AN: I had this super long note but then said screw it who wants that?!
So to Nishea, curtis22, raven8989, crimeserieslover, Ghostwriter and all my reviewers thank you for your reviews. Oh my god is all I can say. Oh my god you guys are the best. I never expected such a vehemently positive response. Writing that last chapter was one thing. Posting it was another thing entirely. You guys made it worth it. Thank you for sticking with me.
Disclaimer: The only character I own is Angie. All canon characters are the property of Dick Wolf, NBC et al.
Further disclaimer: Sexual situations abound but are not deeply explicit.
Hope everyone had a fantastic holiday. I'm plotting another cup of hot cocoa.
1:00 am
They didn't break too many glasses. They didn't incite a full-fledged bar brawl. These were good things. Dawson kept saying this over and over to herself. Except Casey maybe had a mild concussion, one black eye and a slightly broken nose. Kelly's neck was ringed in bruises and abrasions from where his chain had cut into his skin as Casey dear god help her choked him. Kelly's face looked no better for the cut lip he sported and a bleeding laceration through his left eyebrow from the glass Casey had crushed his face into on the bar. He was lucky none had gotten into his eye. Both his blue eyes were still red from the near choking. Her men were vicious creatures.
And they were definitely both her men, sitting in two chairs in the back office as Hermann gave them the hell she couldn't. Not just yet. She was pissed off as well as embarrassed because Hermann was sitting at the desk she'd masturbated on no more than two hours prior and how the fuck had her evening gotten so far away from that? She knew why of course. It felt like Casey and Kelly had been leading up to this since July 4th. Since she and Kelly became public knowledge.
Casey had actually insinuated sexual assault but Kelly had thrown the first punch and she was so damn lucky her brother was a cop. She'd headed off any police involvement with one call and a round of free beers to the crowd which pissed off Hermann and Otis. She'd glared at them both and said, they'd be suspended you assholes. And no matter how furious she was at her men, she would always protect them. Always. If beer bought a little silence and turning up the game bought even more lost memories of the night she'd do it. In a heartbeat. But she couldn't hide them from Boden. He would see their faces in 24 hours and demand explanations. Probably bench Casey as a precaution because of his head or Kelly because of everything that was still wrong with him. Mills had taken an elbow to a cheekbone but his sister had finally shown up and taken him home. Everyone else was still in the bar. Drinking. Waiting for them. Pacing around in their aftermath.
"I am not a toy you get to fight over," she said finally. "You do not get to defend my honour for me".
Dawson ignored Kelly's small sound of protest in favour of staring right at Casey. His face looked like she'd never seen it. Haggard and miserable, the black eye startling around his blue iris. He'd been working himself too hard. She had not spared him more than the odd glance these last few months because she feared his disapproval so she didn't notice. Between everything she knew he'd been doing for Heather and his mom and all the rest. It made her feel guilty. Casey was her friend and he'd been alone with his problems because she'd been so focused on Kelly.
"Hermann's gonna take you home, Matt"
"I still need to talk to you"
Dawson pretended not to see how Kelly flexed and tensed with that statement. How he looked away, staring at the wall like he didn't want to see her talk to Casey. But he wasn't going to get in her way. Just as he'd promised. And he wasn't making excuses for his behaviour.
"We'll talk when you're sober. And maybe a tad apologetic…" Dawson stated firmly. It wasn't lost on her that Casey had grinned when Kelly lost his temper. That the look on his face had spelled, I won even as Kelly pummelled him into the barroom floor. Kelly wasn't built for subtle or subterfuge. He didn't do mind games and Casey had needled him until he exploded and Dawson was so pissed. So angry at him for playing directly into Casey's hands because now the whole fight was his fault. He didn't have a leg to stand on and there was broken glass on the bar and embedded in his skin and she watched Hermann shuffle Casey out by his elbow without feeling anything but tired. Feeling hollow. She used to live for Casey. For his smiles and attention but Dawson couldn't give Kelly up. She just couldn't. Her entire body went into full fledged panic mode just conceiving of it but she was so damn pissed. He could have really hurt someone. He had hurt her friend, her tired, weak and very sad friend. Maybe he couldn't see it? She turned to look at him. She leaned back on the desk and there was absolutely nothing sexy about it. Her arms were folded and his lip was bleeding and something burned to ash inside her chest.
