Archive of Our Own

When Bishop first learns about the ransom order on Jake Roenick, he is just sitting down at his desk with his first cup of coffee. It is seven o’clock in the morning and the sky is still dark outside. The order is a single sheet of paper, with a short paragraph explaining the situation in small type. He stares at it for several seconds, contemplating.

It’s been about a year since the disaster at Precinct 13, and Bishop has kept a close eye on Roenick, tracking his progress from desk job to higher desk job, psych reports and a general jumpiness from the chief of police keeping him from returning out to the field. He shouldn’t be a risk to anybody except misbehaving cops, shouldn’t be valuable in any way—why would somebody want him dead, much less alive?

Bishop takes a sip of his coffee. He hadn’t thought to mark Roenick as ‘off limits’ with the man behind a desk, but he can see now it was an oversight. Roenick had been in the field ten years before he was pulled. Enemies would have inevitably been made, and certainly not all killed or locked up.

Normally, this would be a mistake easily rectified. Some threats here, some bribes there. He knows how to be diplomatic. The particular problem here is that Manfredi Belcastro put out this order, and Bishop is currently in the middle of negotiating very necessary territory and arms with him.

At the face of it: Jake Roenick is not worth the risk. Belcastro has a temper. Things are delicate. Bishop hasn’t seen Roenick in six months, ever since he’d walked into Roenick’s new station to bail out his second-in-command and delighted in the waves of hot fury he could feel waving off the other man as he’d signed the necessary papers. No love lost between them. So long, Sergeant. Thanks for the protection, but that debt has been repaid.

Except: there really is no reason for the ransom order. Roenick isn’t a threat. Roenick isn’t a good bargaining chip. This is clearly vengeance for some kind of grudge, and grudges, immature and petty, are messy. Dangerous, especially when held by Bishop’s new business partner.

He wonders if Roenick has gone soft, with nearly two years of desk work under his belt and a bad knee. Roenick is tough, sure, and smart—held off an entire police squad with a handful of civilians and petty criminals—but there’s no lack of motivation attached to the order. The reward is well over what’s reasonable, and people would do a lot more for a lot less.

Bishop stands, grabs his coat. Calls his driver. While he waits, he looks over the ransom order again, the picture of Roenick severely outdated and featuring a fresh-faced twenty-something staring out with solemn blue eyes. “Sergeant Jake Roenick,” he mutters. The picture only stares back at him.

Sergeant Jake Roenick, the man who put his prisoners on the same level as his civilians and ended up saving only one of each.

…

Roenick lives in a narrow townhouse in Hamtramck, painted a faded blue and with a rusty iron gate preventing the local riffraff from shattering their bottles on his porch rather than the sidewalk.

The gate creaks when Bishop opens it, and it must act as some kind of alarm system for Roenick because he opens the door before Bishop even knocks on it, gun in hand and scowl on his fine features. The gun, luckily, is pointed at the ground, but Bishop raises his hands up anyway.

“What are you doing here?” Roenick hisses. He’s clad in an undershirt and gray sweatpants, wiry figure stiff as a board. He reeks of smoke.

“I came to warn you,” Bishop says. “Sorry to interrupt your early morning cigarette.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Roenick snaps back. “What do you mean, warn me?”

“So hostile,” Bishop rumbles, and Roenick’s scowl grows fiercer. Peculiarly, red is creeping up the back of his neck. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“No,” Roenick says, petulantly. He flushes brighter. “I’m not—you’re not coming inside, Bishop. How the fuck do you know where I live, anyway?”

Bishop ignores him. “I’m being serious, Sergeant. Shouldn’t say anything out where anyone could hear.”

Roenick stares at him, blue eyes narrowed. Bishop holds his gaze, lets him see for himself that Bishop means it, gives him time to mull it over. Eventually, Roenick rolls his lips together and ducks his head, clearly frustrated and ears cherry-red. He angles his body sideways so that there’s room for Bishop to slip past him into the house. Bishop obliges.

Roenick shuts the door and deadbolts it before leading Bishop into a small living space to the right, in which a loveseat, chair, coffee table, and TV stand have been crammed. It’s cluttered, but not messy, aside from the used ashtray complete with a still-smoking cigarette. There’s a Rottweiler curled up on a dog bed in the corner as if asleep, but its ears are alert—Bishop had heard it barking once he’d opened the gate. Roenick must have called it off once he’d realized who was paying a visit. The thought is strangely flattering.

Roenick grabs the cigarette from the ashtray and puts it back in his mouth as he falls into the chair in the corner, gesturing for Bishop to sit on the loveseat across from him. He’s still holding the gun; his lips look obscenely pink around the smoke.

Bishop doesn’t waste time looking around the place. “You know a man named Manfredi Belcastro?”

Roenick pales, a little. Bishop finds himself missing the blush. “Vincente Belcastro’s son?”

“The very one,” Bishop says, watching Roenick carefully. “You the one that killed Vincente?” Roenick smooths his hair back with both hands, cigarette still smoking between his fingers and eyes tightly squeezed shut.

“I didn’t pull the trigger, if that’s what you mean,” Roenick says, after a minute. “But I might as well have. I told the wrong person the wrong thing. Got Vincente shot and lost them a bunch of money, too.”

“It wasn’t even on purpose?” Bishop says, surprised. Roenick opens his eyes, meets Bishop’s gaze directly.

“I don’t get people killed on purpose.”

His sergeant, always so intense. Bishop leans forward. “That explains the ransom order Manfredi has out on you, either way. Fifty thousand to whoever brings you to him alive.”

Roenick breathes in through his nose. “That was almost ten years ago. Jesus.”

“I don’t believe there’s a statute of limitations on vengeance, lawman,” Bishop says. Roenick just gets more agitated.

“How do you even know this? Why are you—”

“I’m warning you as a favor,” Bishop interrupts. “Belcastro is a new partner of mine, but he’s more trouble than he’s worth. I’m hoping we can work something out together. My protection for your participation.”

“No,” Roenick says, without a moment of consideration. “I’m not participating in anything with you.”

Bishop feels the first twang of frustration. “You’ve done it before.” Our shit’s on pause.

“You were my prisoner,” Roenick says, even though Bishop hadn’t been anyone’s prisoner the moment Roenick had swung open his cell door. “You were my responsibility. Now, you’re free to leave, and I wish you would.”

Anger, briefly, roils up within Bishop at Roenick’s tone, frustrated with his lack of cooperation, but he quickly tamps it down. He doesn’t have to have Roenick’s permission to protect him, even though things would be much easier if he did.

He stands, dusts himself off. The loveseat is, disgustingly, covered in dog hair. “Your funeral,” he says, and Roenick stands with him to follow him to the door.

“Don’t come back,” he says, and then he slams the door shut as soon as both of Bishop’s feet are on the concrete porch.

Bishop, pettily, does not close the gate on his way out, even as he begins making the calls necessary to see which bodyguards were willing to come in during off-hours for a little extra pay.

…

Jake makes it two days before he’s snatched off the street on his way to the supermarket and stuffed into the back of a trunk, blood dripping into his eye from a cut on his brow and wrists aching from where they’ve been handcuffed behind him.

“Fuck!” he shouts, and he tries his best to bang on the hood with his feet, luckily still unbound. “Goddamnit—help!”

