A/N: this is set in the world of wynonna earp, with the key exception that doc's appearance is taken from a mixture of tombstone (1993) and actual historical appearance.
When Dolls cuffs Henry's hands, the first thought that springs to his mind is that the other man is— frail, almost. His hands do not shake while holding the blade that probably killed the poor man laying on the bathroom tiles, blood spilling sluggishly from his throat, still, a pool of it around his head like a halo, but the man's skin is tight against his bones, highlighting angular cheeks and giving his eyes a hooded appearance that probably normally wouldn't be there. His clothes, tight as they are, only accentuate his slightness—his near emaciated state, actually, and he can't be more than a hundred and thirty soaking wet. Despite the fact that he's probably no more than forty at the outside, and probably closer to thirty-five, he has a shock of ashy, silver hair that hangs past his ears and just barely grazes his shoulders. It's hardly a struggle for Dolls to knock the blade from his hands and cuff him.
"He didn't do it," Wynonna is insisting after they've taken him into the interrogation room. "Look, alright, he might not be the most trustworthy person on the planet, but come on? Cold blooded murder? And he has a solid alibi for the last one—it's clearly a revenant."
"I still don't trust him," her sister mutters, and opens her mouth to add something else before snapping it closed as Wynonna levels a glare at her.
Dolls raises a brow. "Why not? What is it you two aren't telling me about your friend Henry?"
The two shift, shooting barely disguised guilty glances at each other. "Not telling you? Me? I would never," Wynonna blusters, doing a terrible job of acting like she's not lying. She might as well be walking around with a giant neon sign with an arrow pointing to her saying LIAR. "He's just...he's just D—Henry, okay, he came in to town, what?" She turns to Waverly.
"About two weeks back," Waverly says.
"Right, right..." she trails off. Her fingers have come up to rub the butt of Peacemaker. Interesting. Dolls files it away for later. Snapping out of it, she adds, "Look, he might be a bit weird, I'll give you that, but a murderer? Probably not. I mean, the poor dude would have fought him, and it's not like he's a big guy."
That, Dolls will give her. "Still, he was on the scene of the crime with a blade in hand, standing over a victim who died of a slit throat," he says. "If nothing else, it's in my job description that I interrogate him."
Wynonna grumbles something inaudible, but abates. Dolls makes his way over to the coffee-maker that's been sputtering away for the past twenty or so minutes, long enough to fill the pot most of the way. He gives it a sharp rap on the side, and it gives a hissing sound, spitting out a stream of brown liquid, and goes silent. He pulls down two disposable cups and fills them with coffee, popping the lids onto them, and sticks them in one of the carrying trays, heading out towards the interrogation room.
He lets Waverly and Wynonna go into the observation room, before unlocking the door a few feet away and swinging it open, passing through.
Henry's hands are cuffed together, and he's sitting primly in his seat, as if good manners alone will get him out of the situation alone, his old-time-y cowboy hat shadowing his face. When he glances up and catches sight of Dolls, he tips the brim mockingly. "Deputy Marshal Dolls," he greets.
Dolls sets one of the cups down in front of him. "You know who I am," he says, moulding it into a statement rather than a sharp exclamation of surprise it might be from anyone else.
Henry shrugs. "I like to keep up to date on the important people in the towns I reside in," he says, smoothly. His voice is quiet, seemingly dwarfed by the room, and soft as silk for the most part, though it does hitch on a few of the syllables. Interesting—perhaps a history of pulmonary infections as a child and scarring on his throat and vocal cords. He picks up the cup, bringing it to his lips; doesn't even flinch at the heat, just swallows, throat bobbing with the motion. His fingers, feminine for a man despite the calloused, have small scars, as if from repeated exposure to a spray of something hot.
"I'll cut to the chase," Dolls says, rather than comment on any of it. "You, Henry, are facing two charges of homicide—"
"I resent that remark," Henry interrupts. "If I had killed them, you wouldn't have caught me." It's the first time his tone has deviated from its slow, steady, Southern drawl; and it spikes with irritation, quickly smoothed over as he adds, "but then, I suppose, my luck appears to have finally run out."
