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If there was one lesson life had taught you, it was that nothing stays. People change. Faces age. Waters rise. Things get swept away. You weren’t naive enough to believe this could go on forever, but that didn’t mean you weren’t content to savour it while it lasted. This morning, you had gone to your flat to collect the last of your worldly possessions only to find it gone, swept under the ever rising waters of the river Thames. You stood at the edge of the water as the rain began to fall once again, staring out into the murky depths and thinking of all that lay beneath them until the water began to lap gently at your shoes. Walking away, you knew that you had to leave London. You didn’t know what world was out there, if there was any world left at all, but you knew that you stood a better chance out there than you did on this tiny patch of land that shrunk a little bit every day. The red light outside Dickie’s door is switched on when you return back to that little space you share, shining like a beacon; a reminder of the divide between you. You’d have to break the news to him when you came home that evening, then.
To tell the truth, you aren’t sure what he’ll say to you. He’s a stubborn arse, that’s for certain, but is he so stubborn as to go down with the ship? Does he buy into all that crap he helps to sell? Or would he see the signs for what they are and flee with you like a pair of rats on the Titanic? And what if he is stubborn enough to stay? What if he believes the propaganda? Would you have the strength to walk away? Could you look into those big, tired, beautiful blue eyes and let him drown? You honestly don’t know.
Sunset looks different down here where the fluorescent bulbs flicker and falter in the windowless maze of brick and concrete. There’s no dimming of daylight. No streaks of orange and pink that flare across the sky- the last dying breaths of the sun before the dusk snuffs it out, fading to purple and finally, the deep, starried blue of midnight. Sunset is marked instead by a cacophony of music, Pop-Pop’s latest hits to take your mind off the end of the world. It looks like people shoving their way through the doors, shedding drenched coats and ponchos and rain slickers and worries as they came, leaving them for you to check in and put neatly away. People like you can’t afford the luxury of bliss and willful ignorance, so you scramble for the pennies the delirious and blithe remnants of the upper crust toss your way. It’s a blessing and a curse- the knowledge, that is. These people will be happy and drunk and foolish, dancing about with the wool pulled tight over their eyes, and you? Well, with any luck, you will be alive.
And then, there are people like Dickie. People who can hang on the arms of the wealthy elite like they belong there. Who can turn crooked eyebrows and fake pearls into the latest fashion trends. Who can fake it and make it in equal measure. People who, for all the hoops they jump through and efforts they make, will never truly be one of Them. You recognize the woman he’s hanging on tonight. She’s old money, like the Impresario. A card reader. Dickie’s been enamoured of her since she’d read his fortune in a different, quieter club. One where you had been able to be the one on his arm instead of the coat room attendant, wearing a string of his pearls that he’d gleefully thrown over your head despite your protests and holding a flute of champagne that had been bottled before the sky had started falling. Collette is what she calls herself, but you can’t remember the name of the frightened looking girl who trails her everywhere. For a moment, you wonder if that’s how she saw you, too. As a nameless accessory to Dickie, doe-eyed and trusting.
You aren’t certain if his interest in Collette is personal, or if she’s just another stepping stone to him, but either way, you can see even from the coat closet that he’s laying it on thick. He places his hand over hers as he laughs at something she says to him. That cinches it, then. He never smiles so sweetly for a person he isn’t trying to get money out of. From your secret vantage point, you can also see her skepticism. You see the insincerity and the amusement in her own expression, and you know before he does that he’s just a jester to her. And really, that is his position here. He’s an amusement- a toy for the wealthy pigs to pass around, and you fear the day that the novelty wears off. As it is, you have your suspicions that The Impresario is growing bored. The Impresario is growing bored, and the waters are rising. How long have you got? How long before Dickie steps just an inch too far out of line? How long before this whole bloody town drowns in the ever encroaching river? It’s impossible to know, but you can hear the sirens in the distance and feel them in the chills that run up and down your spine.
