Disorder Ch. 11

The lighter clicked and the containers burned, smouldering as the flames leapt and danced, crackling in their joy of destruction. And there was a pleasure to be taken from it too as the drugs burned, everything that the trio and more too, he imagined, held dear to them burning, all of it going down, down, down. But he wouldn't have had to do it if they had just stayed out of his way to begin with, left him and John well enough alone and not interfered with those too that had made their operation what it was.

"Maybe you'll learn."

A part of him hoped they didn't, for the simple fact that he could do it all again, exploring the limits of his strength and his body, what he had never before, not even the once, considered that he could do before he'd seen the evidence right there before his eyes, all for himself. Of course, there was more he could do and there were bruises and cuts and scars that would only come to light under the burning, searing heat of a hot shower later that night (or morning, by that point) but he had everything in hand, flames snarling and snapping as if the beast inside him had been released into a fiery inferno and the essence that it took for itself regardless of the thoughts and feelings of anyone else. He could be more like that too, only a little but enough to change and learn. Donnie pressed his lips together in a tight yet manic smile. It would do him good to expand his horizons again.

The operation felled, well and truly up in smoke, Donnie smirked and adjusted the collar of his shirt, more dishevelled than he would have liked. But he still looked suave, he was sure, a man that John would be proud to call his brother and, maybe still, more than that too. That was between the two of them, however, and no one else. He could be who he was in the moment and nothing else would matter, calming down from the fight at least somewhat, his heart rate returning to something that could, at the very least, be considered normal.

Throwing his head back, Donnie cast his hair free of that obnoxious bun, hanging as it should always have had. He shed the jacket part of his suit and cast it over his arm, rendering his adjustment of it and more only a moment ago pointless. But what did he care about that? He'd only just gone and fucking done it! And whoever had said he couldn't besides himself?

The flames crackled, leaping and dancing, striving to break into the sky, and yet there would be no one there in time to call halt to the blaze as he made good his departure, the lights of the GTR slanting across the dockyard and many, many shipping containers before the police even got near the scene.

*

"So," John said, tipping his chair back onto two legs, the cocktail bar empty bar for them, although it had been a tall order to hire out the entire bar at peak hour on a Saturday evening. "What was that about the other night? Or was I so fucked up that I dreamed that you were in my apartment or something?"

The sunset was glorious, gleaming in striking shades of orange and red, painted across the cityscape and clear sky as if by an artist's brush. So beautiful was the closure of the day that Donnie did not immediately want to answer, to break the moment between them, a rare sort of date that only became possible when they were, at least in part, posing as other people. John's attitude had not changed but the hair dye that Donnie had coaxed him to don, so they could at least be somewhat in public, turned him into a brunette, his hair drawn back like Charles usually wore his own. The resemblance between them in the strong lines of his cheekbones was uncanny but only one of them made Donnie's heart turn over in that manner.

Donnie, of course, was not without his own manner of disguise too, dressed too casually for his liking in designer, ripped jeans (he would never have normally picked those up for himself), posing as someone who maybe ran a big tech company, which was an irony, considering recent events, in itself. John had already taken the piss on that one so it was hardly something that he at all wanted to spare the brainpower thinking about any further, coloured contacts and all.

"Donnie? Earth to the alien?"

Grinning, John made as if to tap him upside the head but Donnie dodged in the nick of time, less amused than his smirking brother was. Despite all that, the tomfoolery, it was nice too to see a lighter side to his brother, the part that had made his infatuation with him, so very long ago, turn into love.

Not that they would say that out loud, of course. Never. Not even once. It wasn't the done thing.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm with you, just not sure how to break the news to you, dear, that you were off your head on god knows what that night. Don't you even remember what you took? I had to wipe up your drool!"

It made have been something more disgusting in practice but they had very well done far more than that to and for one another in due course and time. That was what brothers like them were for, their lives coming together in gross times and exulting times, times that made the bad look like nothing and other times that made the good appear to be entirely non-existent. John clicked his tongue disparagingly against the roof of his mouth, the late evening sunset colouring his cheeks a rosier, healthier hue than he may otherwise have boasted.

"Well, that's nothing new," he admitted, taking a long drink from his glass, a fancy shape to it that he never would have usually had. "I don't know what I took but I wish I did, that shit would be great, don't you agree?"

He smiled charmingly and Donnie knew the only right answer to such a situation was to nod and to smile in turn, to allow himself to be disarmed of any response that could say otherwise. If John was infatuated by some new strain of what they spread through the city then let him be; it would only come back to line their pockets in time. It was better for things to be lighter between them, the good times allowing for more respites just like that one, times where they could go out and, for a little while, pretend that their lives were the normal that they loathed.

Donnie could have done with a little more of the normal.

"Well, that's fine, you'll have to tell me when you want to get it out to the usual guys," Donnie said. "It's not a big deal and, you know...things like that have happened before."

"Not like that."

Donnie raised an eyebrow but if John had meant anything by that remark, he most certainly was not going to get an explanation while his brother so very smoothly changed the subject to one that he had been hoping he could avoid entirely. And yet the truth had to come out sooner or later even as he sipped top shelf vodka, not knowing or caring what the brand was, only that it slid down smoothly, the after taste one that made him crave more, not a burn but a bite. After all he'd been through, Donnie could only say that he was a sucker for pain.

Just the right kind of pain.