"You get into a lot of trouble with the law?" Dolls asks, before he can think better of it.
Henry raises his cup, a smile playing over his lips beneath that moustache of his that really should be hideous but somehow manages to circle back around to fashionable and even possibly a bit attractive —to certain people. "You tell me, Deputy Marshal. I hear you have this newfangled technology that allows you to track down criminals based only on the prints of their fingers—which I assume you have utilised, as you so rudely forced my hand." He wiggles blue-tipped finger as Dolls.
Newfangled technology—? Dolls shakes his head, trying to dislodge the strange turn of phrase. Perhaps Henry spent most of his life in particularly rural regions. Grudgingly, though, he says, "We ran your fingerprints through every database we have access to—no match." He tries not to sound bitter, running his fingers over the lid of his own cup.
The other's smile widens; his eyes lighting up, as if Dolls has stumbled upon him taking part in a particularly funny inside joke. "I wouldn't expect you to," he says, affably. "After all, you would have had to have collected fingerprints from a man who disappeared before the system was invented."
"Did you cut off and graft—? No," Dolls shakes his head, banishing the thought. "That's ridiculous." He paces around the room, feeling Henry's pale gaze tracking him. Finally, grimly, he says, "Since you don't exist in any database, that means you are a nonentity—therefore, you have no rights. If I wanted to, I could throw you into solitary confinement." It's not a truthful threat—there's layers of bureaucracy before getting to that point—but it spooks something in Henry; and he drops his cup, hands attempting to snap to his his, only to be stalled by the short chain linking the handcuffs. Still, the movement is so fast that Dolls barely realises it's happened until he's setting them back on the table again, picking up his cup with a distinct tightness to his expression.
It's then that Dolls remembers they had confiscated a gun belt from him, with two .45 revolvers that looked like immaculately restored antiques, along with his ammo and the blade he had been holding.
Disappeared before the system was invented, Henry's voice echoes through his head. Dolls glances over him again, taking in his garb—what had seemed to be very good reproductions worn by an Earp fanboy look a bit too well worn to be made recently. His lightning-quick draw, and clear familiarity with antique firearms. And his phrase— newfangled technology.
Dolls leans back against the wall; pops the lid off of his coffee and downs it all in ten seconds flat despite the way it burns his tongue. The alternative is yelling. Tossing the empty cup into the plastic bin by the door, he unlocks it and strides out, quickly entering the room on the other side of the two-way mirror. "Okay," he says, trying to keep his voice from shaking, " which one of you was going to tell me your friend Henry is the ghost of Doc fucking Holliday? "
"Wow," Wynonna whispers, leaning in towards her sister. "I haven't heard him that pissed in a few days."
"We meant to," Waverly says, offering up an expression of guilt, remorse, and puppydog-eyed innocence that Dolls does his very best not to be swayed by. "But, then, well, he sort of got himself kicked out of Bobo's trailer park for helping us, and I didn't want to cause him any more trouble..."
Wynonna snorts. "Speak for yourself. I was waiting to see how long it took you to figure it out. And he's not a ghost," she adds. "He made some sort of deal for eternal longevity, or whatever. I'm kinda hazy on the details."
"He's..." Dolls struggles for a moment, before pressing his fingers to the inner corners of his eye sockets in an attempt to relieve the pressure that's building there. "Not what I was expecting," he settles on. "I didn't think the greatest gunslinger in the West would look so... sickly. "
"Well, he was ill with tuberculosis for over a decade," Waverly points out. "I mean, even if you do turn out to be some sort of immortal dude, that's gotta take a toll on you."
"You're not really going to throw him into prison, are you?" Wynonna asks. "Come on, he's the funnest person I've talked to in town so far. Besides you, Waves," she hurries to add. "It would be a waste to leave him rotting in a cell."
"Given his apparent immortality, I doubt he'll rot, " Dolls mutters.