An answering thud rings through the skeleton of the car, making Jake jolt despite himself. “Shut the hell up!” a voice shouts. And then: “What the fuck?”

Jake pauses, listening, his own breath hot against his face as it bounces off the carpeted interior of the trunk. There is the sound of a scuffle, a noise of pain; then, the alarming sound of footsteps approaching the trunk.

Jake tenses, but the trunk opens too quickly for him to get into any kind of effective position, the pale afternoon sun nearly blinding after the damp blackness of the trunk. Jake squints against the light to make out a large bulky silhouette, not immediately recognizable, and shrinks back from the hands that grab at him.

“Don’t—” he says, but the hands already have him by his jacket, lifting him up and out of the trunk with alarming ease. He barely has enough time to get his feet under him as he’s set down, his eyes still barely adjusted to the light.

“Boss wants to see you,” the man tells him, and Jake’s eyes adjust enough to realize that it’s a large Asian man clad in all black, a non-expression on his face.

“What?”

“These are Belcastro’s men,” the man says, motioning to the two bodies lying on the concrete, tucked neatly into the side of the alleyway. “Boss told me to take you to him if this happened.”

Jake is painfully aware that his hands are still cuffed behind his back. “You’re not taking me anywhere,” he says. The man doesn’t look very fast—he could run, if he needed to, duck into the nearest police station to get rid of the cuffs. “Who’s your boss?”

“Marion Bishop,” the man says, and Jake feels his shoulders relax despite himself. Bishop had been telling the truth. He’d been turning up nothing for long enough he’d started to doubt that lilting promise Bishop had given Duvall: You know me, Marcus. I cannot tell a lie.

“You said these were Belcastro’s men?” Jake jerks his head towards the bodies. The man nods.

“Boss wants to see you,” the man repeats. “Said to tell you your shit was on pause.”

Jake huffs, disbelieving. Fucking Bishop. He looks towards the sky, considering, before dropping his head back down to meet the man’s gaze. “He had you watching me?”

“In shifts,” the man says. He motions further down the street. “Car’s that way.”

Jake hesitates. He could refuse, and likely be chased down and dragged to Bishop’s still in handcuffs. Or he could agree, go willingly, see just what kind of plan has Bishop putting their shit back on pause—not that it being back on had meant anything, with Jake chained behind a desk and Bishop keeping an airtight legal-loophole-run ship. Jake had, foolishly, thought that this Belcastro news might provide him an opportunity to get past desk duty and back into the field: if he could just obtain even an iota of new information using Belcastro’s apparent vendetta, the chief would have no choice but to acknowledge that Jake was wasted behind a desk, psych evals be damned. This, obviously, did not come to fruition: Jake had instead spent two days hitting dead end after dead end and finished them off by getting stuffed violently into a trunk.

God, he should have just gone to the chief with all of this.

“Alright. But first, I want out of these handcuffs,” he says, and hopes he’s not making a terrible mistake.

…

Jake had a certain picture of Marion Bishop’s house in his mind, and there’s something satisfying in having that picture confirmed: gleaming dark hardwood floors, plush Persian carpets, rich mahogany furniture, etc. Bishop fits into it perfectly, in his cashmere turtleneck and slate gray slacks. His expression smug from behind his desk (large, ornately carved) as Jake is led into his office.

“Sergeant,” he greets, voice like velvet. “Good of you to join us.”

Jake takes a seat in the armchair at the corner of the room, and Bishop dismisses his man with a silent tilt of his head. The door closes, and as the air moves with it Jake catches a waft of cologne that can only be Bishop’s: rich and dark, vaguely spiced. It’s nice.

Bishop raises an elegant eyebrow after a moment of silence. “Nothing to say?”

Jake thinks, for a moment. “You said our shit was on pause.”

“Yes,” Bishop says. His earring glints in the lamplight, and Jake abruptly realizes that there are no windows lining the walls. “I also believe I said I had a plan that might benefit us both, regarding Belcastro.”

“I don’t know if I want to do a plan that benefits you, Bishop,” Jake says, weary. Bishop’s lip twitches.

“Let me explain,” he says, and then he does. He explains that Belcastro has been growing increasingly unstable, taking unnecessary risks that threaten to expose Bishop’s own ‘indiscretions’, but that Bishop can’t withdraw from their arms deal without starting an all-out war, given Belcastro’s said instability. He explains that Jake, as a cop, would be able to get rid of Belcastro without implicating Bishop, to either Belcastro’s people or the police. The shape of the plan quickly becomes clear: Bishop inherits Belcastro’s empire, Jake turns a blind eye; Jake takes the credit for Belcastro’s downfall, Bishop protects him from the fallout.

Jake is intrigued, and he hates himself a little for it.

“Why don’t you get someone on your payroll to do it?” he snaps, indecision welling up within him and making him irritated. Bishop presses his lips into a thin line, holding Jake’s stare with a heavy-lidded one of his own.

“Don’t have any,” he says, although the unspoken yet is painfully clear. “Last year did quite a few ounces of damage to that operation, if you can imagine.”

Jake rubs a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t—”

“Bring this to the chief of police and watch their inaction get you killed,” Bishop says, voice surprisingly hard.

Anger immediately flares up in Jake’s gut. “That’s better than helping a known criminal gain even more power,” he says, and Bishop’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Then why haven’t you gone to the Chief already, Sergeant?”

Jake doesn’t have a good answer, and all he can do is glare back at Bishop. Bishop makes a condescending little hum, eyes flickering over Jake in a way that makes his face hot.

“Could it be that you’re desperate to get out from behind the desk?” Bishop asks lightly. “Ready for a little glory of your own? Or is it that your trust in your fellow officers has been shaken? That maybe you’re the only righteous cop in the city? That would make your desk duty even more unjust.”

Jake sits there and listens to it all, heart pounding, but it’s at the last remark that he shoots up out of his chair. He can feel his hands shaking, and impotent fury roars in his chest. “I didn’t come here to be psychoanalyzed,” he snarls at Bishop’s placid face.

He turns towards the heavy oak door to leave, but Bishop is fast and silent and suddenly he’s behind Jake, fingers curled around his wrist in a vice-grip and preventing him from reaching the doorknob.

“Easy there, Sergeant,” he says, voice low in Jake’s ear. “Let’s talk it out.”

Jake yanks himself away, every place where Bishop was touching blazing with heat. Bishop lets him go easily.

They stand there for a moment, looking at each other. Jake can’t quite read the expression behind Bishop’s eyes, their darkness lending them a knowing depth. He thinks: Bishop’s not going to let me go. He thinks: Bishop needs assurance that I won’t ruin this for him.

He thinks: this is very quickly turning into our shit.

“Are you going to go to the chief with this?” Bishop asks, point blank. At first, Jake thinks he’s asking for his own sake, trying to suss out how risky it’s going to be to let Jake leave uninhibited, but he quickly realizes that’s not the case. What Bishop means is to question how much Jake trusts the chief, and Jake is horrified to realize that the answer is no, he doesn’t.

“He’s on Belcastro’s payroll,” he says, realizing, and it’s not a question. Bishop, watching him closely, nods. Jake sucks in a heavy breath through his nose, a wave of helplessness and frustration nearly overwhelming him. He wants to kick something, but everything looks too fancy—he settles for digging his nails into his palms. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“There’s no protection with the police unless you provide them with irrefutable evidence that Belcastro is a thief and a murderer,” Bishop says, walking back around his desk to pick up a piece of paper. He hands it to Jake. “And the only way to do that….”

