Chapter Text
1.
Colin for a while when he had just started police academy would have more nightmares than ever before and fall out of bed. Some of them were hilariously simple; walking into the training gym and everybody turned to him and whispered and he would look down and be naked. Then he'd look for something to cover himself with and everything would shrink from his hands until he was running across campus as fast as he could with everybody watching. He always woke up in a sweaty pile on the floor from those, shook his head and climbed back into bed as quietly as possible.
Then there were the ones about the first time he met Frank. Frank's paw slamming quarters into Colin's child hand. Frank loading so much free shit into his bag he couldn't lift it and tripped and spilled food all over the floor. Worst of all, most telling of all, Carmen, beautiful and thirteen and stone-faced, making herself get close to Frank after he asked about her period and that whisper. The whisper, and her pulling away again with something like a smile. Little Collie straining as hard as he could to hear what Frank said and never hearing it, getting further and further away from Frank's smirking, flirty mouth. The whisper that confounded him for months and was probably, if he really analyzed it, the reason Colin went to Frank in the first place.
Thinking, I want to know. I want to be included. I want to be a real person like that, understand adult things like that.
Those dreams would have Colin waking dry and calm in bed unsure if he was still in that world, still a child in his grandmother's cigarette-yellowed house. He would stare at the white ceiling and see little patterns on it like his grandmother's curtains used to make until he fell asleep again. In the morning the ceiling would be blank again.
These dreams got better, but they didn’t stop. He had made it three weeks into constant bedsharing with another person before he’d woken up with a fright and no idea where he was, 3AM visions of Frank’s dirty fingernails and lowered eyelids dancing in front of his eyes. Madolyn had shuffled next to him and he’d jumped bodily out of bed, flinging the comforter away. “What?” Madolyn had said, and then “Colin, what’s going on?”
He’d snapped out of it without doing something stupid like attacking her, thank God. (Or, not God, but Frenchie. Frenchie who had taken little Collie by the scruff one night and shaken him until Collie stopped battering against his solid chest with his soft pre-teen fists. Frenchie’s strong voice simply saying “snap out of it.”)
The explanations had been brief; nightmare, don’t worry, let’s go back to sleep. No arguments from Madolyn.
Of course, much to his embarrassment, he had to warn her it might happen again. So there he was the next morning, foot tapping fast at the kitchen island and shoulders tense. He nipped at his second coffee. Madolyn, not a morning person, made her slow way to the kitchen at her usual 15-minutes-to-takeoff. Colin allowed himself five more seconds to look at the clouds gathering outside the window, the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House. Rain would probably start coming down within the next hour.
“Madolyn,” he said.
“Colin?,” she said, eyes wide in that way that meant she was trying to puzzle him out. She could tell he was being serious for once.
“I’m sorry I woke you last night…”
“That’s okay. It happens to all of us.” Such a professional.
“Yes,” Colin smiled a tense smile at her. “But it used to happen to me a lot so I should warn you it might happen again.”
Madolyn, who had made her way to the fridge now, paused. “You have nightmares a lot? I didn’t know that.”
He chuckled. “You damn psychiatrist! I knew you’d do this.”
“Sorry, you’re not a patient,” she said, smiling a bit, and then walked over to hold his face in her hand. For a moment he closed his eyes and leaned in to feel her warmth. She smelled of his sandalwood shower gel again, even though she had her own in the apartment now. “But you can tell me anything, you know that. Anything.” Colin opened his eyes.
“Madolyn, there’s nothing to tell, really. I just get a bit disoriented after a nightmare sometimes, have since I was a kid. Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch every now and then. That’s all. I just wanted you to know it’s nothing to do with you.”
She smiled and kissed him. “Okay, then.”
2.
He buried his face in his hands and groaned. The first few times he had been stoically embarrassed, wouldn’t say a word or look Madolyn in the eye no matter how often she said it happened to every man sometimes. By now he was so frustrated he felt no need to hide it.