He does wind up releasing Henry—Doc, Holliday, whatever, it doesn't really matter. It's only fair, really, for the aid he provides them with in regards with the case. He keeps cropping up on other cases like a bad luck talisman, with how everything seems to go to shit whenever he shows up, but the Earp sisters insist he's actually only trying to help them, and Dolls takes one look at the man, who looks like he could be knocked over with a particularly strong wind, and decides that he's probably not that much of a threat anyway. The legends of him are more than likely greatly exaggerated, besides.
They're on a stakeout outside of a small, abandoned building where, according to a few reports by shaken citizens, a band of men from Bobo's trailer park have been congregating and making blood sacrifices. Personally, Dolls thinks it's a bit of an overkill for whatever it is they're aiming to achieve, but one of the citizens had only just barely escaped becoming one of those blood sacrifices, so they've been called in to investigate.
Wynonna and Waverly are on the other side of the building, covering the back exit, while Dolls and Doc are camped out in a tiny, black sedan a few spots down from the front, so as to reduce suspicions.
Doc has leaned back against his seat, hands resting loosely at his sides, less than an inch away from his revolvers, his rail-thin, short frame fitting neatly without any cramped legs or ducked heads. In the thin light of the full moon trailing through the window, he looks even more pallid and gaunt than usual, and Dolls suddenly regrets allowing him to tag along. He's probably going to get injured the instant any sort of fight begins.
As if reading his thoughts, Doc turns to level him with an expression of distrust; opens his mouth to say something; but that's when a group of men make their way down the sidewalk towards the abandoned building, the sedan between them and it. " Duck, " Dolls hisses, hand going to the nape of Doc's neck and forcing him to bend forward. The vertebra of his neck are prominent against his palm, seeming to stick out like mountains from the ground; and Dolls nearly tells him, then and there, to stay, but the revenants have already streamed into the building, and Doc, hands nimble, has already popped the door and slipped out into the night, chasing after them on light, near-silent feet, leaving Dolls to follow, cursing silently to himself.
Doc, at the very least, doesn't barge straight in; instead, creeping up the stairs to the balcony-like structure that overlooks the floor below—and, more importantly, is bathed in shadow, allowing them some modicum of disguise.
On the floor below, one of the revenants drags a boy, probably seventeen or so, bound and gagged, towards the oval table in the center. "Faro?" Doc mutters, nonsensically, sounding a touch surprised. Dolls slashes his hand across his throat in the universal be quiet sign.
They have a plan—wait until the revenants are all gathered around the table and take out as many as they can with the snipers Dolls brought. Unfortunately, that plan goes out the window when the revenant jerks the gag from the kid's mouth and produces a knife, cutting off the tip of his ear, grinning at the resulting screams of pain, the action clearly meant only for amusement, and Doc hisses, "To hell with this," hands snapping to his hips and drawing his guns, tossing himself over the short rail and landing on the floor, instantly firing off shots and making the revenants scatter.
" Damn it, Doc," Dolls snaps to thin air, and drops his rifle in favour of his handgun, knocking a few of them to the floor in a move that should incapacitate them for long enough for Wynonna to get her ass in here and dispatch them, and vaults the railing himself. All of the revenants appear to be taken care of, for now, and he turns to Doc. "We had a plan, " he hisses. "You could have gotten shot—you might have eternal longevity, but that doesn't mean you can't get hurt, and you're not exactly in peak health —"
Before he can finish his sentence, Doc pirouettes, dancing in front of him and letting loose a shot, a revenant letting out a startled gasp in the shadows and toppling over. "You were saying? " he asks, acerbic; the sharpest Dolls has heard his voice go. It's like a glass knife—sharp and brittle, like it'll break at any moment. A bit like him , Dolls thinks.
"We'll talk about this later," Dolls promises, digging out his walky-talk. "Earp, get in here and finish them off."
