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It’s dark, there in the alleyway. Pitch-fucking-black, in fact, between the towering buildings and under the starless sky. Alfie kicks a broken crate, finding this corner empty too, save for the dirt and trash. You’d think they could be a bit more specific, fucking wops… Then again this is what they want, isn’t it, desperation, aimless searching in a far too large area as his mind plays up the images of what he might find.
“Boss, over here,” one of his men call out, opposite side of the street. Fitting that it’s so fucking dark. Alfie tastes iron in his mouth as he hurries across the road with Ollie in tow. One of his men is kneeling, the others stand in there avoiding his gaze, staring at the wet cobblestones.
“Move, move, fuck off,” Alfie grunts and waves his cane and they part like the red sea, don’t they, save for Ishmael, kneeling on the ground. His white shirt shines like a beacon, because he’s used his coat to cover-
Alfie swallows the bile, the taste of blood his heart back into his fucking chest, hand clenched hard around the handle of his cane.
“He’s alive,” Ishmael says with a voice Alfie doesn’t recognize. “But he’s- it’s-“
He shakes his head, the words left hanging in the misty air around them, doesn’t look Alfie in the eye, and as Alfie sinks to his knees, cane clattering forgotten to the ground, he takes a step back.
“I’ll get the car,” Ollie says just a nervous flutter somewhere behind the thundering of blood in his ears. Alfie reaches out and the skin is cold to the touch, but he feels the weak patter of a heartbeat, right on that spot where he only last night pressed scratchy kisses which elicited a delightful mix between a whine -fuck off, you’re tickling me you insufferable git- and a sharp little gasp. He keeps his fingers there as he looks at all the blood, clinging to the dark strands of hair, still seeping along the sharp lines of his cheekbones and that soft roundness of his nose. Over the bruises, all the fucking bruises… Alfie grabs the coat, finds his hand clenched into the fabric even as his gut revolts. Worse than he could’ve imagined, somehow, what’s hidden underneath. His eyes can’t focus on all the bruises, dark splotches blooming across the pale skin. Barely a spot left unmarred. Broken ribs, poking into the skin from the inside. A broken arm, swollen and bruised in shades so dark its almost black. They’ve taken his clothes and the implications knock the wind out of his lungs. Can’t think of it. Can’t imagine it. He covers it all up again with the coat.
“Tommy,” he rasps out. Shakes him carefully. “Petal, can you hear me?”
Tommy remains deathly still, curled up on his side the way he does in sleep sometimes. Alfie takes him in his arms, then. Pulls the broken body into his lap. Tommy’s head falls against his shoulder.
“Sir,” Ishmael says and the tone of his voice is all wrong, his eyes are fastened on Tommy’s back. Alfie carefully tilts Tommy forward a bit. Then, he needs to swallow down bile, his stomach turning at the sight. The words carved into his skin are large and crude and covering his entire upper back. Property of. And then Alfie's own fucking name, like a fiery brand across the pale skin.
And he thinks of the calling card with the black hand and the adress, nailed to the bakery door.
Come get your whore.
He forces himself to look, doesn’t want to but he owes Tommy to fucking face this, owes him much more, this shouldn’t have happened, how can he forgive himself for letting it happen?
His men avert their gazes as he folds the coat away to see the blood between his thighs, dried in patches and still seeping in crimson lines in others. Stares at it, breathing slowly, the coppery smell and cold air filling his nose the only thing keeping him attached to reality. He wraps the coat tighter around Tommy, once again hiding the injuries, the fucking carnage, and pulls him closer despite all the broken bones, until he can feel warm puffs of air against his neck, the way his chest rises and falls slowly. Tommy still smells faintly of the soap he uses to wash up in the morning, underneath the blood and sweat and the smell of stale sex.
“Ollie’s got the car.” Ishmael says. Pulls him out of his stupor.
Alfie is used to feelings raging like a torrent, and yet when he carries Tommy to the waiting car, what’s inside his chest is nothing but a dark pit.
In the car, he wraps his own coat around Tommy too. And somewhere between that godforsaken alleyway and Alfie’s home, their home, home, not a hospital, home and his personal physician, one who’s paid well enough never to speak of this. Well. Somewhere along the way, Tommy begins to stir. Whimpers quietly and shifts uneasily away from him.
“Shh, I’ve got you, treacle,” Alfie whispers into his hair. “Yeah? You’ll be okay.”
And even as they leave his mouth, the words feel like a fucking lie he tells himself.
Tommy’s lashes flutter, shards of blue flashing beneath them and he begins to struggle, squirming to get away from him and Alfie holds on tighter, trying to reach through the panic with his voice, “It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re safe, ‘s just me, just old Alfie, eh?”
Tommy screams, wordless, desperate and a sound that comes from somewhere deep in his chest and it pierces Alfie’s heart like a fucking knife. He kicks towards Ishmael and wrestles against the coats surrounding him, against Alfie’s arms, but Alfie can’t let him go and he hushes and coos and tries to find something to say that will make this okay even if nothing can, and the car shakes around them as they go around a corner, jostling Tommy’s battered form in his arms and making him cry out in pain.
“Stop, fucking’ hell, give us a minute!” Alfie barks and the car comes to a halt.
He holds Tommy close, hand on his head to and one arm around his chest.
“You’re safe, you’re safe,” he repeats, even if it feels like another lie and finally Tommy stops. He’s left quivering and hanging limply in Alfie’s arms. Alfie runs his fingers through his hair and his hand comes back wet with blood.
“Alfie,” Tommy croaks. Looks up at him. “What-“
“Hush, my dove, I’m here now. Taking you home, aren’t I? Yeah.”
Blue eyes flicker around the car and he can see the way his mind is working, catching up with him and fuck he wishes there was something he could do to keep it from happening, wishes he could pry the memories away before they can sink their claws into him but he sees it happening and there’s nothing he can do, Tommy blinks, looking straight past him even as Alfie tries to hold his gaze. He shakes his head. And something inside of those eyes just… disappears. When they glaze over with tears, he squeezes them shut. The tears trickle silently down his cheeks.
Alfie bows his head. Rests his forehead against Tommy’s. “I’m sorry, love, I’m so sorry. They’ll pay. You hear me? Every single fucking one of them. I’ll give you their heads, eyes, whatever body part you want. You can pick and choose the way you do at a butcher’s counter, and I’ll carve them off with a blunt knife. And then I’m burning Changretta’s rat-hole of a city to the bloody ground.”
Tommy just hides his face in his chest.
And that’s okay. He just needs time, that’s all. Time and care and rest and for Alfie to never let him out of his sight again.
That’s all he needs.
That, and Luca Changretta’s head on a fucking platter.