"What the fuck were you thinking?"
"Bri-"
"There were witnesses! You threw the first punch. Casey could press charges. You-"
"If he does. I'll handle it."
There was something final about his tone. Dark. Dawson peered at him. He was still looking at the wall, arms across his chest. Kelly wasn't Kelly when he wasn't being direct and all she could see was the side of his face, his profile mutinous and unyielding.
"What do you mean handle it Kelly?"
"For fuck's sake Bri. Let it go."
"No! Tell me what you mean by-."
"Bri, I swear to God. Let it go."
He still wasn't looking at her. Kelly was pulled in tight at the corners. His hair was still too long, her favourite curl was sitting at his nape waiting for a tug. He was covered in blood and she'd been picking glass out of his face for the last hour. She leaned forward to hook a finger in his hair and forced his head to turn.
"Don't give me that bullshit Kelly. We both know you wouldn't drop it to save your motherfucking life so why should I."
"You love him" Kelly retorted angrily. "You love Casey. Let it go!"
Dawson couldn't deny it but was bewildered by his shift in topic. She leaned back, dropped her hand to his shoulder. Her face betrayed her confusion and Kelly's face wore the armor she hadn't see in months. He was being Severide, cold and unapproachable. She waited him out like they both knew she could and he made a small derisive sound that had her choking back venom.
"He actually suggested that you didn't consent and you didn't say anything"
"Now wait a fucking minute! I'm not the one who tried to solve the problem with my fists! Don't you put this on me!"
"You fucking believe him so why does it matter what I do?" Kelly yelled.
"What the fuck are you even talking about right now?"
"You think I'm going to fuck this up just like-"
"Where the fuck do you get that from what just happened in my bar?!"
"You didn't defend us! You stood there with everyone else and just listened to him talk shit like it was nothing!"
Dawson's mouth dropped open in shock and Kelly pulled away. Shoved out of the chair, walked to the door like he was going to run away then turned around. Because he didn't. At every turn of their relationship he'd been the one staying put. Dawson watched Kelly flex his bruised knuckles and clear his throat and she still didn't have a response for him that would not sound as weak and pathetic as she felt in that moment.
But it made her angry too.
"What would you have me do? You shoved Mills onto a stool when he tried to intervene. I sure as shit didn't see you asking Capp for help but he was standing behind Casey. He was ready to step in."
Kelly gave Dawson a look so incredulous she should have known what was coming but didn't.
"To a bar fight. Not an argument." Kelly spat out. "For fuck's sake Bri he called you a lay and you didn't say anything! Nothing! He thinks I'm gonna toss you off like… I don't know what and you're fucking silent!"
"You are not Benny!" she finally exclaimed.
Kelly's face completely shut down in response. His whole demeanour went stoic and wooden with her mention of Benny and Dawson swallowed carefully as she waited for Kelly to retort.
She'd heard what Casey said and given the last few days of tension... of Kelly pretending he was fine while his father raged at Boden and left him voicemails she wasn't privy to and all the while saying exactly what he believed. That he and Casey were unsalvageable. In this moment she could not disagree. Casey had been mean. Meaner than she'd ever seen him. Spiteful and going for Kelly's weakness while Kelly told Casey to stop. She didn't like any of it. Not at all.
She didn't like how this argument had shifted focus onto her and her response to what had happened. The silence after her scream was cold. Kelly leaned back against the door, arms folded and shook his head.
"I don't believe you. You don't even believe you. That's how you could stand in the bar while Casey talked shit and everyone listened. You're just waiting for it to happen. You all are."
"Kelly-"
"You love Casey. You're always going to love Casey and when it comes time to pick sides like just now in the bar, you don't choose. Which is fine because I told you I wouldn't force you to but fucking A Bri…"
She watched him tip his head down to his chest with a slow shake as he collected himself. Dawson looked at Kelly as he raked his fingers through his hair and the anger slowly leaked out of her, replaced with the absolute knowledge that what Kelly said next could destroy her.