Jake looks at the paper, recognizes his graduation photo from the police academy. Registers the $50,000 reward printed beneath it. There’s a stipulation that he be brought in alive—it feels like there’s an iron band wrapped around his chest. He looks back up at Bishop, who’s watching him expectantly.

“How are you thinking we get the drop on him?”

“You’re in?” Bishop’s eyes glitter like his diamond stud. Jake resents it, lifts his chin.

“Do I have a choice?” he asks bitterly, and Bishop surprises him with a low laugh, seemingly genuinely delighted.

“No, not really. But it’s alright, Sergeant—it’ll all be worth it in the end.”

…

Bishop’s plan is simple: find the guns.  

“Find the guns, we can reverse trace the link between them and Belcastro,” he explains. He traces his finger down the map of downtown Detroit their heads are bent over, following along with the blue line of the river. “They use the river to ship the crates in from Lake Erie, store them in shipping containers on the docks. We just need to catch the boat before it unloads, push some of the shipment off into the water without the crew noticing.”

“Everything in the river washes up on Belle Isle,” Jake says, realizing. “And crates float.”

“Especially crates filled mostly with protective Styrofoam,” Bishop agrees. “And, conveniently, you do your morning runs on that beach.”

“That beach is a twenty-minute drive from my house,” Jake points out, and Bishop smirks up at him like a cat toying with a particularly entertaining mouse.

“The scenery is worth the effort,” Bishop decides. Jake decides to ignore him.

“Do we know when the shipment comes through?” he asks, looking back down at the map.

“Day after next,” Bishop says. “Gives us plenty of time to plan. I’ve taken the liberty of having someone go and pick up some clothes for you.”

Jake can’t muster up the energy to be upset at not being asked if he wanted to stay at Bishop’s house or not. Instead, a sardonic amusement at the situation wells up within him: here he is, a cop, or at least he thinks, sitting cross-legged on Marion Bishop’s plush living room carpet, the man himself lounging like a great cat across from him, glasses of fine wine sitting beside them. Jake is on his third; Bishop his first. He gives Bishop a crooked smile. He really should be more upset than he is. “Will we braid each other’s hair and tell each other secrets, too?”

Bishop looks at him, dark eyes gleaming. “One or the other, perhaps.”

Jake decides to blame his resulting flush on the wine.

…

They stay up until the early hours of the morning before Bishop finally rolls up the map and calls it a night. He leads Jake to a room that is much more sleekly designed than the parts of the house he’s already seen, with a frameless bed neatly made and décor made of dark twisting metal. Jake wonders if Bishop’s own bedroom is decorated similarly.

Once Bishop leaves, he finds his own suitcase rolled into the corner and his own pajamas folded atop one of the pillows.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters to himself, trying not to feel violated. He’d assumed Bishop had meant to buy him some clothes for his stay, putting his seemingly infinite amounts of (illegal) wealth to good use, but he supposes he should have known this would involve some level of invasive tactics as well. He thinks briefly of going to find Bishop and have a word, but exhaustion is tugging heavily at him and all he really wants to do is sleep.

Decision made, he changes and climbs under the covers without ceremony. The bed is almost unbearably soft—Jake loves it, loves the way he sinks into it, and wonders if Bishop’s mattress feels the same.

He falls asleep far more quickly than he should, considering the current circumstances of his life.

…

He’s left alone all day to go stir-crazy while Bishop holds meeting after meeting, his attempts at snooping thwarted by Bishop’s fucking goons seemingly placed at every corner. They’d argued over breakfast about Jake leaving the house to scope out the beach and the dock from which they’ll be sneaking onto the boat, and Bishop had won, his men and ultimate control over the goings-on of the house an unspoken yet present factor. Jake still can’t quite wrap his mind around why Bishop cared so much whether he put himself in danger or not— was he really that desperate for some connection to the police force? Was Belcastro’s connection to the chief forcing him to cling to the one cop he had—even one who isn’t really on his side at all?

Seething, Jake spends most of his day working through the minutiae of their plan, all the while itching to get outside, to do something. He’s never been one to sit back on his ass—even as a kid, he’d hated reading and watching TV, preferring instead to play outside, to invent new sports games for he and his friends to play. No matter what Bishop says, Jake will be in charge of dumping the crate: his entire career has relied on his stealth and his ability to strategize in the field, and he knows he’s more than capable of leading himself and a partner through sneaking onto a boat, hiding, and eventually dumping both the crate and themselves into the Detroit River without being caught.

To his surprise, Bishop acquiesces without a fight over dinner, pausing only to say, “I agree. I think I should go with you.”

“Why?” Jake demands, bluntly, even as he thinks he would much rather work with Bishop himself than a stranger that works for him.

“We worked together pretty well last year, wouldn’t you say?” Bishop says with a shark’s grin. “Both got out relatively unscathed.”

“Just matching bullet scars,” Jake says wryly, amused despite himself.

Bishop hums, still smiling that predator’s smile. “Mirrored, actually.”

…

They stay up late again ironing out the wrinkles, scotch this time instead of wine, and Jake again sleeps like the dead.

The rest of the day is spent preparing, wherein Bishop hands Jake two pistols, two holsters, and a large, sheathed hunting knife. Jake starts strapping himself up, even as the side of his mouth pulls up in bemusement.

“What the hell are you worried about happening, Bishop? Jesus.”

Bishop raises a thin eyebrow, unimpressed. “It’s always better to be prepared, Sergeant. Imagine how last New Year’s would have gone if you’d actually been ready with more than tommy guns and fire pokers.”

Jake snorts, the anticipation of the mission making normally sore memories seem distant, intangible. “I think those machetes worked pretty well.”

Bishop chuckles, the sound so deep Jake can almost feel it in his chest, despite being across the room from him. “True enough. We certainly managed.”

They fade into a comfortable silence, but something niggles at the back of Jake’s mind as he slips the knife into his boot. The amount of weapons does have him on edge—as far as he’s concerned, this will be a quick in-and-out endeavor, not a bloodbath.

“No one dies,” he says, straightening up. “Not unless it’s necessary.”

“I don’t make promises like that,” Bishop says evenly. “I’m not really in the business of preserving life.”

Jake squeezes his eyes shut at the words. Things hadn’t felt quite real during his stay at Bishop’s—engrossed in planning and sealed off from the outside world, it has been easy to forget that what they’re planning on doing has very real consequences, and that Jake’s own life is in very real danger. It has been easiest, however, to forget that Bishop is a criminal, a murderer—not (and he should really say, not only) someone he’d been through Hell with that he could rely on to be on his side.

“Bishop—”

“I’m not interested in leaving any bodies, Sergeant,” Bishop says abruptly, cutting Jake off. “That will draw too much attention. No need to worry that pretty head of yours.”

Jake bristles, immediately on the defensive, but when he opens his mouth to retort, Bishop has already left the room.

The knife goes in his boot much more easily after that.

…

The maneuver is a success: Jake and Bishop sneak onto Belcastro’s boat when it docks earlier in the late evening, staying low and out of sight until the moon is high in the sky, shoving the crate over the edge once the captain was in the cabin and the guard was looking out over the starboard side. They jump into the silky black water after it and swim to the other side, where two goons wait for them with a dry change of clothes and a car idling just around the corner.