They never do get around to talking about it—either Doc slips away at the last possible moment, or there's a case and they're busy. It doesn't stop the incidences from piling up, though—repeatedly, Doc makes reckless decisions with no regard for his own health, eyes sharp and flinty, only to, when Dolls tries to confront him about it later, act like it'd never happened, his voice as low and honeyed as ever. It's starting to get more than a little bit irritating, but Doc's never actually gotten himself hurt any worse than a few scrapes and bruises, so there's nothing Dolls can actually, concretely act upon—though his actions may be suicidal, all of the psych evals Dolls subjects him to come back clean; Doc answering all of the questions in measured, calm, amicability, words drawn out with that damned drawl of his. It's driving him insane.
Thankfully, though, he at least has the weekends off, and that means he can do his best to put the irritatingly polite, put-together, and self-assured man out of his mind. He's upgraded himself from a hotel room to a tiny little apartment not far from the station, and has taken to baking as an attempt to regulate his stress levels, a suggestion once made in mocking tones by Eliza which somehow managed to stick in his mind.
At around one in the morning on Sunday, though, when he opens the fridge with the intent to throw together a coffee cake, he comes to a screeching halt—the fridge is empty of both butter and milk, and the egg carton is running low. Not exactly good prospects, considering how much of each ingredient the recipe in question requires.
He sighs, and resigns himself to going shopping and interacting with people far earlier than he would really prefer to.
He goes down to the grocery store down the street. It's a small place, a small produce section, a wall of refrigerated and frozen goods, and a few aisles of everything else. Quaint. Possibly a bit repressive, with the paint and tiling choices, but Dolls isn't about to complain, given the proprietor owns a shotgun and, apparently, isn't afraid of aiming it at people who do so. Which is all hearsay, of course, or else she would have been brought in a long time ago. Dolls is, personally, of the opinion that the people she threatens are more scared of her than they let on.
He's standing in front of the refrigerators, piling sticks of butter and a few jugs of raw milk into his cart when he catches sight of a familiar hat out of the corner of his eye.
Without really intending to, he lets the refrigerator door swing shut, turning to get a better look, and finds Doc Holliday himself on what appears to be a flip phone, talking a bit louder than is strictly necessary into the receiver, enquiring about ice-cream flavours. Under the yellow lighting, his skin looks sallow and clammy; and he's holding himself stiffly, as if movement pains him—probably an ingrained reflex from his time battling TB, but nonetheless, it makes him look frail; worn down; sharp and liable to crack. He apparently gets his answer, because he snaps the phone shut and deposits it into his coat, pulling the freezer door open and retrieving first a quart of huckleberry ice-cream, then a birthday cake, and then, finally, a French vanilla.
The tubs are balanced in his arms, and, suddenly assaulted with the image of the man tipping over and breaking something, Dolls finds himself darting forward. "Here, let me get that for you—"
Doc leans back, dodging him. "You have your own items to attend to, Deputy Marshal," he says, firmly. "I can get these back to Wynonna by myself just fine, thank you very kindly."
At the mention of Wynonna, Dolls stops; stepping back. "Oh," he says. "Alright. Have...fun." The last bit is aimed at Doc's retreating form, and he sighs, returning to his own cart. He really wishes that Doc would be a touch more careful—it's like he's got the soul of a six-foot-five wrestler trapped inside of him, utterly unaware of how delicate his physical form is. He wonders how the man survived so long in the cowtowns of the West.
He goes back to his apartment, bakes the coffee cake, and ignores the open pit that's opened up in his stomach.
The next day, he takes the rest of the cake in to the station in what feels suspiciously part a peace offering, part a congratulatory gift to Wynonna, which for some reason, only leaves a bitter residue in his mouth.
Wynonna, for her part, only takes one look at the three-quarters remaining of the cake and says, "Jesus, Dolls, whose puppy did you kick that you're trying to win us over with this?" and cuts a large piece for herself, eating it with her hands.
Doc cuts himself a much smaller piece, after eying it like it's a snake that's going to bite him, and picks it up with an actual, honest to god handkerchief he produces from his vest pocket, taking measured, dainty bites, not a single crumb dropping or becoming trapped in his moustache, somehow.
