesn't have duct tape?"
He flicked on the bright desk lamp and opening a cupboard, taking out his first aid kit.
"The kind that owns a corner shop, actually. They had parcel tape but... ouch."
"Hush, slabak," Pa chuckled, angling the lamp for a better look.
Dom glanced left into the mirror and saw, with some strange mix of amusement and sadness, that his grandfather had donned a pair of reading glasses to better focus his eyes on the job at hand. He hummed for a moment more, then went to the sink, scrubbing his hands past the wrist with what Dom's nostrils recognised instantly as medical grade disinfectant.
"This could have been worse," he admitted. "What did it?"
"A fucking frying pan," Dom muttered, embarrassed.
"I think I can glue it," Pa mused, pinching the edges together with his cleaned hands. "If you sit still enough so that I don't end up with my finger stuck to the back of your head for a week."
Dom shrugged. "Whatever you say, Pa."
Some teenagers may have been alarmed at the thought of having a part of their body fixed with something more commonly associated with arts and crafts, but Dom knew full well his grandfather had used it before – once in one conflict or another, he had saved a friend's life by gluing his abdomen closed over his intestines until they could get to a hospital. Mess of a clean-up job and the necessity for a week of IV antibiotics, but the man had made it.
Butler cleaned the headwound with the same care and attention as a mother cat cleaned her kittens, which is to say, thoroughly, but not exactly gently. Dom clenched his jaw and made no noise.
Xandr spoke as he worked, shaving his scalp carefully with a small razor blade held between his thumb and forefinger, removing the short hair half-an-inch either side of the split in the skin.
"So what are we going to do about the person who thinks he can put holes in my grandson and get away with it, eh?"
"I don't want him 'dealing with'," Dom said through his teeth. "I'm..."
"Just going to continue acting like everything is fine, apparently," came the wry interruption.
"It is," Dom insisted, firmly. "I just... I fucked up this time. He thought... he thought I was going to stab him."
"And were you?" Alexandr asked, with a raised brow Dom would swear he heard, rather than saw.
The boy scowled; insulted.
"You think I would have projected it if I was?" he asked, scornfully.
Pa chuckled like a bear. No; if his lightning-fast grandson was going to stab anyone, the first they would know about it would be the claret on their mystified hands as they inspected their new orifice.
"Go on then," he said, putting down the razor and swabbing the edges of the split in his skull once more. "What did you do to give him the impression you were planning to?"
"I had a kitchen knife in the washing up bowl when I was doing the pots and he... he saw it and leathered me. Sure, he went a bit far, but it's actually probably the most justified he's ever been to hit me," Dom said, with a sheepish expression.
Xandr clenched his jaw, stopping just short of grinding his teeth, since it would have been hypocritical to do so, the amount he chided his offspring for the habit.
Still, he carefully controlled his rage at the simple statement. Someone was breaking his boy. Systematically driving him into the ground. And what was worse, the kid couldn't even hear himself saying it.
"Did you raise the knife to him?" he asked, unscrewing the lid of the superglue.
"Well no, but..."
"Did you make any attempt to grab it? To hold it with intent?"
"Well I... no," Dom admitted. "It was just in the bottom of the bowl. I grabbed it but let go before he noticed."
"Did you verbally threaten to use it against him?"
"No, I didn't say anything, but..."
"Boy, either I am failing to see something plainly obvious here," he said, bluntly. "Or there are elements to this situation you have avoided telling me about. If you did not even so much as hold the weapon in your hand, how on earth could a grown man believe a child was going to stab him? This story isn't making a lot of sense."
"I just mean... What I mean is..."
"Go on," Pa prompted. "Do tell me what it is you mean. And hold still whilst you do; I'm putting the glue on now."
"Usually if I catch a clout it's just because I've pissed him off..." he mumbled, keeping his neck rigid as he felt the first sting of the medical glue touch the broken skin. "This time, if I'd have wanted to kill him then I..."
"Domovoi if you had wanted to kill him, I imagine you would have been capable around the age of eleven," said Pa, pinching the top of the wound together tightly. "Given an appropriate weapon, of course. Given a gun, I would have said seven. Nowadays, if you wanted to kill him with your bare hands, well..."
He made a non-committal noise.
"I can't kill him," Dom muttered, bitterly.
"Well, I'm just saying; physically it wouldn't be an impossibility," he stated simply. "You're not telling me you didn't hold off more than you should have during this little bust up, or else I suspect I'd be pressing Jim for the number of a hospital ward or a morgue slab rather than a cell. Why you did is your own reasoning, far beyond the fathoming of this old hitman. But we are all young once, I suppose. More forgiving, perhaps. Maybe you do not want to carry the weight of your step-father being the first man you took the life of."
"He's not my step-father," Dom said, a quiet darkness to his voice. "And I am not forgiving."