Sunrise brings with it no peace, but plenty of quiet, and plenty of pocket change from forgotten and discarded coats. Morality has no place in this new world, and certainly not in this building. Theft is simply reality. A tip, for stowing those abandoned accouterments so neatly. Dickie had wandered off some time ago with a waifish young thing who was almost definitely in over his head, so you figured between the two of you, there would be a decent start to an escape fund. The red light is dormant once again when you reach Dickie’s door, and knocking on the hard metal fills you with a sense of comfort amid all the brewing anxiety. Dickie tears open the door, looking fit to start yelling for a moment before he recognizes you and the ice melts from his gaze.
”Oh, it’s you. In you get, then.” He says quietly, opening the door for you and ushering you inside with a nod.
The smell of bleach fills your nostrils the minute you step into the room and makes clear his plans for the morning, and yours in turn. His roots really do need touching up, dark brown streaked with strands of silver peeking out from behind his ears and the crown of his head like a dark halo. Without being asked, you grab a pair of vinyl gloves from the box on the low table by the door, shoving your hands into them. He hands you the brush and bowl, dropping into the little plastic chair in front of you.
”Did you have a good night then, pet?” He asks you as you pull the elastics out of his hair, running a hand through it to shake it out, digging your nails into his scalp the way you know he loves. “Make lots of money? You look well fit in that little vest. It took everything I had to keep from pushing you into that little coat closet and having my wicked way with you.”
”The River is rising again.” You say vacantly, watching his smile falter. “I went back to my flat to get my things, and well. I don’t have a flat anymore.”
”Well-” He says, completely glossing over the gravity in your words. “That makes the move a bit easier, doesn’t it?”
Normally, you would play along, but you can’t anymore. There’s too much at stake. You section off his hair, beginning to apply the bleach to his exposed roots, covering up the evidence that there was indeed a flesh and blood man under all of that, wondering what he might look like if he didn’t have to be this anymore.
”We’re running out of time.”
”Time for what, pet?” He sighs, giving up on playing the fool. “There isn’t anything else. This is it.”
”What if it isn’t?” You say in a hushed tone. “The trains are still running.”
”Alright, I’ll play along with your stupid little game of make-believe. Say we actually manage by some fucking miracle to get out of London. What then, huh? Where are we gonna go?”
”Anywhere.” You whisper. “Somewhere warm. Somewhere dry. Somewhere landlocked. Somewhere where we can be safe.”
”And if there’s no such place?”
”Then I’ll settle for ‘together.’”
”Oh, you stupid whore.” He says as though it’s a compliment, dragging you down by the arm. “C’mere.”
”Dickie, I’m not done with your hair.”
”I don’t give a shit.” He presses a kiss to your cheek, leaving a sticky lipstick print in his wake. He releases you fairly quickly, though, allowing you to finish what you’d begun.
”I love you.” You remind him. It feels like lead in your heart as it leaves your lips, heavy with meaning and with the sense of impending doom that colors everything these days.
”I know.” He sighs.
”I don’t want to die here, Dickie.” You say, moving quickly through his hair, well practiced at this point. “If I’m going to drown with you, I’d rather drown trying to get out than stay here and pretend nothing’s happening.”
”You’re always so fucking spirited, aren’t you?” He hisses bitterly. “You can’t just leave well enough alone, huh? Always gotta be a fucking hero?”
”For you? Always, yes.” You put the brush and bowl down, finally finished. All there’s left to do is wait. You wrap your arms around his stiff shoulders, kissing his cheek this time. “You’re the only thing worth living for in this godforsaken world, and I’ll do everything I can to keep you afloat, even if you don’t want me to.”
”Even if I just end up dragging you down with me?”
”Of course.”
His hands come to rest over yours, squeezing them gently. He’s only ever gentle like this with you, and while he’s still not great at it and you doubt he ever will be, he’s starting to learn how to be soft again. To learn the value and meaning behind the gentle stroking of a thumb against the back of a hand. Dickie’s gentle with you the way a lioness is with her cubs, with all the power and ferocity calming to something careful and thoughtfully delicate, something that takes a conscious decision. He could hurt or maim you, but he won’t. To be loved so tenderly by something so fierce and powerful is its own kind of beauty. One that now you’ve known, you don’t want to ever be without.