“Colin, baby,” Madolyn sighed, “it’s okay.” He felt her heart wasn’t in it.
“It’s just so annoying,” he whined. He knew he was behaving out of character. He knew he was being childish, because he felt like a child. “The hottest woman on the face of the earth, I bagged her first try, and I can’t even fuck her.”
He felt her hand in his hair, felt as she began to stroke him like his grandmother used to after he cried. He hadn’t cried now. They lay in silence for a while.
“Did you really think I was the hottest woman on the face of the earth that day?”
He had seen that she was attractive and professional. That the boys in the office would be envious and impressed. That she would be too busy to be able to care where he was at all times, and look good on his resume. Her bright eyes had reminded him of a photo of his mother that stood on his bedside table until he was nine.
“I still think so now,” is what he said.
“Okay,” she replied and sat up. Her hand left his head cold. “Well, sex isn’t just about your dick. Sorry to say.”
He finally turned his body to look at her again and managed a grin. “It’s not?”
“No. I don’t really need it, to be honest.”
“You don’t?”
She smiled at him through tousled hair. Bit her lip.
“Well? Are you going to just lie there sulking or come over here and finish what you started?”
He went.
3.
“The boys in the department have a betting pool now, you know?”
Madolyn looked up from her novel, distracted, not too interested.
“Oh?”
“On when we tie the knot. And more importantly, if I’ll invite any of them.”
That got her attention. She placed her thin finger in between the pages. She was wearing creme-coloured nail polish that almost looked like unpainted nails in the bedside lamplight.
“Why don’t they think you’ll invite them?” She was obviously avoiding the wedding question. Colin decided to let her get away with it, so he laughed.
“They don’t know if we’re friends. We spend every day together but they can tell, subliminally, that I hate their guts.”
Maybe he was saying too much. Madolyn lowered her book: trouble.
“Do you really?”
Colin scoffed, but he knew how to get out of it. He always did.
“Have you met those flipping staties? You have. They’re nightmares. Each more stupid than the rest. I can barely tolerate them at work, let alone anywhere else. They’d probably make me have a shitty-ass stag night, drag me to a strip club. It’s beyond undignified.”
Madolyn’s eyes glittered mischievously. Off the hook. “Undignified?” Or not.
“Maddie, come on. You don’t think I’m the type to go to strip clubs, right? Not when I have a beautiful woman at home.”
She widened her eyes. Neutrally: “I know many men do. Regardless of relationship status. Some even sleep with them.”
Didn’t he know it. He remembered doing the rounds with Frank and Frenchie and Crazy Paul, back when he was just who-knows-how-old. Frank controlled the stock at five strip joints; making sure all the girls were available was part of the routine. Anyone not up to Frank’s pretty arbitrary standards of cleanliness or anyone who rejected him and his boys was let go on the spot. When Frank decided it was time for Collie to be a man he let him go in a booth with a hearty laugh and a slap on the ass. Collie had felt more nervous than ever, but the girl looked at him with steady brown eyes and took his sweaty hand. Thinking back, she couldn't have been all that much older than him. She must have been happy it had been him rather than Frank.
“Many men, but not me. I’m a very loyal person, Maddie. I stick by my people.” He paused, tried to sound earnest for once. “By my woman.”
By the time he was 15 he’d learnt to flirt better than anyone on the crew. He’d always known he was good-looking, but now he looked grown enough to want everyone else to know, too. And he was quick-witted, of course. It turned out that in situations with women, even the hookers and strippers under Frank’s thumb, Collie could feel like the most powerful man in the room because he was better at flirting and younger and much cuter and girls wanted him. It was a rush.
He hadn’t gone to any of those places since he became a cop.
“Mhh,” Madolyn was saying. She grinned. “Then I guess you shouldn’t invite your undignified coworkers.”
He grinned back. “That’s what I said.” They kissed. He pretended not to notice she was angling for more and pulled away to settle down.