Jake is nearly giddy with the success of their plan, with getting to go out and do, the vague sense of doing something right making his blood sing despite the general selfishness driving the whole thing. An uncomfortable buzz sits just under his skin, adrenaline with nowhere to go, and he’s unsure about what it means until the moment they close Bishop’s front door behind them, when Bishop pushes him against the wall and pins him to it with a kiss.

Jake barely hesitates: he presses into it, parts his lips so that Bishop can lick inside his mouth, their breaths hot against his skin, still clammy from the swim. He fists his hands into the stiff wool collar of Bishop’s peacoat and holds himself up that way, his knees weak with sheer want.

Bishop is big, boxing Jake in easily with his arms. Jake bites at his lips and Bishop pulls away to start trailing kisses down Jake’s neck, biting down at the junction between neck and shoulder and forcing a low moan out of Jake. “God, Bishop,” he grits out, hands flying up to hold Bishop’s head, unsure whether to push him away or ensure he never moves. His body answers for him: he slumps against the wall, tilting his head back to allow Bishop better access, body trembling and cock throbbing with pleasure.

Bishop pulls away to admire his handywork, and Jake starts mouthing at his jawline, tugging at Bishop’s heavy wool coat and attempting to slip his hands into Bishop’s collar, desperate to feel warm skin against his own.

“Bedroom?” Bishop pants into Jake’s mouth, and Jake nods, eyes half-lidded and nose filled with the spicy scent of Bishop’s cologne.

They don’t quite make it to any bedrooms, instead so reluctant to part that they stumble, exchanging wet, hot kisses, down the hall and into the living room, where Bishop proceeds to shove Jake down onto the couch so hard he bounces.

“Clothes. Off,” Bishop demands, and heat twines so intensely in Jake’s belly he nearly arches off the couch. He obeys, the instinct easy and uncomplicated, shucking off his jeans and the white knit sweater they’d brought for him at the river. Bishop, in turn, undoes his belt and fly, allowing his cock to spring out, dark and glistening. Jake stares, transfixed, as it bounces with Bishop’s movements.

“Fuck,” he says, eloquently, and Bishop laughs. The sound goes straight to Jake’s dick.

“Up,” Bishop says, and Jake sits up so that there’s room for Bishop to sit down. As Bishop goes to draw Jake into his lap, Jake realizes—

“I don’t think,” he says, breathless, even as he clambers over until he’s straddling Bishop’s thighs. Their cocks slide together, briefly, and Jake nearly blacks out. “I don’t—there’s nothing to—”

“Don’t worry about it, Sergeant,” Bishop says, and he takes both their cocks in one hand, giving them both a long, slow stroke, capturing Jake’s lips in the same moment.

Jake gasps, keening, and Bishop breaks the kiss to allow his head to fall back onto the couch, a low moan rumbling through his chest. He continues to stroke them both, using their pre-come to lubricate the way, and Jake can’t stop staring at the way their cocks look together, pale and dark, with Bishop’s large, fine-fingered hand stroking, pulling, petting.

Jake can’t help but buck into it, hips moving nearly of their own accord—Bishop laughs again and Jake throws his head back, crests of pleasure growing more and more intense until suddenly, there’s release, and he’s shouting without a care in the world about who can hear him. He collapses on top of Bishop, spent, and with his forehead against Bishop’s collarbone he can see that Bishop is still stroking himself, near release—Jake reaches out without thinking, knocking Bishop’s hand out of the way to replace it with his own. He strokes up, adding a little twist in his wrist he knows he likes, and it only takes a few passes before Bishop climaxes with a shout of his own. Jake raises his head to kiss him through it, heat still simmering throughout his entire body, still wanting more, more, more.

They sit together, panting, sweat drying and making their skin stick uncomfortably together. After a moment, Jake slides off Bishop’s lap in order to collapse instead at his side, sated and hungry in equal measure.

“That’s the best sex I’ve had in years,” he says, after several moments of silence. He means it. He doesn’t often need to indulge in any urges, but when he does, it has always been with a quick encounter at the club and an empty bed in the morning. It feels good, of course it feels good, but this had been—beyond.

“You’re welcome,” Bishop purrs, and he leans over to grab a cigarette and lighter from the coffee table, somehow not jarring Jake from his place leaning against his shoulder. Bishop lights it and takes a couple of drags before he hands it to Jake. It’s a clove cigarette, thin and black, and the idea that Bishop can’t even smoke a regular cigarette makes Jake chuckle even as he’s grateful for the hot smoke curling through his chest.

They pass the cigarette between them, and as they do, cold trickles of sobriety begin to drip into Jake’s mind. He thinks about the way he’d obeyed Bishop’s orders without question, stripping and god, sitting for him like some overeager puppy. Something in him had loosened, pleased with the relief from responsibility and trusting Bishop to take care of him, to make the right decisions for him. He feels like an idiot: trusting Marion goddamned Bishop, obeying him, needing to obey him. Dr Sabian would have a goddamned field day.

At the thought of her, Jake’s afterglow is completely doused. He sits up and away from Bishop, passing him the cigarette and reaching for his jeans, needing to feel at least a little less vulnerable.

“There a problem, Sergeant?” Bishop asks through a cloud of smoke. His eyes are appreciative on Jake as he tugs his pants back over his ass—Jake glares at him and pulls his sweater back on for good measure.

“Yeah,” Jake says harshly. “We’re supposed to be planning, focusing on Belcastro. Not—” He can’t find the words.

“Fucking?” Bishop suggests, and Jake wants to strangle him.

“We should be getting some sleep.”

“Best sex you’ve ever had, and now you think we should have just gone to bed instead?” Bishop says, unimpressed. He takes a final drag and then stubs out the cigarette in the glassy stone ashtray, quirking an eyebrow up at Jake. “A lover might think you were embarrassed.”

Jake hates him. “Shut the fuck up,” he says, ashamed at the naked vulnerability in it. “You shouldn’t—” He stops himself.

“Shouldn’t what?”

“Shouldn’t boss people around like that,” Jake says, and he feels like a petulant child even as he says it. “I don’t—you can’t just order me around.”

Bishop hums, an amused smirk playing at his lips. The expression is one Jake imagines he’d wear while watching a kitten play with string. “You certainly seemed to like it well enough in the moment. Don’t allow pride to get in the way of your own pleasure, Sergeant. Life is difficult enough as it is.”

Jake can feel a flush crawling up the back of his neck at the condescension, fury building so hot and fast in his chest that he can’t help but burst out with, “Just because something gets you off doesn’t mean it does for everyone else.”

Bishop’s expression falls, goes carefully neutral. “Tell me, Sergeant: are you on desk duty because you can’t bring yourself to make decisions anymore, or because you still won’t admit that the deaths that happened under your command weren’t entirely within your control?”

Jake stares at him, his words overlaying with Dr Sabian’s and every other fucking psychologist he’s had to talk to since Precinct 13, since Anna and Tony. It wasn’t your fault. But it was. They were his decisions; it was his responsibility. Leadership means something and he can’t just shrug off the deaths of civilians and prisoners and friends just because he doesn’t want to face that. He thinks of Duvall, his cold eyes as he pressed his gun into Bishop’s wound, unfeeling as he was questioned about all the deaths he’d caused: However many it takes.