He realises he's been staring, and snaps his gaze away. He doesn't want anyone getting the wrong idea, especially not Wynonna, who, going by the happy glow surrounding her, probably slept with Doc the night before.
Waverly's the last to take a piece, and she exclaims, enthusiastically, "Dolls, these are great! You should give Wynonna baking lessons—last time she tried to make brownies from the box she nearly set fire to the stove."
Her sister mutters something uncomplimentary, muffled by the giant piece of cake she's still busy shoving into her mouth. The rest of the day goes more or less smoothly from there.
A few days later, Wynonna's still walking with a pep in her step, and they're on their way to kill another posse of revenants, Doc scouting out the ground floor of the building, and the two of them taking the larger basement. Unfortunately, it's that very pep in her step that has her tossing teasing jabs at Dolls with more regularity than usual, which in turn has the both of them distracted, and they walk right into a fairly obvious trap, and, suddenly, they're backed up against a corner, revenants with smouldering eyes surrounding them, more than a few of them baring teeth filed to sharp points at them, various revenant-marks glowing with fiery light.
"You know, if you kill me, my sister's just gonna take my place, right," Wynonna says, conversationally, gun levelled.
The revenants hiss and snarl. "Then we'll kill that bitch too," one of them sneers, and lunges at her.
A gunshot goes off—one of Wynonna's, but none of the revenants drop; and a moment later, the revenant barrels into her, knocking her to the ground. Dolls, who's doing his best to ward off three revenants on his own, hisses over his shoulder, "Get your head out of Hollidayland and back to reality, Earp!"
"Hey!" Wynonna says, indignantly, pushing herself to her feet and tripping one of the revenants, and then tossing herself at another, "I'm not in Hollidayland, thank you very much! Can a woman be happy without it always being about a man? Do you need—" she fires off another shot, but the revenant in the line of fire ducks at the last moment—"a refresher on that diversity training course Nedley made us attend?"
Dolls slams the side of his gun across a revenant's face, sending her sprawling, but a moment later, another one takes her place. "Sorry for assuming you slept with Doc after—" he kicks another one, sending it back a few paces—"he went shopping for you in the middle of the night for comfort food ."
"One of those was for Waverly!" Wynonna shouts, and then yelps as one of the revenants manages to kick Peacemaker from her grip, sending it skittering across the tiles, and she dives after it. "We had a movie night! It was fun! Friends bonding! I—"
Whatever she's about to say is cut off by the sound of bullets firing in rapid succession; and a dozen of the revenants drop. "Mighty ungentlemanly of you folk to ambush my associates," comes Doc's dulcet drawl. Dolls can only just see him through the crush of revenants that remain, and against their hulking, muscled forms, he looks like a china doll; and Dolls' heart is suddenly jackrabbits as they turn towards him.
He and Wynonna spring into action, Wynonna dispatching them with ruthlessness that had been lacking a moment before, Dolls snapping arms and necks, anything that'll keep them down for a moment and away from Doc, who's ducking and weaving and shooting like a gymnastic assassin, only far paler and not nearly as muscular.
Finally, Wynonna levels Peacemaker with the last revenant's head, says, "Make your peace or whatever and go to hell and die, you dumb bastard," and the markings along the barrel light up, before a slug embeds itself between his eyes, and he's sucked down into fiery oblivion.
The instant the floor returns to normal, Dolls rounds on Doc. "What the hell were you thinking? " he asks; and then, gaze catching on a large stab wound just a hair's breadth away from his heart, growls, "you could have been killed! You can't just charge in like that without thinking—you should have called for backup!"
"What backup?" Doc asks, laconically, not moving. His revolvers are back in their holsters, and his hands are still on them.
"Dolls, he did save our lives," Wynonna tries to point out.