He knew he’d have to have the wedding for his career, but he still hadn’t really decided how to spin it. He couldn’t very well invite his Southie guys. He couldn’t invite his family, Frank. And with his coworkers out too, that didn’t leave a lot. His grandmother was mostly unresponsive these days. He briefly considered calling Frank and asking his advice, but he’d only say something nasty about Maddie again.
“Do you mind if I keep reading?,” she asked softly.
“No, no, just turn the light off when you’re done. I can sleep like this.”
He didn’t shut his eyes for hours.
4.
Date night takeaway, classy, goosefat, paté, and everything, it came in reusable black containers. Colin still felt the need to replate it first. Madolyn rolled her eyes a bit, but was probably secretly happier.
“So, how has your week been?,” she asked between bites of duck.
“Oh, business as usual. Mildly disrupting crime.”
“Hmm. Great to hear our great American taxes are going into the important things.”
“That’s why I hardly pay any taxes.”
Madolyn laughed because she thought it was a joke.
“Hey, those make my paycheck, too.”
“And how has your job been going? Any cops going crazy? Any robbers getting reformed?”
She looked down at her plate, mildly uncomfortable. Colin thought it was strange.
“I have this one patient,” she started, then quickly raised another piece of duck to her mouth. She chewed slowly.
“I have this one patient who came in twice this week and he’s really Catholic.”
“Oh no,” Colin laughed, “not an Irish Catholic in Boston.”
“I know, I know, but listen, he’s obsessed. He won’t talk about himself. We had a discussion about Calvinism for almost half a session. And every time I try to get him to open up about his own stuff, he shifts to religion. I’m sure there’s a way to deal with it, for me to get through it rather than around it, but I just haven’t cracked it yet. I haven’t experienced this before with a patient. And I’ll probably have to do all this homework on theology.”
“Really? You want to go back to bible study for some cop?”
“I didn’t say he was a cop.”
“Oh, sure. Doctor’s confidentiality. But it’s definitely a cop.”
“I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this, even in vague terms.”
“Why not? I was an altar boy for nearly two years, you know.”
“You were? I didn’t know that.”
She looked at him with that analyst’s stare. He allowed himself to hate her for a moment.
“Hm-hm. Then I realized everyone there is an insane pederast, so I moved on. Stole some wine, too.”
“Did something happen?”
Colin scoffed. “Can you turn that off for a second? No, I didn’t get ass-fucked by Father Gallagher. Feel better now?”
“I’m sorry, it was just a question. I’m concerned for you, because I care about you,” Madolyn said, sounding much more defensive than caring. “Is that such a problem?”
“‘Caring’ is not a problem,” Colin said, and he could hear himself getting louder but he couldn’t stop it, maybe didn’t want to. “The problem is this– this looking at me like a patient on a slab because I say one single thing! I just know people, I– You don’t get this, but I knew a guy, right, who was felt up by a priest, you know, and he isn’t like you people'd think with some kind of, some kind of victim complex, he’s not a victim–”
“Colin, calm down, I’m sorry I–”
“No, you don’t get it!” Collie stood up. His chair groaned across the floor. His face felt hot and his vision was swimming. He thought of Frank waking him at 4AM when he’d slept over on the couch, Frank with his drunk glassy eyes, slurring fucking faggot fucking holy faggot sons of bitches in holy dresses… and stumbling towards him.
“You might have read books about this shit but I know guys who– who really know and they’re not– not helpless kids, yeah? Fuck.”
Madolyn got up and walked towards him. Collie flinched away from her hand and turned away. Then he closed his eyes and laughed.
"Colin?"
"God," he said. He ground his teeth together, like he did at night, like the dentist said was bad for him. Frank used to say, look at my teeth. I've got perfect fucking teeth, don't I?
5.
With Madolyn and him the way they were, not touching, barely looking at each other, Billy Costigan's fast hands on him and a gun to his head felt almost good. Reminded him of phone calls to Dad.
"Just fucking kill me," he said, and didn't get his wish.