A claustrophobic feeling begins to press in on him, the prospect of desk duty and guilt and working with cops he can’t trust for the rest of his life suddenly overwhelming and all-encompassing.

He needs to get away from Bishop. He pats his jeans, grateful he’d kept his housekeys on him for the past couple of days. 

“Going somewhere?” Bishop asks, voice harder than it’s been in a while.

“I don’t have to stand here and listen to this,” Jake snaps, barely able to take the angry panic tightening around his chest. He starts storming towards the doorway, needing the icy air outside, needing to feel something other than the stifling heat of Bishop’s fireplace, to smell something other than cigarettes and sex.

“Not sure that’s such a good idea,” Bishop calls after him, although he does not move from his position lounging across the couch. “Belcastro’s still out there even when you’re angry at me.”

Oh, fuck you. Jake doesn’t dignify him with a response. He opens the living room door and slams it shut behind him, does the same with the front door, irrationally relieved it isn’t locked from the outside.

Bishop lets him go, and that’s fine. That’s good, even. He’s relieved to be out of the house, away from Bishop and his secrets and his looming presence. The winter air feels good against his flushed cheeks and he heads home, suddenly eager for his own bed, suddenly remembering Bear, who Bishop had assured him was being fed but who Jake was less certain of getting pets. Even still, disappointment weighs heavy in his gut, like he’d expected something else to happen with all of this, something good, which is idiotic.

It’s a long walk home, he thinks. Plenty of time to get over it.

…

Bishop doesn’t hear from Roenick for the rest of the night and the entirety of the next day, which is fine. He still shows up where and when he promised, Bishop’s men reporting seeing him on the beach that morning, near the crate, which was washed up in a hidden alcove just like they’d anticipated. Bishop wonders if Roenick had dressed up in running clothes in order to really sell the story—he doesn’t ask.

The next step of the plan had been to reverse-trace the crate back to Belcastro and provide irrefutable proof before evidence could be conveniently lost, so Bishop isn’t alarmed by the silence after Roenick is spotted on the beach. He resists the urge to have his men watch Roenick’s house, a small petty part of him eager to withhold his services after they were so disdainfully shrugged off. Roenick can handle himself—he’d more than proved that at Precinct 13, and again on the boat, coolly competent as he’d directed Bishop where to hide, when to move. He would have liked to see him work a gun again, but, oh well. The sergeant is stubborn. There will be other opportunities.

Or maybe not. Disappointment had sunk like a stone in his gut when Roenick had left, pissed and ashamed, and hadn’t come back. The feeling hasn’t gone away, either—it’s infuriating. The sergeant is infuriating.

Maybe he should have his men check the house, after all. It’s likely Belcastro has noticed the missing guns by now, and that he’s alarmed by their failure to appear washed up somewhere. They’d anticipated this, relied on Belcastro rooting through his own men first before turning his gaze outward—it’s what Bishop would do. It was supposed to have the double benefit of buying them time to put together a case, and distracting Belcastro from whatever vendetta he has against Roenick.

If Bishop loses Roenick to Belcastro, it won’t be long before he’s found out and dealing with a worse war that he’d have if he’d just withdrawn from the arms deal in the first place.

Maybe Bishop should pay a visit to the sergeant himself. With he and the sergeant on the outs, there’s nothing to guarantee Roenick will stick with their deal to leave Bishop out of the whole thing to the police. He doubts any bridges have been burned between them, not really—he just needs to extend an olive branch of some kind, lay off the honesty until Roenick can admit he isn’t cut out for police work anymore. Not with his integrity, with his need for direct action.

Bishop could provide him with both, so long as Roenick finally lets go of the law determining his moral compass. It will take time, but Bishop can be patient—between the levels of corruption in this city and the strange loopholes Bishop has been able to find to justify his own actions, it isn’t impossible. It’s at least worth making an effort.

Decision made, Bishop shrugs his coat on and checks his watch. 11 PM—not too terribly late for a visit. He suspects his sergeant is a night owl anyway, given his alertness throughout their late-night meetings and his teenager-like habit of sleeping indulgently into the late morning.

He makes it to Roenick’s ramshackle townhouse without incident, the drive relatively quiet and his driver smooth as always. He gets out of the car without incident, also, and pauses.

The lights are all off, both inside and out. It could be that Roenick is sleeping, but the house feels still in a way that suggests no occupant, not an unmoving one. On alert, Bishop notices the bottles littering the yard, the newspapers piled up at the first porch step. He pulls out his gun, leans down to speak to his driver.

“Call Jonesy,” he murmurs, and then he starts creeping towards the house.

The neighborhood isn’t silent—there are young people laughing somewhere, a radio humming somewhere down the street—but the street itself is still, frigid winter air and the late hour discouraging porch-sitting and dog-walking. As Bishop swings the gate open, he can hear Roenick’s dog barking its head off within the house, no owner calling it off. He tightens his grip on his gun.

He makes it all the way up the porch steps before they jump him.

They come at him from either side out of shadowed alcoves, latching onto him quickly and digging a gun into his stomach. “Don’t move,” one whispers in his ear, and Bishop holds still for the exact amount of time it takes him to calculate how to twist out of his grip and subdue both aggressors quickly.

It helps that they’re clearly hesitant to use the gun, wary of drawing attention with the noise—Bishop has no such qualms.

He twists, gets one immediately in the temple with the butt of his gun. The man goes down hard, and Bishop whirls around to find the other holding his gun out, eyes wide with shock. “Put the gun down!” he commands shakily. 

Bishop shoots him in the knee.

The man goes down screaming, and Bishop watches as several of the lights within the neighboring houses flick on. He probably has fifteen minutes, which is generous to the police department. It will more likely be thirty.

The man writhes around on the porch, smearing blood into the wood. His scream has thankfully died out and is now choking out pitiful whimpers, hands in claws hovering uselessly around his shattered kneecap. He’d dropped his gun when Bishop shot him, and it now lies forgotten at his side. Bishop kicks it away, bends over him until he’s close to his face. The dog is going crazy from inside the house, barks high-pitched and desperate.

“Where’s Sergeant Roenick?” he asks. The man moans in response, and Bishop quirks an eyebrow. “You’d better answer before I let that dog out and at you. Scent of blood won’t help you much there.”

“Please,” the man sobs. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” Bishop says coolly. “You’re Belcastro’s man?”

The man nods, face scrunched up in agony. Tears track down his face; Bishop remains unmoved. He puts the muzzle of his gun on the other knee. “Then you know. You probably brought him to him. Tell me where Sergeant Roenick is.”

“I don’t know!”

“I would think very carefully,” Bishop says softly, “about whether you want to keep the use of one of your legs or remain loyal to a man who doesn’t think you’re worth a damn.”

The man shakes his head; Bishop straightens, gun still pointed at the other knee, and steps on the shattered one. The man screams again, long and high. Bishop can feel the time ticking away, urgency nearly boiling over in his gut.

“Three seconds until you lose the other knee,” Bishop says. “One. Two. Thr—”

“Okay!” the man wails, and Bishop takes his foot away. “God, oh god.”

Bishop waits a few seconds: nothing. “Well?”