"Don't ever tell me not to fight for your honour. Your friend, your best friend just called you a lay, a random fuck on rotation, then suggested our first night together might be God knows what and topped it off with the idea I would leave while you were pregnant."
He still wasn't looking up, chin tucked into his chest and jaw tight, arms crossed as he held his own biceps. Dawson wanted to reach out but her heart was in her throat and it was all she could do to watch him be this hurt. Because he was. She'd hurt him with her silence, with her quiet indecision about what to do, pacing behind the bar watching the two men she loved quarrel over her. This, after she had defended him so ardently to Heather. She heard Kelly chuckle darkly and swallowed hard around the lump in her throat.
"Kelly..."
"No. Listen... I might be my father's son but my mom…" he sighed softly and finally, finally looked up. Dawson saw how his eyes narrowed in on her without really seeing. Like he was looking through her into a past he still hadn't shared. Like maybe he was seeing all the offshoots from this moment and contemplating which road to take and she quailed inwardly wondering if he was going to leave her. If he was going to do the exact thing Casey said he would.
And because Kelly could see her, just like she could see him, he noticed and scoffed tiredly.
"You can say you're in this with me all you want Bri. It doesn't mean shit if you don't believe in us"
Kelly walked out and Dawson gripped the edge of the desk with both hands trying to stave off tears. It didn't work. She collapsed into the chair he'd occupied and cried her eyes out, too overwhelmed to do anything but gasp.
Kelly didn't leave the bar. When Dawson finally left the office, apron tied on with a broom and a dustpan to pick up the last of the glass shards, he was sitting at a table. Capp, Shay and Angie were with him and Hermann was walking away from it towards her. She gave Hermann a speaking glance and he pulled her behind the bar with him to start drying glasses. She knew she looked horrible, makeup smudged, eyes as red as Kelly's but didn't care. Everyone was angry. Each of them were hurt and Dawson knew he wasn't watching her anymore. That he'd taken that step away to lick his wounds without her interference. Still, she needled Hermann.
"You're supposed to be driving Casey home"
"Put him in a cab. No offense Dawson, I love Casey. He's a great guy but spending thirty minutes with him waxing poetic on you is a bit much"
"Yeah, Casey said a lot tonight" she muttered in response as she picked up a towel to dry their pint glasses.
"He didn't mean it," Hermann said soothingly.
"He did and what's worse is now he has Kelly spiraling and I've lost him" Dawson choked on her words as she tried to stop herself from crying.
"Gabi he's still here. He's angry but the guy Casey accused of running out is still in this bar, sulking."
"Yeah but he's not here" She couldn't explain it to Hermann any better than that. "He's in his own head again and Casey is always the one that puts him there and it takes me weeks to get him out of there and i still get to be mad about the fight. He shouldn't have done it. Kelly was more sober than Casey."
She watched Hermann scrub his hands over his face like he couldn't take anymore and mutter fucking kids these days before pulling down a bottle of Wild Turkey and pouring out two shots. He put one in her hand before throwing back the other.
"Listen to me Gabi. This is a right mess. By all rights those two should be shooting the shit and drinking together and bitching about their insubordinate firefighters but they aren't. And you can't fix that."
Dawson watched Hermann gesticulate with the shotglass in his hand and swallowed her bourbon in one go without pause. She looked across at Kelly who was studiously avoiding her as Shay chatted at him. She noticed how no one was really looking at her at the moment and she felt like the whole ordeal was her fault. Hermann was saying she couldn't fix anything and that just seemed wrong altogether. Shay may or may not have been right about Casey. About how her relationship with Kelly had blown any chance with him up. Because he'd said all the things he'd said tonight knowing she was happy. Knowing that she and Kelly were not a mistake in her eyes. He hadn't cared about how it would look or sound to anyone else and maybe that was partially the alcohol speaking. Maybe that entire altercation had been about making Kelly react and get angry, to punish him for getting what Casey had wanted but never said. She didn't know. This was uncharted territory for her. Casey had handled her relationship with Mills well enough. Maybe she was naive to think that he would continue to be the noble upstanding guy she had always loved when Kelly entered the picture. She had wanted everything to be okay too damn much to think otherwise. She didn't want to lose Casey as a friend completely but Kelly…
"What do I do Hermann?"