"Shut up, Earp," Dolls snaps. "Holliday, you're not nearly strong enough to keep taking risks like this—"
Doc's eyes flash; meeting his gaze for one of only a handful of times Dolls can remember, and he practically leaps forward, grabbing Dolls by the collar and using the momentum to slam him against the wall, his other hand bracing himself, leaning forward, head tilted up so he can glare at Dolls. "That is not for you to decide, Deputy Marshal, " he says, tone frigid. "I have had enough of you treating me like some—some breakable piece of blown glass. I may not have yours, or even Wynonna's, physical prowess, but I am not helpless, or some frail invalid, and you would do well to remember that."
Dolls purses his lips. "Fine," he says, grudgingly.
A beat of silence passes, Doc's face still mere inches from his own, and he finds himself hypnotised by his angular features, the lines between his brows and around his mouth and at the corners of his piercing blue eyes.
Wynonna clears her throat. "As much as I think your guys' little tête-à-tête is cute, unless you're going to kiss, you should probably break it up. And also maybe get Doc to the ER."
Doc dropps Dolls' collar, jerking himself away like a marrionette puppeteted by an amature, and turns, pushing the doors open gracelessly and stepping outside.
Over the next few weeks, Dolls tries. He does his best to remind himself, every time Doc comes face to face with a fully-armed revenant, that the man is a crack-shot, and knows how to turn his opponent's weaknesses to his favour, to work around his own physical limitations; that he knows his own body better than Dolls does.
It's...hard. It's really hard. For the first week or so, he barely manages to keep in a multitude of reproachful sentences at Doc's actions.
As time goes on, though, it slowly becomes easier. He no longer finds himself tensing up the instant Doc goes up against an opponent, instead allowing Doc to work on his marks while Dolls works on his own. As it turns out, not putting half his mind to tracking all of the motions of his partner allows him to focus better on his own portion of the fight.
That, as it turns out, proves to be very good, because about two months after, he and Doc wind up trapped inside a building swarming with revenants. They've barricaded themselves inside one of the bedrooms, and Wynonna's on her way, but it's not going to hold for long.
"You got enough ammo?" Dolls checks; and Doc nods. "Great," he says, "I can cover you while you reload."
The door judders, and they ready themselves; and then it bangs open, revenants bursting through. Doc's shots hit mark, unsurprisingly, and revenant after revenant drops; and then he shouts, "Dolls! Front! Now, if you will!" and Dolls takes his place, doing his best to keep the revenants down while Doc reloads.
They fall into a rhythm quickly enough, back to back. The revenants who get shot through the head take a while to revive, so that's what they aim for, though Dolls' shots occasionally go wide, hitting jaws or necks instead. When they run out of ammo, Doc pulls knives seemingly out of nowhere, passing the larger one to Dolls and palming the other two.
Just when Dolls begins to tire, and Doc's steps begin to falter, Wynonna's familiar voice floats through the door. "Eat lead, fuckers!"
Between the three of them, they manage to deal with the revenants in short order. Once the last of the bodies disappear, Doc leans up against the wall, producing a handkerchief and wiping sweat from his brow, before pulling out a cigarillo and a lighter.
Wynonna wrinkles her nose. "Shouldn't you, like, have an aversion to that? Knowing how shit it is to not be able to breathe properly?"
It's not the first time she's asked some variation of the question; and, just like all the other times, Doc simply drawls, "Every man has his vices," and takes a drag, releasing a plume of smoke a moment later.
"At least my vice doesn't linger in my clothes," Wynonna mutters, "I'm going to go back to the homestead. You coming, Doc?"
He shakes his head. "You go ahead, love."
That just leaves the two of them alone in the room, lit faintly by the gibbous moon shining in through the window. There's splatters of blood across Doc's face, and his silver hair lacks its usual volume. His moustache, at least, looks quite nice—he trimmed it the other day in the sink at the station, and Dolls had walked in on him doing it.
He looks...well, a sight for sore eyes, if Dolls is being honest with himself; and recently, he's been trying to. Dolls clears his throat. "Hey, do you...want to go out for a drink?" God, he sounds awkward, like this is his first time asking someone out, which it is decidedly not, so he doesn't know why he's feeling like this.