“By the docks,” the man sobs. “An old fishing building, number thirty-four. Roenick should still be there—Boss wanted to spend time with him before he got rid of him.”

Ice floods through Bishop’s veins, anger cold and burning in equal measure with nowhere to go. He feels his expression spasm. He shoots the man in the head and then turns to do the same to his unconscious partner, the ringing silence afterwards loud in his ears. The dog is still barking, whining, but it sounds distant after the crack of the gunshots.

Bishop leaves it, keening for its master, and gets back into the car. Gives his driver the address, tells him to make it fast. Jonesy should be here soon, will know what to do with the bodies.

Adrenaline thrums through him, rage like he hasn’t felt in a long time burning in his chest. He thinks about how he’ll take care of Belcastro, how he’ll take it slow, the way Belcastro has obviously thought to do to Jake. He’ll recreate whatever Belcastro has done to the sergeant ten times over. Reporting to the police is a kindness Belcastro has not earned; Bishop should have handled this himself the moment he’d seen the ransom order, taken care of it without involving the sergeant at all. The risk of war suddenly seems small, petty—Bishop can handle that, has handled it in the past. What was he thinking?

He can’t help but blame Roenick, angry with him for forcing Bishop to think in ways he hasn’t since he was just beginning to work his way up the ladder, angry with him for storming out with a $50,000 reward still hanging over his head. He’d thought the sergeant was smarter than that—had thought that he himself was smarter than letting him go.

He makes his calls on the way to the docks, for men and arms, and barks at his driver to go faster. He imagines the things he’ll do to Belcastro, and then he imagines the things he will do to ensure that the criminal underworld knows that Sergeant Jake Roenick is Marion Bishop’s alone, and not for touching.

…

Bishop and his men overtake the fish warehouse with little difficulty: Bishop loses two men, but it’s nothing compared to the fifteen they take out in and around the building, working their way across the barren concrete floor. There is a chair at the end of it, small bloodstains at its feet. One of the guards, before Bishop puts a bullet in his skull, tells him that Jake was taken from the chair and up into the office about an hour ago, once Belcastro had arrived. He’d apparently been eager for ‘private time’ with the sergeant. Bishop takes pleasure in spattering the man’s brains across the concrete.

Bishop climbs the rickety metal stairs up towards the office, on guard. There’s no doubt Belcastro has heard the commotion downstairs and acted accordingly; he can only hope Jake hasn’t been caught in the crossfire for it too badly.

He pokes the door open with his gun, and it swings open easily. He can’t see anything from the angle he’s at, and he’s about to take the risk and swing more fully into the frame when he hears it: ragged breathing, wet, like someone attempting to breath around a broken nose.

Whoever it is, is close enough that they must be just on the other side of the thin window, behind the closed office blinds. Bishop knows that there are only two options, if he’s interpreted ‘private time’ correctly: Jake or Belcastro. It’s possibly Jake, escaped and wary of the shootout, but more possibly Belcastro. Bishop’s finger twitches, eager to pull the trigger.

He swings around, registers black hair and tanned skin, and fires twice without hesitation. Belcastro collapses, shot in his hand and in his side, and Bishop steps forward to kick the gun across the room. He kneels down in front of Belcastro, who is curled over his hand and stomach, and pulls his head up by a harsh fistful of his gelled, curly hair.

Belcastro stares at him, eyes wide. “You fucking—”

“You and I have a lot to discuss,” he murmurs, and Belcastro cuts himself off like he had been shouting. It’s satisfying, but not as satisfying as slamming his gun into Belcastro’s temple. Belcastro drops like a stone, and Bishop stands to allow his men through.

“Take him to the Maxwell location,” he tells them, and he barely waits for an acknowledgement before he turns his attention to the rest of the room, finally allowing himself to look at Jake, who has been hung by zip-tied wrists to a jerry-rigged strappado made out of an anchor chain and an exposed ceiling pipe. He’s gagged, bare feet barely touching the ground, green henley in a crumpled pile on the ground. His entire torso is covered in bruises, and what looks alarmingly like a belt marks are curling from around the back of his ribcage.

Bishop clenches his jaw, strides towards him. Jake meets his gaze, blue eyes lidded with exhaustion, but still alert and wary. Bishop tugs the rag out of his mouth, ducking his head to speak lowly, calmly.

“You alright?”

Jake works his mouth, bruised at the corners and lips split. It looks obscene, evocative of something Belcastro had better pray didn’t happen. Jake huffs, gives Bishop one of those crooked grins he’d seen more and more often back at the house, and something in Bishop relaxes at the sight.

“It’s a little cold,” Jake says, voice cracking and gravelly, and Bishop smirks back.

“Well, you took your shirt off,” he says, still quiet. “Bad idea.” He hears the rest of his men leave, and only then cups Jake’s cheek, assessing his injuries more carefully.

“Just a little roughed up,” Jake rasps, and Bishop makes a noise of disagreement.

“Gonna let you down, now,” he warns, reaching up to cut the zip-tie from the chain. Despite his warning, Jake immediately crumples as soon as his wrists are separated, legs unable to hold his body weight. Bishop catches him, hoists his arm around his shoulders. Jake lets out a low noise of pain, strangled as if it’d been forced out of him.

“Arm—” he gasps out.

Bishop quickly lets go of Jake’s wrist, where he’d been holding his arm around his neck, and instead gently lets Jake go to the ground. He crouches next to him, wanting to touch but unsure of where won’t hurt.

“Am I going to have to carry you, Sergeant?”

Jake sucks air in between his teeth. “My feet—he—”

Bishop, belatedly, notices the small puddle of blood where Jake had been hanging, and lifts Jake’s leg by the ankle to get a better look at his foot. Jake makes a startled noise and Bishop allows him to yank his foot back, but not before he sees the dozens of small lacerations across the sole, shallow enough to avoid the arteries but deep enough to hurt like a bitch.

“He do anything else I should know about?” Bishop asks, more severely than he’d meant to.

“No,” Jake grits out. He’s shivering—Bishop shrugs off his coat and wraps it around him, his shirt in pieces on the floor and a coat nowhere to be seen.

“Where are your shoes?”

“They tossed them,” Jake says, jerking his head towards the large windows lining two of the office’s four walls. “Said they were going to dump them in the river. I think they really did.”

“You can’t walk with cuts like that, not on your feet,” Bishop says. He’d be surprised if Jake didn’t already have an infection, with the floor the way it is.

Jake shakes his head. It’s evident the adrenaline is leaving his body, his entire form seeming to droop even as he says, “I just need a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute,” Bishop says, and then he bends down, hooking an arm underneath Jake’s knees and another behind his back. Jake makes a noise of pain, cursing softly. His arms go around Bishop’s neck in a practiced motion, and Bishop is surprised at his easy acceptance of the position before he remembers the sergeant’s bad knee, wonders how many times he’d had to be carried while he recovered.

“Just a little roughed up, Sergeant,” Bishop admonishes, but he shifts so that he’s touching less of Jake’s ribs, the right side of which had been an alarming mass of bruises.

“This is embarrassing,” Jake says. Bishop raises an eyebrow, uncertain if he means the bridal carry or the situation or the way they’ve had to be reunited after their argument.

“Better you than me,” he says, and Jake huffs a laugh that ends in a choked, gasping sound, the motion no doubt irritating his ribs. The doctor will take care of that, Bishop tells himself.