”I love you.”
His voice is quiet. Barely a whisper. The way it always is when he says those three words, as though it were some deep, fearsome secret between the two of you. The fact that such a creature as Dickie was still capable of a thing so vulnerable and so delicate as love is a thing that can only be acknowledged in soft breaths and quiet words. And so, when you speak again, your voice is but a whisper as well.
”I know.”
You pull away, checking the state of his roots carefully. His hair always lifts so fast, the last hints of the man he once was- the man he could be- disappearing in a matter of minutes, swallowed up by the chemicals in the same way the waters swallow the world around you. Perhaps at this point, a rowboat would be more practical than a train ticket. Or better yet, a houseboat. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about the rising water, you could both float peacefully on the surface, safe inside the hull. It’s time to rinse the bleach from his hair. You tap his shoulder to let him know as much, and chew your bottom lip as he makes his way to the bathroom, lost in thoughts of rain and lapping waves upon shortening shorelines.
The rain continues for several days, and so does your pickpocketing. You’ve been hiding your ill-gotten gains in an empty tin can in the laundry room, and it’s finally beginning to get heavy. It’s not that you don’t love Dickie, but loving him means knowing him, and knowing him means knowing that every penny he doesn’t spend on keeping the lights on disappears up his nose. It’s not pretty, but reality being what it is, you can’t very well blame him. But this is too important. It’s life or death. It’s your only chance. Collette is here again tonight, though why she’s come back is beyond you. This place isn’t like her at all. It’s loud and dizzying and modern and neon, while she’s soft and delicate and refined like the paper flowers she’s wearing in her hair, somehow untouched by the rain. She passes you her coat, and unlike every other person you’ve welcomed tonight, she looks you in the eye.
”You love him, don’t you?” She says to you, holding your hand in her own, her coat still on your arm.
You don’t really know what to say, unprepared to even be looked at, let alone spoken to so intimately. There’s a soft sadness in her eyes as she peers into yours, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and it sends a strange chill up your spine.
”You don’t have to say anything, it’s plain as day.” Collette adds, taking her hand back. “You’ll want to move quickly, though, if you still want to change things. There’s a little change in the pocket for that little can of yours. Don’t make me regret giving it to you.”
You didn’t know that anyone could be so hopeful and disdainful at the same time. As she disappears into the crowd, her words haunt you, running around in your head like wild horses, causing your heart to pound in your ears louder than the electroswing playing in the club. There’s no doubt in your mind any longer that the rumors about that woman and her abilities of divination have at least some truth to them, and that thought fills you with dread. You reach into the pocket of the coat in your hands and wrap your fingers around a crisp bill, astonished that this was pocket change to her. The only item in the pocket, this has to be what she had been referring to, but even if it hadn’t been, you’ll take it and feel no remorse. The water is rising, the Impresario is bored, and you have to go while you still can.
When you slink through his door at dawn, you’re immediately struck with a sense of dread. Dickie’s not in, and the room feels so much smaller without him. It’s colder. Darker. Wetter.
You wrap your arms around yourself instinctively, peering around the corner in search of Dickie and knowing you wouldn’t find him. Wherever he’s wound up, you pray he’s safe, and that he’ll come home with the standard amount of bruising. It’s too much to ask for, apparently. He stumbles in the door looking battered and exhausted and leans against the door with a sigh. He's not crying, but that's barely a consolation, and you wait patiently on the futon for him to recover.
"You alright?" You call out finally, worried by his silence.
"Oh, hello there pet." He says weakly, stepping into the room, wiping the blood from his lip as he does so. It's no use. Even as he smiles his prettiest fake smile at you, his mouth fills with fresh blood from the split in his upper lip. "I didn't realize you were home. Have a decent night then?"