"Well, in all but the paperwork, he has been for a few years now," Xandr said, grimly. "And not in this situation, but forgiveness in general - in the right place, time and circumstances - is not such a bad thing. But don't tell your grandmother I said so, understood?"
Dom snorted softly and Pa didn't speak again until he had sealed the whole holding the whole cut together firmly and held it for several minutes. He clocked the darkening fingermarks either side of his grandson's neck and decided to make another shot at finding out the real reason the boy had allowed himself to get into such a state.
"Why you put up with this, Youngblood, I don't know. Do you hold affection for the man?"
"No," Dom scoffed, disgusted.
"Then if you won't dispatch him yourself - and I understand, boy, truly I do," Xandr said, steadily. "It is no small thing to kill a man whether it be your first or a hundred and first time - and nor should it be..."
"I have no problem with killing anyone I need to," Dom muttered. "I just can't kill him."
Xandr frowned slightly. Some part of him - the 'grandfatherly', paternal part of him that his wife Maud would roll her eyes at him for airing - didn't like to hear that answer coming from someone he still considered, on the whole, to be a young boy. The rest of him coldly acknowledged that the tried-and-tested training of Blue Diamond bodyguards was channelling the next generation in the right direction for his future career as well as it had his predecessors.
"Then why don't you let me – or your uncle, considering he's been chomping at the bit for years now – deal with the issue?" he asked.
For more than a second Dom looked as though he was considering it. His grandfather didn't push him, instead inspecting the glue's hold for a few moments. Satisfied, he whipped off his glasses and began to pack the medical kit away neatly back into its box, dropping the razor into a metal dish to be sterilised and sharpened, piling up the bloodied material he'd used to clean up the wound for later disposal.
"I would be more discrete about it, of course," he said, nonchalantly. "But I'm sure we could talk your Uncle Myles down from a public crucifixion or a road-dragging behind the Bentley to a simple, staged hanging if we pose it to him correctly."
Dom gave a bitter laugh. If only.
He knew full well his family could make Paul disappear without a trace. They'd had hands in the vanishing of celebrity-status marks in the past. For the right payment, or because their existence threatened that of a charge, of course.
Paul Grant was a nobody. He'd never be found and nobody would even miss him.
Well, almost nobody.
And she'd already lost one partner like that...
His grandfather did something unexpected when he didn't answer verbally. He walked around the chair and, with a quiet cracking of his knees, crouched in front of Dom and looked him directly in the face.
"Mam loves him," Dom said miserably, staring at his knees to avoid the intense gaze. "I can't... We can't do that to her."
"If it carries on much more, Little Kingdom," Xandr said quietly, balancing himself with one hand on the arm of the chair. "You're not going to have a say in it. One way or another."
"I'm not... I'm not even there most of the time," Dom said, his voice cracking slightly. "If I can't just keep my head down and behave when I am..."
"If you insinuate this is your fault once more, boy..." Xandr growled.
"What?" Dom looked up. Pa's eyeline was below his for once; it was strange to be looking down on the man. He smiled sadly. "You'll clip me around the ear for it?"
Xandr snorted and curled a hand around the back of his neck, careful not to touch the fresh glue. He touched their foreheads together gently.
"Ah moy vnuk," he murmured. "What are we going to do with you, eh?"
Dom closed his eyes and said nothing.
"Alright, lad," he said, straightening up after several long moments. "Let's have a look at the rest of the damage. Your gran left me a few new lotions and potions to try when she was last here, so you may as well be the guinea pig for them. Tops off."
He followed the orders, awkwardly shrugging them over his head as one. They landed a little heavily on the floor, a fact which did not go unnoticed by Pa.
He ignored the boy's battered ribcage for a moment and eyed it, curiously. "What have you been carrying?"
It hadn't sounded metallic, but it had perhaps been as heavy as a handgun. He knew Dom would never take one from the gunstore at the Manor without asking - although Xandr would have signed one out for him himself if the boy had asked.
He picked the hoodie up and pulled the tinfoiled block out of the pocket, hefting it in his palm. It could have been at least a pound of Semtex.
"You planning on blowing something up?" he asked, amused.
"S'cake," Dom said, sheepishly.
"Cake?" Pa frowned, peeling back the foil and sniffing it experimentally.
"Cake," Dom confirmed.
"Well then," Pa smiled. "I guess I better put the kettle on."
Ah he's safe and home at last!
And we're into June and the fourth week of posting. Mad, eh?
Just a heads up for everyone wondering, the holiday Paul keeps mentioning won't hit us until Part Two. After the hell of a ride we've had through this first part and the hell of a ride I'm currently writing for the second, the rest of this fic is pretty much fun and games.
I hope everyone's ok with that :)
Wolfy
ooo
O
01-06-2020