TITLE: The Request
AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
Disclaimer: Not mine!
SUMMARY: Rebecca makes an unreasonable request of Danny.
RATING: heavy R
WARNING: Elements of rape/non-con
CHARACTERS: Danny/Rebecca
SPOILERS: General ones for series
NOTES:
This story deals with mature elements relating to rape fantasy. PLEASE don't read this if that disturbs you.
The first time Rebecca asks him to rape her, he thinks it's a joke and shrugs it off. She backs off and walks away.
The second time she asks him, he tries to play it off again, but there's something in those eyes of hers that tells him she's not kidding. This time he says no on principle. She backs off and walks away.
The third time she asks him he doesn't even let her finish. "Listen, Locke, I'm not going to do it," he tells her, voice terse as he stares down into his coffee cup and scribbles mindless notes in an open case file. "Stop asking me."
"Danny, please."
"No."
"I can't ask anyone else."
"Ask Paul."
"I don't want it to be Paul."
"So you want it to be me? Is that the kind of guy you think I am? Because I'm big and brawny, you think I'm the kind of guy who'd take what isn't his to take?"
"No." Her voice is soft, shaking a little, and it makes him look up. Her eyes always seem on the verge of tears anyway, but it still socks him right in the gut when he sees them pooling on her lashes. They haven't spilled over yet; Danny figures Rebecca's had plenty of practice in teaching herself not to cry.
"Then why me?" he asks, annoyed that his voice sounds so lost.
She crouches down beside his chair so she can look up into his eyes. "Precisely because you could, but never would," she murmurs.
He swallows. Her hand is on his wrist, her thumb sweeping back and forth against the ridge of his watch band. "Maybe all you need is some intense therapy and a trip to Cancun. You ever think of that?"
"I've done that, Danny. It doesn't work."
"This is wrong, Blondie. Wrong and sick. You know that, right?"
"Yes."
"Then why?"
"Because I keep seeing him!" she whispers through clenched teeth, and when Danny looks up he sees that the tears have finally won and they're spilling down her cheeks. "Everywhere I look, he's there! When I try to fall asleep, when I take my morning shower, when I take my evening run. I need to stop seeing him, Danny, or I'm going to lose my mind." She gives a soft, derisive laugh. "I think I already have, a little."
Danny stares at her. Rebecca Locke is beautiful. Her eyes are big and her mouth is dark, lips flushed and full. A cold fist of anger squeezes his stomach when he realizes that the sick bastard who kidnapped her must have seen all that when she was just a little girl. Men like that are the sickest kind of assholes. They're the ones he doesn't mind roughing up when he arrests them; the ones the cops ignore when they claim police brutality. Put them in lockdown with the real hardasses; the ones who'll kill you soon as look at you but who love their mother. Those guys know how to treat child molesters.
"How is this supposed to help you?" he murmurs, gritting his teeth against the rage. "Won't it just make things worse?"
"Things can't get worse, Danny."
"Why does it have to... Why can't you just have sex?"
"I don't feel it."
"Have you-"
"Look, Danny, I've tried. Okay? I've tried. I don't feel it. There's nothing there. And when there is something... It's him."
Those two words send a chill straight down his spine. Rebecca's voice doesn't even tremble.
"Why me?" he asks again, running his fingers through his hair and trying not to think.
Rebecca squeezes his wrist, and when he looks at her, she's smiling, tears still pooling in her eyes. "Because I wouldn't believe it for a second," she tells him. "Because I'd see you there, hovering over me, telling me all these terrible things, and I'd know it wasn't real. I know you wouldn't hurt me. I know it, and I believe it, Danny." She takes both his hands in her smaller ones. "Please?" she begs. "Danny, help me forget. I need newer memories. I can't keep living in the old ones or they're going to kill me."
Danny stares at her. There's a little something like adoration in her eyes, and that scares him. He doesn't want to be her wind-up toy anymore than he wants her to be his blow-up doll. "You're a mess," he tells her.
"I know."
Danny flinches, closes his eyes, drops his head. "Is this really what you want?" he asks.
"I don't know," she answers quietly. "But I think it's what I need."
"I don't know how to do what you're asking," he tells her honestly, voice a low rumble so no one else can hear.
"That's okay," Rebecca whispers, cupping his cheek. "I do."
The understanding in her voice is almost as painful as the fact he's going to say yes.
THE END