"He did that to you, didn't he?" You don't even have to say his name. You both know.
"Well, if it wasn't him, it would've been someone else, now wouldn't it?" He says darkly, quickly abandoning his attempts at looking pretty and polished.
He reaches for the zipper at the back of his dress, catching it with his fingertips and dragging it down with a sigh. He rolls it down his shoulders revealing fresh cigar burns along his back as he does, and you can't take it anymore. Typically it breaks your heart to see him like this, but knowing the Impresario was the one to do it added an extra layer of anger to it. You stand and cross the room, taking the stained and singed taffeta in hand and stripping him the rest of the way.
"You don't have to do that." Dickie says, making no effort to stop you.
"You don't have to let me." You counter, inspecting his wounds with a frown.
You've definitely seen him in worse condition, but that's not reassuring. You hold his face in your hands a moment, unable to put into words all the fear and all the love for him you have. It’s time to get out. It’s beyond time. You place a soft kiss to the end of his nose, pressing your foreheads together for a long moment. He’s warm and solid in your hands. Strong. Resilient. But christ he needs a bath. Reluctantly, you pull away, ducking into the small bathroom to get the water running and to pull out your first aide kit. Those burns would need tending to.
”We’ve gotta get out of here, Dickie.” You say to him, a grave tone in your voice as you apply ointment to the fresh wounds on his back, eyes wandering to the scars of old ones that you can’t help but feel responsible for.
”Back on that again, are we?” He groans.
”I’m serious. We have the money. I’ve been saving.”
”You’ve been saving?”
”Yes, Dickie. I’ve been saving. There’s £1,000 in a coffee tin in the laundry. It should be enough to get us out of London. Make your peace with it, because we’re leaving this week.”
”And since when do you get to bark orders at me, you slag?” He snarls, turning on you with a vicious look.
”Since right now.” You bark back. You don’t like to be the one to boss him around, feeling as though he got enough of that from people like the Impresario, and that you ought to be the one person who never did, but now, you knew you had to be firm. Demanding, even. “You know damn good and well that I’m the only person in this whole shithole town who cares whether you live or die, so if I were you, I’d take the opportunity to get out while I still could.”
”Yeah, well what-”
”No. No more ‘what ifs’, no more defeatism, I don’t want to hear it anymore. The water is rising, Dickie. You’re losing your shine. If he can do this to you now, I don’t want to know what he’s gonna do when he gets proper finished with you!” You shout, tossing your washcloth into the bathtub with him.
He’s yelled at you plenty, for anything and everything, but yelling doesn’t mean anything to Dickie. It’s practically his natural volume setting. You, however, have never raised your voice at him before and you can see fear and surprise flicker behind those crystalline blue eyes, and you feel terrible for having to do that to him, but if being horrible is the language he’ll listen to, then that’s the language you’ll speak. He nods softly, eyes wide.
”Yeah… alright.” He says, turning back to face the wall. “This week, then.”
You don’t talk about it again after that, but you know he understands. It’s subtle, but you notice his favorite dresses begin to fall out of rotation, and treasured trinkets disappear from his vanity. Maybe when you’re both safe, he’ll finally have a chance to tell you about them. You don’t have much to pack anymore. Most everything you own is sitting beneath several feet of dirty floodwater, along with over half the population and everyone who had ever known you before the rains had come. You’ve been spending the time you might’ve spent packing those things deciding on where you’d go. Between the elevation and the ticket price, South France is looking like a good choice. Or else, Spain. Anywhere that was cheap enough to get to and stood a chance of being over sea level might as well be heaven at this point.