Even still, his arms tighten around the sergeant, and he starts making a mental list of all the things Belcastro will suffer before Jake eventually hunts him down and arrests him for his proper punishment.

…

Jake is given a clean bill of health by Bishop’s doctor, who’d been waiting for them patiently at the front of the house. Bruised ribs and a torn ligament in his shoulder are the worst of it—somehow, he’d managed to avoid broken bones and a concussion, despite being knocked around repeatedly. His cuts are cleaned and bandaged, and he’s given a pack of ice to hold against his swollen right shoulder. After the doctor leaves, Bishop offers his own prescription: fine whiskey. Jake is certain it will make his headache worse, but the rest of his body aches so badly he finds himself accepting anyway.

Bishop offers him a shower, which he also accepts. Stands under the spray and watches blood and grime swirl down the drain, the belt-marks stinging with the heat of the water. There are cold lines still burning where Belcastro had traced his knife, had popped the buttons on his henley and sliced the rest open. The back of the blade had just barely nicked him, but the faint lines it left feel more permanent than the bruises and the welts, intention etching them into his skin like stone. They’d tossed his boots somewhere, too, so that Belcastro could make thin slices on the bottoms of his feet. That had, strangely, been the most painful part of it.

Nothing happened, he reminds himself, even as he scrubs harder. To add insult to injury, he realizes he hadn’t brought a change of clothes into the bathroom with him, his only options his bloodstained jeans and a plush robe hanging off the back of the door. He chooses the jeans—with any luck, his suitcase is still in the guest bedroom, and there will at least be a shirt in there. No change of boots, which is unfortunate.

He tugs them on, gritting his teeth against the way the fabric rubs against his wounds and purposefully not thinking about how the cool silk of the robe would feel instead. There is no goddamned way he’s walking through Marion Bishop’s gangster mansion in nothing but a too-large robe. He’s been enough of a damsel as it is, feeling absurdly domestic as he wanders around the house in socked feet.

Luckily, his suitcase is still there, and it’s in jeans and a knit sweater that Jake settles into the sitting room with Bishop, bandages re-done and feet only stinging a little as he pads across the plush carpet.

The whiskey is good, smooth and warm down his throat, and Jake has to resist the urge to knock it straight back. He stretches his feet towards the fire and pretends he doesn’t feel Bishop’s gaze on him as he does.

The wounds on his feet ache from their position of heel-to-floor, the skin bending uncomfortably. Not enough to make him shift, but Jake still finds his mind wandering back to Belcastro, and the way the man’s face had paled at the sounds of gunfire down below them. Bishop had said he was taking him somewhere…. “What’s the Maxwell location?” he asks, and Bishop laughs.

“Careful, Sergeant,” he warns. “Our shit’s still on pause.”

It’s not that Jake particularly wants to resume their shit, but still. “He needs to be arrested, Bishop, not killed.”

“Do a lot worse than kill,” Bishop says, and when Jake doesn’t say anything, continues. “You’re clever, for a cop. Let’s see what you can find out on your own.”

“Thanks,” Jake says drily, but he can’t say he feels any sharp pangs of regret. He’d look in the morning. Surely, Belcastro won’t be dead by then—not when Bishop is practically inviting him to play a game with him. Who can be fastest? Will Jake take long enough that Bishop can kill a man through illegal and cruel acts, or will he manage to save the man in time to put him behind bars?

“Let’s just drink whiskey for tonight,” Bishop says, lifting his glass. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I could do a cartwheel.” Jake rolls his head against the back of the couch to give him a crooked grin. “Sky’s the limit.”

“Is that right, Sergeant?” Bishop purrs, a new shade to his voice. Jake feels heat bloom in his gut at the sound of it. He remembers the chill of Belcastro’s knife on his chest, the clamminess of his fingers around his ankle. Suddenly, the heat of Bishop, who had burned against him just last night, seems intensely appealing. A need to feel it against his chilled skin slowly moves across his entire body.

Jake nods. “Could go another round.” Another round of what, he does not clarify.

They meet eyes; Bishop’s gaze is dark, eyes nearly black in the firelight. Jake feels a chill race up his spine as Bishop stands in one fluid motion, striding over to stand over Jake in two even steps. Jake sets his whiskey, half-drunk, on the ground, and Bishop touches his bruised wrists once he’s back upright.

“Another round?” Bishop rumbles, and Jake’s voice catches in his throat. He wants Bishop to grasp his wrists so hard it aches. He nods.

Bishop grabs both his wrists in one large hand and pulls him up into a kiss. Jake’s shoulders pinch with pain and his feet sting as he rolls to stand on them, but it’s all pleasant somehow, sending jolts of arousal through him. He moans into Bishop’s mouth, licking at its whiskey taste and wet heat.

Bishop hums approvingly, and Jake feels it rumble where their chests are pressed together.

“Bedroom,” he gasps out, once they’re parted, “for real this time.” He needs it all—needs to be so thoroughly consumed there isn’t any other place left for touching. Bishop responds by grasping the backs of Jake’s thighs and hoisting him up. Jake lets out a yelp of surprise before wrapping his legs around Bishop’s waist, the other man’s dick hard against his ass cheek.

“Shit,” he breathes, his shoulders aching as he clings to Bishop’s shoulders. He’s no doubt stretching the cashmere of his sweater, but Bishop doesn’t seem to mind, instead mouthing beneath Jake’s ear.

“In consideration of those feet of yours,” he says, right into Jake’s ear. Jake’s hips jerk of their own volition, Bishop’s breath cool over the places he’d made Jake’s skin wet, and he pulls on Bishop’s shoulders to make him move to the bedroom faster.

They exchange kiss after kiss as Bishop makes his way up the stairs and down the hallway, navigating easily despite the darkness. They go through a doorway and Jake is thrown onto to the bed, body bouncing through the aftershock and the blow against his bruised ribs knocking the breath out of him.

Bishop flicks on the lamp and starts fumbling at his belt as Jake catches his breath, the soft light lending him an appealing glow. Jake watches, rapt and unable to stay still as Bishop’s cock springs free, his sweater quick to follow his pants in the corner. Bishop glances up at him, amused.

“Strip,” Bishop commands, and Jake laughs past the initial bolt of irritation that runs through him.

“Do it yourself,” he says, as Bishop crawls over him. Bishop gives him a shark’s grin.

“Would you like me to do it with a knife?”

Yes, Jake almost says, because there is something fucking wrong with him. Before he can (further) embarrass himself, however, Bishop leans down and captures his mouth in a harsh kiss, their teeth clacking together as he practically rips Jake’s jeans open and yanks them off, tossing them somewhere towards the floor.

Legs stinging from where the fabric had scraped against them, Jake raises his arms to allow Bishop to pull his sweater up, and Bishop pins him there even after the sweater is gone, crossing his wrists together so that he can hold him fast with one hand, the other skimming down Jake’s side, smoothing over his flank. His shoulders burn, the torn ligament in the right one pinching and aching, and Jake writhes half to get away and half in pure ecstasy, his cock dragging agonizingly over Bishop’s stomach as he moves over him.