"You forgive Kelly. That fight was always coming regardless of you and him being together because of Andy. Those two don't know shit about handling grief"
She murmured her agreement but Hermann didn't know about their fight in the office. How Kelly believed she didn't have faith in them. And he didn't even know that she loved him. She wasn't going to say it anytime soon now. She poured herself another shot of bourbon and drank it quickly. Dawson looked at Hermann and waited. She knew he had more to say but he looked uncomfortable suggesting whatever it was and she couldn't fathom what it could be.
"Spit it out Hermann."
"It's not for me to say"
"Hermann"
He gave her a look like he really resented her pushing but Dawson couldn't stop being herself even in the midst of her own emotional devastation. She loved both men and it wasn't a matter of wanting one in her life more. They were just different. Fulfilled wildly different needs in her life. She wasn't trying to have it both ways. She wasn't leading anyone on, even if Kelly thought she was hedging her bets right now. Kelly was passion and energy with an unbearable edge of sweetness underneath their fierce chemistry. He was the possibility she'd never believed in, at being part of something more than herself. It was incredible and reckless and grounded her as much as it taught her to fly. It made no sense and she kept trying to understand its parameters but then it took a left turn and fuck it she just fell deeper. She just lived it with her whole self.
Casey was her bedrock. He had been at 51 since she first started when she went through partner after partner and became paramedic in charge and his quiet wisdom, his selflessness and understated charm. It got to her. He'd been there with a piece of advice when she did something foolish, had helped her out at many a job when a patient got belligerent. The man was the poster boy for good decent masculinity. How could she not want him in her life?
"Gabi" she blinked out of her deep thoughts as Hermann put a hand on her shoulder, "you take your bruiser home and you fuck the shit out of him."
Dawson coughed lightly and gave Hermann a look.
"You take him home" he insisted with a look that said you asked. "And you remind him why he decided to take this leap with you cuz Gabi. That man is gone on you. Gone. Take whatever was going on with that Renee chick and Spain and multiply it by a factor of five. At least."
Dawson had to smile at that. She tried not to compare herself to Kelly's other women but it was hard sometimes. It wasn't the random women either. It was the fiancee who cheated on him. It was Renee who had pushed him to get his injury worked on and he finally did. Then he'd seriously contemplated leaving the country with her. She wondered how she could even compare. Deep down, Kelly was a romantic. He didn't know how to say it and maybe there would never be that grand gesture with her but if someone on the outside saw what she hoped to be true...
"Are you sure?" she whispered "because I have a really bad track record if you couldn't tell."
"Jesus yes. I'm sure. Now take your bruiser home and come up with some story for Boden."
"You keep calling him my bruiser" Dawson said with a little laugh as she sniffled. "Why?"
"Gabi, if you don't know why then you need your eyes checked"
With that Hermann went down the bar to help Otis. She'd been given permission to leave but she didn't have her car and Kelly was mad and Dawson didn't really feel like walking over to talk to him in front of everyone. It was the sort of situation she hated and hid from. People judging her. People assuming not so great things about her. She figured her reputation at the firehouse was about to take a nosedive and it wasn't the worst thing about the night but it definitely did not make her feel better.
"Shay and I are headed out so I need to pay the tab"
Dawson blinked and saw Angie, standing awkwardly with her credit card, her face a tender mask of concern and smiled tightly. She gave a quick nod as she took Angie's card and bobbed over to the card reader as Angie followed her. "Hey it's none of my business and I know Shay is nosy enough for ten bloodhounds but you and Kelly are crazy beautiful together."
Dawson looked up from where she was getting the receipt printouts to examine Angie closely. She seemed earnest but Dawson had done enough by running her mouth tonight so she smiled tightly and gave a nod.