It makes the most sense to leave on a Wednesday in the middle of the day. The foot traffic is slow enough that neither you nor Dickie will be missed for several hours. Hopefully, that would be enough time to get out of London at the very least. So of course, it’s Tuesday evening when everything goes to shit. You’re not even supposed to be on the top floor. It’s Ginger’s job to bring up the fresh towels, but something was telling you to offer to do it instead. You could hear the shouting before you’d even made it up the stairs. The towels fall from your arms and all of your common sense lands right on the floor along with them as its replaced with mortal fear. You don’t even remember taking the rest of the stairs, but you surely must have, since before you know it, you’re barging in through that rusted metal door without so much as a thought to a plan. It’s stupid, you know, but you can’t stop yourself. Not when Dickie is crying out like that. Not when he’d come home in that state. Not when you were so close to getting out. The Impresario freezes with a fistfull of Dickie’s freshly bleached hair, turning towards you with ire in his eyes. You don’t even have the sense to be afraid of him at this point. All you’re concerned about is making sure Dickie makes it out of this alive.
”Let him go.” You say firmly, the ire in your own eyes fit to match.
The Impresario looks between you and Dickie, and as he does, a sickening smile spreads across his face, turning your stomach. Shit. Shit. Immediately you know you’ve messed up as his fingers curl tighter in Dickie’s hair, dragging him down, making him hiss in pain.
”My, my, my, what have we here?” He says, grinning wide. “Has my little Dickie-bird gone and found herself a sweetie? Naughty, naughty.”
He yanks Dickie towards him, and you watch him struggle in the man’s grasp, sneering and snarling like a wild animal. God, why hadn’t you thought before storming in here? You’ve gone and made everything so. Much. Worse.
”You know better, Dickie. I own you.” He growls, spraying Dickie’s face with saliva in the process. “When I say ‘jump’, you say ‘how high’. When I say ‘dance’, you dance. And when I say ‘No fucking around unless you’re getting paid for it’, you keep your FILTHY FUCKING HANDS OFF MY BITCHES!”
”I didn’t do anything!” Dickie half-hisses, half-whines as he jerks around in the Impresario’s grasp. “I don’t even know that whore.”
”Oh, you don’t? It certainly knows you, doesn’t it? Have to be awful familiar to risk barging in on me in my private quarters cause you was squealing like a bratty little piglet, huh?”
”I don’t-”
”You ‘don’t’? You ’don’t’?” The Impresario mocked him. “Well if you ‘don’t’, then you’ll sit there like a good bitch while I teach it a lesson.”
You know you should run, but somehow you find yourself stuck to the floor, immobilized with fear as the Impresario releases his hold on Dickie to turn on you. From behind his shoulder, you watch Dickie struggle back to his feet, the color draining from his face. The window of opportunity to run closed as the Impresario’s thick fingers closed around your throat, firm and unforgiving, like a man crushing a bug. You probably should be focused on the man strangling you, but even as you claw uselessly at the back of his hand you can’t take your eyes off of Dickie. He claws at his face, letting out a string of panicked cries and shrieks that you can barely hear over the sound of your own blood rushing in your ears. It’s funny the things that go through your mind as you’re dying. Neurons firing wildly as the Impresario’s fist squeezes tighter around your throat, all you can think of is that duffle bag down in the basement full of trinkets Dickie will never get a chance to tell you about. The edges of your vision begin to blur, and you feel your limbs go weak as the lack of oxygen catches up to you. This is it, then. How it ends. Not quiet and tragic as the river drowns you in your sleep, but explosive and violent. At least you’ll have gone out in a more memorable fashion. At least you will have gone out fighting.
And then your body hits the concrete floor, coughing and sputtering as you try to recover. It takes a moment to return to full consciousness, but when you do, you sit up immediately, confused and bewildered. What had just happened? Why are you alive? Where is Dickie? You find him a few feet away from you, shaking and crying, still screaming as he pounded a table lamp into what was left of the Impresario’s head. From the force Dickie was putting behind those blows, there was no doubt that the man would have been dead from the first one, but Dickie has reduced him to a bloody pulp, brain matter and bone splattered across the walls and the floors, blood and makeup streaking across his face. You crawl forward on all fours, grabbing Dickie by the ankle. He jumps and whirls around, and for a moment, you’re worried he might hit you until the crazed look leaves his eyes and he drops the lamp into the bloody mess of meat that only moments ago had been a man. Dickie’s face crumples like wet tissue paper, shrieks dissolving to unintelligible sobbing as bloodied gloves reach for you, pulling you in for a tight hug. You think you can make out “pet” and “love”, but for the most part he’s completely hysterical. Your own hands come to cup his face, shushing him gently as you wipe blood and tears from his cheeks.