His whole body feels like one raw nerve; he lets his legs fall open, body shuddering, to allow Bishop to slide neatly between them. “Good Sergeant,” Bishop purrs, and Jake should really kick him off for that, except his mouth is on the bruise he’d sucked on the junction between Jake’s neck and shoulder yesterday, and he’s biting it and laving his tongue across it in turns, and Jesus fuck it hurts so good.

Jake strains against the hold Bishop has on his wrists only for Bishop to lean on them harder, the boney knobs of them pressing painfully against each other. Jake hisses, “Fuck!” and Bishop stretches one long arm out somewhere beside them. Jake can hardly process what he’s doing, the movement causing a terrible friction between them, but Bishop comes back with a condom and a bottle of lube. It’s the best sight Jake has ever seen.

“Yes,” he whispers out, squirming to give his cock more friction against Bishop, and Bishop dips his head so that their lips are just barely touching.

“Hold still, Sergeant,” he says, and then lube covered fingers are slipping into him, scissoring and stretching. Jake lets out a sharp gasp, fingers clenching uselessly, feeling almost unbearably wanton as he spreads his legs as wide as possible, giving Bishop as much access to him as he could ever want and entire mind a running mantra of yes yes yes.

It’s not until the third finger that Bishop finds the right angle, causing stars to spark behind Jake’s eyes and every ache and pain to nearly fade into obscurity. He throws a leg over Bishop’s back, pulling him closer. “There, right there,” he pants out, and Bishop smiles, the little gap in his teeth just barely showing as he looks into Jake’s face.

“Up for anything, right Sergeant?” he asks, and Jake is just barely able to get out a ‘fuck you’ before Bishop is guiding himself into him and sliding home.

He feels impossibly full, Bishop so large inside him he practically feels speared open, and he doesn’t know if it’s just been that fucking long since he’s taken it or if Bishop really is just that much bigger than average but he loses his breath again as Bishop puts one hand beneath his back and pulls him up for a better angle, stretched to the point of pain. Jake scrambles to wrap his legs around Bishop’s waist, feeling wobbly, but he only has a moment to feel uncertain before Bishop starts moving and nothing matters anymore except him and Bishop and where their bodies meet.

Bishop keeps his hand on Jake’s wrists as he slams into him, holding him almost entirely still as his cock bounces uselessly against his stomach, pleasure with every thrust sending a new trickle of pre-come over his skin. His shoulders are on fire and the welts against his back are burning, aching fiercely where he’s pressed against the mattress, rubbing and scraping against the thousand count sheets. His ribs are tender and complain at his position, nearly bent in half, and he's half certain his feet have started bleeding again from his toes, his entire foot, curling. It’s purifying ecstasy. It’s everything.

Bishop finishes inside of him with a shout, and the feeling of it, the sheer idea of it, has Jake coming untouched in almost the same moment. Bishop collapses on top of him, their sweaty skin slick where they rub together, and lets go of Jake’s wrists so that he can roll off and out of him. Jake resists the urge to cling to prevent him from moving too far, cold where Bishop had been covering him and empty where he had been within him.

He brings his arms down, the motion almost as painful as it had been when Bishop had let him down in the warehouse, and makes a strangled sound of pain. Bishop props himself up on his elbow to look down at him, and Jake twitches as he reaches up to trace a finger around the edges of his mouth.

“Should have done something with these,” Bishop murmurs, as if to himself. It takes Jake a moment to realize that he’s referring to the obscene bruises at the corners of Jake’s mouth that the gag had left. Jake is too sated to do anything but laugh, albeit a little bitterly.

“I think you’ve done enough for one night.”

Bishop grins and chuckles. “We’ll see about that.”

Apparently, what that means is sitting and petting Jake for several more minutes. Jake feels like some kind of pet, maybe the cat that sits on the villain’s lap in James Bond movies, but it feels too nice to turn away from. Bishop’s fingers are long and clever, stroking in soothing motions through his sweaty hair and across his face, his cheeks and forehead, down his neck and his chest. Jake feels comfortably heavy under the ministrations, eyes drifting shut, and he’s just about to doze off when he feels Bishop get off the mattress and walk off somewhere.

He's quick to return, and it’s not until a warm wet washcloth touches his stomach that Jake realizes he’d gone off to the bathroom. Jake peeks an eye open to see Bishop gently wiping the come off his stomach, the image absurd.

“Who knew Marion Bishop was so gentle after sex?” he musters, craning his neck to see Bishop start wiping at his ass without moving his body too much.

“Up,” Bishop says, ignoring him, and Jake raises his hips so that the semen can drip out of him and onto the washcloth. “What you really need is a shower.”

“You’re like a regular Romeo,” Jake cracks, and Bishop tosses the washcloth somewhere off the edge of the bed.

“It’s more out of concern for the sheets than for you, Roenick,” Bishop says, but then he’s running a gentle hand over the length of Jake’s leg, cupping his heel in his palm and raising his foot up to rest on Bishop’s lap. Jake nearly jerks away, alarmed and abruptly out of the afterglow, but Bishop holds fast to his ankle.

“What are you—”

“Changing your bandages,” Bishop says, calm, as if he isn’t holding Jake’s leg in an iron grip and in danger of getting kicked by the other one. “You’ve bled through these.”

“I know,” Jake says, but it takes him a moment to relax back into the pillows, body still tensed. He lies there, hyperaware of Bishop peeling away the bandages, the cool air against his cut-up soles, the gentle thumb at the arch of his foot. Bishop dabs ointment on his wounds so lightly Jake barely feels it and wraps clean bandages around his foot and up his ankle, where they have to be anchored. He does the same to the other foot, and Jake is nearly back to dozing by the time he crawls back up by his head and bends down to kiss him.

“You’re lucky I’m not ticklish,” Jake says to him, voice coming out much softer than the sarcastic edge he’d been going for.

“Turn over,” Bishop says. “Let me do your back.”

There must be something written on Jake’s face, because he pauses in reaching for Jake’s shoulders and says, “Don’t need blood on the sheets any more than other fluids.”

Jake laughs, but then Bishop is gently nudging him into flipping over onto his stomach, fingers running over the large square bandages taped to Jake’s upper back and side. Something uncomfortable and tender twists in Jake’s stomach, and he’s suddenly grateful he doesn’t have to look at Bishop.

Thank you, he doesn’t say. He swallows, licks his lips to speak.

“Got any more of those cigarettes from last night?”

…

Marion Bishop wakes up alone the next morning, having fallen asleep next to Jake after a second, less exertive round. He isn’t surprised to find his bed empty at six o’clock in the morning—he’s always suspected that keeping Jake Roenick inside his house would be about as successful as keeping a feral cat determined to remain independent.

He thinks about their last conversation as one of his men reports that Manfredi Belcastro had been discovered in one of their facilities three days later by police and taken into custody, Bishop somehow avoiding implication.

“You could stay,” Bishop had said, passing a third cigarette to Jake, who had been sprawled across his chest in an effort to give his back a break. “We could fuck every night, find new people to take down every day. Could do a lot more for the city in here than behind your police desk.”

“Maybe,” Jake had said, tagging a drag. His eyebrows had been raised as he gave Bishop an amused glance. “Or, you could come over to my side. Become a criminal consultant. I hear it pays pretty well.” He'd then blown smoke right in Bishop’s face.

Bishop had laughed, but he’d considered it, if only briefly.

He can only hope Jake had done the same.