Doc flicks some ash off the tip of his cigarillo. "Not really in the mind for drinking tonight," he says. "But...I could be convinced for something else." He's looking squarely at Dolls' cheek, like he often does—he's not really big on eye contact, Dolls has noticed since they started working together. At first, he had thought that the other was doing it on purpose to show his distaste of Dolls, but he's realised that that's as far from the truth as possible—for people he doesn't trust, he forces himself to make eye contact, but not with Dolls, Wynonna, Waverly, or Officer Haught.
A smile spreads across his lips. "What about dinner?" he asks; and then amends, "midnight meal, at least."
Doc drops the cigarillo, crushing it beneath his foot, and smiles—not the staged smile he gives people he has to deal with who he doesn't like, or the secretive, mischief filled smile he saves for his schemes, or even the one he has for especially ironic situations. No—this one is slow, and wide; cat-like, curling across his angular features. " That, " he says, "I am amenable to."
Dolls, some long-forgotten etiquette he read somewhere kicking in, offers Doc his arm. Doc looks delighted, slipping his arm into Dolls', and lets him lead them out to the car.
They go to a Japanese place that opened recently that Waverly was raving about a few days before, partially because Dolls likes seafood and partially because he's curious as to how Doc will like it.
As it turns out, the answer to that is a lot. He seems fascinated by the plethora of sauces, and appreciative of the many flavours. Dolls is pretty certain he's decided that octopus is his favourite, because it's the only dish for which he closes his eyes, humming deep in his chest, and says, in a slightly far-off voice, "I am quite happy to be able to witness such marvels," which is kind of cheesy but somehow so quintessentially Doc in phrasing it almost hurts.
After Dolls pays—he's the one who invited Doc, it's only proper—they make their way outside, walking down the street towards Dolls' car. Partway there, Doc ducks into a side alley, pulling Dolls along with him.
"What?" Dolls asks, barely getting his lips around the words before Doc claims them, pushing him up against the brick which is, mercifully, only slightly dusty, pressing his body against Dolls' in a hot line, and then pulls away just enough to press a kiss to the juncture of his jaw and neck, moustache scraping in a way that really, by all rights, shouldn't feel so good, but does . Dolls groans, too pleased to feel ashamed about the fact that they're making out in a dark alley like teenagers sneaking around their parents. " Doc, " he manages, fingers finding purchase, one at his hip and the other digging into silver hair and clinging.
"Yes, darlin'?" Doc rumbles, breath fanning out over the sensitive skin of his throat, pausing for a moment in his ministrations, and the single endearment— darlin' , said like that, with heavy intent, sends heat pooling in Doll's groin. He can barely think, almost lets himself sink into it, before the more sensible part of him manages to take control.
"As much as I'm enjoying this—and I am, " he assures, "I don't really want to have sex in an alley."
"In my day," Doc begins, voice deep and soft, and Dolls groans, " Shut up, " and uses his purchase on the back of Doc's head to drag him up into a kiss.
They manage to make it back to Dolls' apartment, and as soon as they're inside, they're kissing again, more passionate than before, somehow , and Dolls is blindly maneuvering them towards the bedroom, back hitting the—thankfully cracked—door and they stumble towards the bed, the back of Dolls' knees hitting the edge, and he lets go so that he doesn't bring Doc crashing down on top of him.
Suddenly, doubt creeps in. "If you don't want to, we don't have to—" he starts, but Doc cuts him off by—well, in essence, climbing into his lap and kissing his senseless, fingers digging into his jaw.
"I haven't spent months thinking about this moment only for you to try and back out because you weren't given an engraved tablet of intent," he says, firmly. "I am the sort of man who pursues his desires to their conclusion, darlin' mine." His accent is thicker, now, rounding out the words in a way that makes Dolls shudder slightly.
"Good to know," he says, before Doc kisses him again, pressing him down against the mattress.