”You’re in shock. It’s okay.” You say, your voice scratchy from the abuse, trying your best to soothe him. “It’s okay, baby boy. We’re okay. Are you all packed up?”
Dickie nods, his eyes still glassy and bloodshot, tears still rolling down his cheeks.
”Alright. You take all the cash he keeps in this room and leave out the fire escape. I’ll get your bags and meet you outside. We need to be gone before anyone finds him, understand?”
He nods again and you pray to every God there is that he can come out of the mental break long enough to do what he had to. You wipe your hands on his already stained dress and get to your feet, stumbling back down the stairs. Time is of the absolute essence. It won’t be long before someone notices that things have gone silent upstairs, so you don’t waste a moment on sentimentality in that little room you and Dickie have called home for almost a year now. You simply grab his duffle bag and throw it over your shoulder, not even bothering to shut the lights off on your way out. You head to the laundry next, grabbing clothes that look roughly Dickie’s size and the coffee tin with all your savings in it, keeping your head down as you make your way out of the building. When you reach the backside of the building, Dickie is leaning against the railing of the fire escape, radiant under the moonlight even covered in blood and brains and bits of skull.
”Oi, Rapunzel!” You call out to him in a stage whisper. “Come down from your tower and ditch the gown, will you?”
”Poppet, do you really think now is the time for that?” He teases you, his normal self beginning to return finally.
”I’m not going to shag you, you idiot. We’re leaving the city. The country, if we can manage. Unless you want to get recognized, you’re gonna take that off and put this on.” You hiss, thrusting the clothes into his arms.
”What the hell is this shit?” He scowls, handling the clothes as though they were toxic.
”It’s inconspicuous. Need I remind you that you’ve just killed the most influential man in London? If you want to live, you’re gonna change into that, take your hair down, and here-” you hand him a ratty rag. “Wash your face.”
”You’re kidding me. This is torture. You’re torturing me!”
”Now, Richard!”
He continues to grumble complaints the entire time, but he does as he’s told, changing into the sweats. When he’s done, he looks like a whole new person. It would be almost sexy, if you weren’t terrified out of your mind. With a nod, you take his hand and the two of you disappear into the night. You aren’t sure where you’ll end up, all you know is that it’s going to be far, far from London.
----------------
The rain falls softly on the tin roof, and you wrap the blanket tighter around yourself, too warm and comfortable to want to move. A pair of arms wrap around your waist and an angular nose nuzzles against your shoulder, and you can’t help but laugh under your breath. The rain isn’t so much of a threat here in the Pyrenees, where the water runs downhill, and you can listen to it in relative peace knowing that it won’t be swallowing you up in your sleep.
”You up?” Dickie whispers into your ear.
”No” You mutter sleepily, burying your smile in the pillow.
”Well I certainly am.” He purrs, grinding his hard cock against your ass.
”You slut.” You chuckle softly, savouring the groan he lets out when you grind back against him.
”Whore.”
His roots have frankly gotten out of control, but he won’t let you touch them up anymore, and frankly, you don’t want to. You love every part of him you get to see as the two of you get to heal together, but you must admit that the salt and pepper look is a favorite of yours. You never thought you’d actually make it here together- to safety- but now that you are, you’re determined to make the most of every single day together. To make up for all that time lost treading water in London. His hands wander down your body, spreading your thighs to slot one of his own between them.
”I love you, you slag.” You remind him, reaching behind you to hold him closer.
”I love you too, pet.”
No one around to hear it, he says it out loud these days. It’s not a secret anymore, after all. It doesn’t have to be. You’re finally safe. Despite everything, you’ve survived.