"Like I want to paint you two together beautiful. Here I'll show you a sketch"
From out of her pocket came a folded thick stock piece of paper. Dawson traded it for the receipts Angie needed to sign, her face skeptical. When she opened it up, all she could do was stare. Angie had captured one of her favourite Kelly gestures. He was hugging her from behind, arms wrapped around her shoulders while he kissed her hair. She had her hands on his arms, eyes closed, grinning wildly, leaning into his kiss. It was just black pencil on white paper and Dawson was stunned. If that's what they looked like to a complete newcomer...
"You're really talented" Dawson finally said, tracing Kelly's face on the page. She went to give it back and Angie shook her head.
"Keep it. This is going to sound creepy but I have more. I find you two… fascinating"
"Why?!"
"I hear a lot from Shay's point of view. I know she's worried but when I see you two together. I dunno. It's weird because you aren't magnets. People talk like that all the time and you are definitely attracted to each other but it's more than that. You glow. You radiate this absurdly intense aura of just joy and fun and maybe mischief. It's kind of amazing and I'm jealous"
Dawson didn't know what to say to that. Between Hermann and Angie she had a lot to process. She was so consumed with being inside the whirlwind that was Kelly that she didn't really pondered what it looked like from the outside anymore. Not like she had at the beginning when she was worried about what people thought. Which made her stop for a second with surprise. She knew what people thought of her with Kelly and she hadn't cared in awhile. That was how deep in she was. Nothing else mattered but Kelly. Casey was the obvious exception but she wasn't going there. Not yet.
"You shouldn't be jealous. We're a mess".
"You're talking to a painter. All I do is make messes while making something beautiful" Angie cocked her head to the side like she was trying to picture Dawson in a pose for one of her paintings. "And you two sure are beautiful"
Dawson blushed. Slipped the sketch in her apron pocket as she thanked Angie who waved her off before going back to the table to collect her very drunk but still worried partner. Dawson watched the two women leave before glancing at Kelly then Hermann who mouthed the word go and she was thinking about the till and who was going to count it because God bless her it couldn't be Zoya and Otis was sweet but… Hermann walked over to her.
"Stop making excuses Dawson. Take him home."
Home. Where was that, she wondered.
3:30 am
"Why'd they name you Kelly?"
Dawson's voice was a whisper just in case he'd fallen asleep. Her head was on his chest and she was drawing light circles around the chain he wore all the time because she couldn't deal with the bruises on his neck. She felt the sigh build in his ribcage before he exhaled slowly through his mouth.
"It's a boy's name. It also means fighter in Gaelic. Why do you ask?"
Because I want to know everything about you. She shrugged while his arm wrapped closer around her body.
"That's not an answer. Those are Googleable facts without context"
"Googleable?"
"You're deflecting. If you don't know just say so."
Dawson felt him sigh again before he kissed her hair. Felt him turn slowly on his side and take her with him. Both their heads on one pillow as he looked her in the eyes and pulled her closer. Kelly had been quiet since the bar. It was an inane thought. She'd never spent a lot of time thinking about his name before but there were more girls named Kelly than boys these days and his last name wasn't Irish and his dad was an asshole but not so much an asshole he'd saddle his son with a name that could get him teased. Right? Dawson put her hand over his heartbeat.
"Hey. I just wanted to know. Don't worry about it."
"My mom… she was Irish. It could have been that"
Dawson didn't say anything. This was as much as they'd talked since the bar. She'd walked over to the table where he was sitting with Capp and interrupted their conversation to kiss Kelly with everything she had before gazing straight into his eyes. Claiming him for all to see. He'd put down money for his tab and stood straight up and she'd taken his hand and led him out of the bar without one word passing between them. Perhaps it was all part of the aura that Angie saw but as soon as they were outside he'd pushed her against the wall and kissed her right back in response and she'd climbed him, legs around his waist to get as close as possible. She needed him. She knew she'd told him that before but it continued to be true and he thought she didn't believe in them and everything in that moment dissolved into where their hips met, grind for grind until he'd lost all control and they'd toppled into the backseat of his car, the bare minimum of clothes pushed aside as she let go.
Dawson blinked back into the moment as Kelly kept whispering.
"At one point I thought they named me after the Kelly tool. You know, the pry bar before the Halligan?"