"But what did you come to my apartment for that night?" John pressed, although he was not usually one to have his curiosity raised so, Donnie's back up, shoulders tense. "You came for something... Alright, there was a blanket over me but you weren't a dick like that time I got fucked up at your place, so you didn't do that this time, clearly. So, what gives? You gonna give up the secret on this one or not?"

Swallowing, Donnie sheepishly leaned back and rubbed the back of his neck. There was a little more hair there than he would have liked, needing shaving down again, and he scratched through it, the sound that it made drawing an aching shiver to his psyche. The sound simply was grating.

"Don't do that if it bothers you so much."

John's eyes bored into him and Donnie shuffled under the intensity of him, loathing how his own breath came so shortly and shallowly. Why did John make it so hard?

That's what she said...

He grimaced.

Shut it.

"There was a...problem," he said, as delicately as it was possible to me. "Our guys were getting beaten up, lost a few of them. Some gang calling themselves the Beats, they were trying to move in on our turf. I expect they thought our operation was, ah, smaller than it was. We do have that thing going where our guys are all split up so that no one knows really how big we are. It works in some ways but not other ways, as we've seen..."

John blinked.

"Fuckers. So, what happened? I heard that it had been taken care of, why'd it come up to our level then?"

He eyed his brother, eyebrows raised.

"Donnie... What aren't you telling me?"

Swallowing, Donnie waved a hand in the air, stalling for time as much as he sweated to have the whole ordeal over and done with. No kind of confrontation was his strong point, even if he had indeed found that he was a more capable sort of man than he had originally thought. That wasn't a bad thing but it did not change who he was at heart.

John sighed, running his fingers back through his hair, dye sticking. It was only temporary, after all, and would wash out. Not his usual style but Donnie smiled to think that his brother did look good with lighter hair too. But Donnie was not forthcoming and he shook his head at his brother, waiting on the revelation that surely had to be coming, as excruciating and drawn-out as it seemed to be.

"Spit it out."

"You don't usually say that."

"Fuck off and tell me what went down."

He could have told John that he couldn't do both of those things so he'd have to choose one or the other but the story had to come out sooner or later and Donnie sheepishly allowed the words to flow out with the slickness of liquor to help them along. John sat back to listen, the lights coming on in the sky-high bar even as the bartenders left them discreetly be, the place already swept for bugs. He had no fear of being overheard by anyone else and yet it was revealing what had been done in the absence of John that made his heart pound all the more viciously, another darker and deeper part of his soul demanding that he take pride in the bloody nature of his accomplishment.

They hadn't died. He wouldn't have cared much at all though if they had.

"So..." John said at last, the tips of his fingers pressed together as he digested everything, a shade too calm for his brother's liking. "That was what you did, was it?"

His lips turned down and Donnie suppressed a flinch, rushing to his own defence.

"It stopped things from escalating and that's that," he said firmly and finally. "It's not my fault that you were out for the count and you are lucky that I was able to take care of it. Maybe it's time you had a little faith in me too."

He hadn't meant to say the last bit but the words just kept right on coming out once he'd begun talking, a slew that could have been either a poison or a tonic in the tense heat of the moment. And John was absolutely no help either, sitting back with his long legs parted before him, that masculine gesture of sitting as if he owned the place oozing from him in heady doses, enough to make his head spin. He couldn't let such appearances sway him, however, and kept his eyes focused regardless of how hard his heart was beating, a sickening pound against his eardrums that demanded attention.

"Thanks."

Donnie stared.

"What?"

"Are you going deaf or something?" John smirked and raised his glass to him, although it was almost empty. "Not bad going, Small Donnie, not bad at all. And to think you sorted this shit out on your own -- I'll drink to that!"

He rapped twice on the table, as small and nonsensical as it was in such a cocktail bar, without even sparing a glance in the direction of the bartender or the 'mixologist' or whatever the hell it was that they called themselves these days. The drinks appeared just like clockwork, the old glasses taken away and table swiped clean with a damp rag that left no residue in its wake, everything as clean and pristine and unduly perfect as it had been when they had first sat (rather, perched) in the bar.

It was not relief but something else that flooded Donnie, coolness seeping through him as he met John's grin with his own and tapped his glass against his brother's, the meeting of their eyes saying all that their words could not. There was a true thanks in there, of course, but a respect too, a glint in John's expression and sultry quirk of his lips that told of another kind of respect there too. And Donnie's heart swelled to see it plastered there so plainly -- at least to one who knew his brother as intimately as he did.

Donnie's grin faded to a smile, but it was a more genuine one than any grin could have produced for any span of true time. Nodding to his brother's glass, it was time to move the conversation on, the matter done and dusted and coming to no ill end, just as he'd wanted it all to play out.

"What are you drinking?"

John shrugged.

"Fucked if I know."

Donnie laughed, the sound breaking the barrier of his lips more easily than it ever had before. That was strange in itself but for once, he did not question it, did not dig into it, did not pull up the ifs, ands, whys and buts of what it all could be, what it could mean. He didn't need to get trapped inside his head all over again. Truth be told, he'd spent more than enough of his life there in due course.

And it was time enough to get out of his head and trust in himself. One bad trip, after all, could lead to him taking charge, as he'd seen, and he could take that power forward, learning more about himself that he had thought wasn't even there to uncover. With the sunset dipping, slanting shadows across the city, Donnie leaned back in his seat as much as he could with the low support there and revelled softly in the moment, content for things to be simply as they were.

He wasn't just the second brother anymore.

And that was enough.