Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1860321.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Baccano!
  Relationship:
      Luck_Gandor/Dallas_Genoard, Various_Side_Pairings
  Character:
      Dallas_Genoard, Eve_Genoard, Luck_Gandor
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-28 Chapters: 1/? Words: 1230
****** La Mia Rosa Spagnola, con la Pelle Così Dolce ******
by Ricky_B_(littletoes101)
Summary
     [My Spanish Rose, with Skin So Sweet]
     Dallas Genoard was born an Omega, but he’ll be damned if he stays
     that way. His mother left him an order and he vows to fulfill it, no
     matter the cost. Luck Gandor was born an Alpha, and it oozes out of
     every part of him. Every part, that is, except the part of his brain
     that takes over when Eve Genoard pleads with him to help her brother.
     He supposes he has to, since he’s put them in this situation after
     all. He doesn’t expect for Dallas to be as truly broken, messily
     rewired, and determined as he is. He doesn’t expect that he might
     feel sympathy for Dallas. He doesn’t expect that he’d spend his
     nights with his fingers brushing Dallas’s knuckles, murmuring “mia
     rosa spagnola” in a tone that is more than friendly. [AU, A/B/
     O dynamics. The events of 1930-35 have taken place, the only change
     is the Genoard’s immortality status. Very strong trigger warnings for
     prostitution, drug use, self-harm, mental illness, rape, pregnancy,
     miscarriage, and a variety of other things.]
It’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury
it. Because the past claws its way out.
~The_Kite_Runner, Khaled Hosseini
The water looks deep and inviting for the first time since before the incident.
Dallas’s fingers twine and knot together, his eyebrows furrowing to the middle
of his forehead. It keeps him in something of a trance; his eyes are wide,
staring blankly, pupils swelling into his iris. The air is cold and salty,
emotionless, stinging at his eyes and face like hornets. Dallas tells himself
that the air is the reason for the tears rolling down his cheeks.
Dallas doesn’t know why he’s gone there. He’d just started walking, walked and
walked until he was staring at his own reflection in the murky water. His shoes
sink into the mud, staining the black patent leather with dirty brownness. Had
this been any other time, Dallas would be cursing up a storm, clawing at his
hair and making his displeasure known. However, this time, he makes no sound—he
only stands still as a statue and watches the tiny waves ripple on the sand in
front of him.
He is so close. If he gets any closer Dallas could fall into the river. He
could just let himself get swept away, flowing down with the tide to wherever
it took him. He wonders if Eve would bother to look for him again. He wonders
if anyone would be mildly bothered by his disappearance.
In the water, his reflection reminds him of how pitiful he really is. After the
incident, Dallas could never fully recover. About a month after, he started
eating less and less. His appearances outside of his room became less frequent.
Most of his time, now, is spent tucked away in the closet of his bedroom,
curled in on himself in the dark. It’s just too much most of the time;
something inside of him has switched off. Even then, occasionally, Dallas will
let his feet lead him somewhere, anywhere, and today, they led him here, of all
places.
Just as soon as it had begun, Dallas feels the strong hand of his trance loosen
its grasp. Gasping and bucking, much like a trapped mustang, he frees his shoes
from the sticky mud and flees, leaving the riverbank far behind him. His deep
prints in the mud are the only signs he leaves behind.
So long as the river flows, Dallas Genoard would never, and could never, be
free.
xxx
Dallas is hurting, and Eve just can’t stand it.
She knows that the experience of repeatedly drowning for two years was enough
to keep him traumatized for the rest of his life, but she had no idea what kind
of pain it would bring up. How could she? She was so young, so innocent, and
(she hates to admit) she doesn’t know half of the trauma he’s been through.
Dallas wants to keep it that way, Eve knows, but she so desperately wants to
understand, wants to find a way to help him. She wants it so bad that it hurts.
At least for now, Dallas seems to have busied himself with doing…something.
He’s started leaving at night, comes home in the morning with cash to help tide
them over. He says it’s for Eve, for all of the time and money she wasted
looking for him, even when she tries to assure him that she didn’t waste a
thing. She refuses the money at first, letting him pile it up on her dresser,
before their bank account starts to feel the nip and pinch of recession and she
finally gives in. She feels terrible.
It makes her wonder where he gets all of this money from. It’s a good, decent
amount that he brings in, even if the amounts are a bit sporadic; he’ll bring
in anything from 1,000 to 5,000 dollars a week, rarely less, sometimes more.
That’s a hell of a lot of money, Eve knows that at least, and as far as she
knows, he has no employer. She interrogates him only once to see if he’s gone
to selling drugs, but he gives her a convincing “negative”, and that stops her
worries. He’s changed in some aspects, at least.
Even so, the longer she dwells on it, the more Eve decides that she just can’t
take it. She can’t take the look of cold deadness in his eyes, the way he
flinches at loud noises and soft ones alike, the way he wraps his arms around
himself like he’s always defending himself from something. This is a different
Dallas, for sure, but still not the Dallas she remembers. This isn’t what he
deserves.
There’s only one man who can fix this.
xxx
“I need you to fix my brother.”
The request is simple enough, but it leaves Luck Gandor rubbing wearily at his
eyes and temples. He,  fix Dallas Genoard? Hadn’t he tried to do that once
before? He remembered it ending with Dallas cemented in a barrel. Perhaps that
hadn’t quite fixed him up in the right way, according to Eve. Honestly, Luck
couldn’t care less if the bastard had broken from what he’d been through. In
his eyes, he deserved it.
He’s about to say no, tell Eve to leave, until he looks down and into her face
with a solid look of determination in her eyes. Until he sees the hurt, the
fear, the pain, the silent pleas, all wrapped up into one in the worry lines
around her features and on her forehead. Until he notices that her hands have
curled into his suit jacket, wrung desperately there as she pleaded with him.
Luck really is too soft.
“What are you willing to give me?” He asks. Luck leans against the bookshelf in
the bookstore that Eve managed to corner him in, rubs his fingers over the
spine of a worn copy of Shakespeare. Eve swallows, tries to look tougher than
she is.
“Anything. Please. I just need you to—to find out what’s wrong with him. You’re
the only one who can do that, I think. You’re the only one who can fix this.”
“Why is that?”
She goes quiet, her lips pressed into a thin line when he asks. She doesn’t
have to say it, he knows why. Because I put him in this situation, and
therefore only I can figure out a way to get him out of it.
“I’ll do it, but I’m not doing this for him. If he doesn’t cooperate, I can’t
promise anything will be changed.”
“I just want you to try,” Eve whispers. Luck can tell from her voice that she’s
trying not to cry. “Please, come tonight. I just want you to find out what he
does, where he’s going. I want him to be safe and—he overestimates himself. If
anything happens to him again, I don’t know if either of us will be able to
handle it.”
Luck cranes his head down to look at her again, uncurls her hands from his
jacket and holds them in his for a moment, before letting them go. “I can only
promise that I’ll be there, Miss Eve.”
Eve nods, running her palm across her cheek and breathing, in and out, heavily,
deeply. “It will be enough for now, Luck.”
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