She didn't know but she let him talk, content to draw circles on his chest, to look at the chain he always wore even in bed. Kelly was superstitious as well it seemed, a real closet Catholic. It made her want to smile but the whole evening had been upended with the fight and their good day was ending on a flat note. He was here with her in bed but also gone and she couldn't fight his pain, his deep hurt without saying things he wouldn't believe because she loved him. She really did but it didn't matter because she'd loved Casey first and still. Dawson breathed him in. She wanted to bottle whatever the scent of him was. Wanted to keep it close just in case.
"But that didn't make sense. He didn't assume I was going to be a firefighter like him so yeah, I guess it was my mom. Maybe a family name. I never asked".
He didn't say more and the silence that followed was heavy with his remembering the woman who raised him alone. It went without saying that he didn't know anything about his mother's family. Or maybe he did and just wouldn't share it. He had no aunts or uncles. Very odd for a half Irish. He probably had a lot of distant family he didn't know anything about and knowing Kelly he wouldn't go looking. So it was just him and his awful dad. Dawson tried not to think about how lonely that was. How absolutely alone he would be without Shay in his life when your own blood doesn't even visit when you're in the hospital. She kissed his heartbeat, scooted down further to kiss his navel.
"Dawson…"
He'd been calling her that since the car. Not D or Bri or baby. It was the distance that Hermann couldn't see but she knew so well. Knew intimately from every time he pulled back because of something someone said. He left without leaving and it hurt all the worse when he wasn't present during sex. When where they had always clicked so perfectly had become the scorched battleground of proof something was wrong. She kissed each hipbone in turn and felt him rise between her breasts. She wasn't terribly good at supplication. Submission wasn't a turn on for her but possession was so,
"I'm yours if you're mine"
She phrased it in the conditional but she meant it utterly. She was his. Point blank. But if he was suddenly unsure of them. If every time Casey popped into view with a slur they backtracked to her being Dawson… she gave him the choice to acknowledge what had never been said. What they had never discussed. They'd been exclusive from the start without question. She stared up at him as she took his cock in her mouth, one hand fondling him, the other snaking between her own thighs. She saw and heard the hiss come from between his teeth. How he battled the reflex to hold her down, hands fisted in her sheets. She never stopped staring as she worked him deeper, felt her throat relax around him slowly, slowly while she sucked and pumped in tandem. She was his. Dawson and Severide. Bri and Sev.
She noticed he wasn't looking at her mouth on him. He was staring past her face to where her fingers disappeared below her clit. He didn't say anything, just winced as he bit into his cut lip. She swallowed him as deep as she could go and had the pleasure of a loud groan and long shudder greet her ministrations. She took her hand away from his length to cup his balls gently. To stroke his perineum just so with her index finger and trace one finger around his…
"God! I'm gonna come" he warned and Dawson wondered which he would prefer. A swallow or a splash. She was doing this as apology. As a way back into his good graces and she loved to swallow, to see him come undone with her mouth like now, he was shaking and a sheen of sweat covered him but maybe...
She dragged the fingers from her slit to his mouth. He sucked on them unabashedly which gave her a jolt as she sucked harder on him and then came his agonised moan, the full white rush of him spilling down her throat as he jerked and she thought he was done. She thought she had him completely spent under her touch when she lifted her head to smile and found herself tossed backwards on her bed, head hanging over the edge, hair touching the floor as Kelly bottomed out in her on a long thrust and she moaned in shocked delight. He was still throbbing. Still hard as he held her thighs spread and it was her turn to clutch the sheets. Her turn to be incapable of breath, her head thrown back, his left hand pressed over the ace on her sternum, pressing her into the bed.
"You're mine" he said and his right thumb found her clit and her legs fell apart as his hips jutted forward and yesyesyesyes. She cried it out. I'm yours. And then she was crying quietly. Kelly's eyes were closed and he was kissing her ace and no one else gets to see this but me. Suddenly Dawson doubted anyone ever would. She couldn't respond. He was all she wanted as he kept going, his forehead on her chest. He was all she felt, burning her up from the inside out her hands clutching the sheets, her head facing the floor, tears sliding down into her hair.
If I tell you this all ends happily, will you believe me?