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There had to be a catch, Duke was sure. This sort of thing didn't just happen in real life, not even in Haven. Not even to him. There had to be a catch and, before he would agree to anything (which he wasn't anyway), he had to figure out what it was. He'd be able to do that a lot faster if the both of them would just stop staring at him.
Especially the sad puppy eyes from Nathan. Those had to stop if he was going to keep a clear head. Immediately. And Audrey standing there, grinning like it was Christmas and she didn't hate Christmas, like she knew the answer already and asking instead of dragging him off to a dark corner was just something Nathan had talked her into doing. That had to stop too.
"Well?" Audrey asked. "What do you think?"
"I think this is some sort of twisted prank," he said, which at least wiped all the expression off of Nathan's face. "I think you two thought it would be funny to come up here and..." he waved his arms around, trying to explain why a one night stand with the two of them was a terrible idea and dating them was an even more terrible idea on par with that time he decided to move back to Haven, without actually using the words that wouldn't come. The last time he was this tongue-tied he had been fifteen and trying to ask Mary Alice to a school dance. It turned out Nathan had already asked her, which was almost what was happening here.
"I think I need a drink," he finished. He turned and walked to the Rouge's bar, his legs feeling stiff.
"You said he'd want to at least, uh, fuck us," he heard Nathan hiss before the door shut all the way, his voice stuttering on the fuck like the big prude he was.
He did want to "uh, fuck" them. That was the hell of it. He was pretty sure he hadn't wanted anything more in his life and, considering how many life-or-death situations he'd been in where he really wanted to live, he figured that was saying something -- probably that he had a major screw loose somewhere up there. They didn't just want sex, though. He could have done just sex, probably. They wanted dates and dinners and holidays together and everything else that made his stomach clench in a painful ball of want.
He poured himself a finger of whiskey to save for later and then took a swig out of the bottle. The burn of the alcohol unclenched the know in his stomach, and he could think again. There were only two ways he saw it ending, though. Either they'd realize what a massive mistake two cops dating a criminal was, or they'd just get bored. He was pretty boring once you got past the smuggling and disreputableness.
Then he'd have to move, because cop-exes were way better at making his life a living hell than regular exes, he knew for a fact. Who needed that kind of trouble when he already had an entire drawer full of parking tickets from one Officer Wuornos? He took another swig and decided that the best thing to do would be treat them both as though they'd gone temporarily insane. Which they probably had.
He turned and went back to the deck, whiskey bottle dangling from one hand, where Audrey and Nathan were quietly arguing with each other. They stopped when he said, "There's obviously some Trouble you two need to go fix. Involving inappropriate sex. Now get off my boat until you've dealt with it."
Nathan pressed his lips together and turned to go. Audrey seemed intent on making this as painful as possible for him, so he turned and went back inside before she could say anything. That didn't stop him from hearing her going "That went well!" as they left, and he could imagine Nathan's long-suffering sigh. He'd had the same sigh since he was eight and used it far too often for it to be cute anymore.
Maybe, if he got drunk enough, he'd wake up tomorrow morning and this would never have even happened.
###
Also, when inanimate objects were being affected, you generally didn't find them having wild sex on the docks. You also didn't have to spray them with cold water to get them apart or strain something trying not to laugh at either them or the look on Nathan's face. She'd never seen him turn quite that shade of red before, and wondered if she could make him do it again.
"And then you just... tore her clothes off?" she asked when they had the couple back at the station, clothed, and in separate interrogation rooms. She was very carefully keeping her voice neutral, but it was hard. "Right there in the middle of the street?"
"Oh god." Josh Gose, accidental exhibitionist, dropped his head in his hands and moaned. "I don't know what happened. One minute, we were heading downtown for breakfast, the next, I was- and she- and..."
"And you gave everyone on Main Street a show they'd never forget?" she filled in for him helpfully, and he moaned again. "Ever?"
Nathan, who had been silently looming behind her while she tried to get the guy to relax -- there were a lot of things worse than public sex, after all -- nudged her with his foot and said quietly, "Stop taunting the exhibitionist."
Nathan really needed to learn the difference between taunting and trying to get someone to loosen up enough to talk. "Is there a history of this in your family? Or your wife's?" she asked, but wasn't surprised when Josh looked at her like she was nuts and said no. It was never that easy.
"What about someone who would want to do this to you?" Nathan put in.
"Who would want to make anyone, uh..."
"Recreate really boring porn?" she provided.
Josh's head thunked down on the table.
"Seriously, you know there's more to life than the missionary position, right?" she continued. "If it wasn't broad daylight you'd probably have switched the lights off."
"Oh my god, Parker," Nathan muttered above her. "Josh, we need a list of everyone you and Mary Anne saw yesterday. Officer Bayer will be in with her and a pad in a few minutes."
She would have told him to also think about what she said, but Nathan was hustling her out the door way too fast for that. "Why won't Duke do that to us?"
"It's been two weeks, Audrey," Nathan said, sounding tired. "Let it go. We gave it our best shot."
But she couldn't let it go. For one thing, "That wasn't nearly our best shot." For another, "Maybe he just needs time to get used to the idea and we should ask again now."
Nathan was starting to look like poor Josh and she expected him to bang his head against the nearest hard surface any moment now. "I'm not having this conversation at work."
Fine, he could be like that. She wasn't just going to give up, though. Not when Duke couldn't seem to decide whether he was avoiding them or trying to pretend that she'd never told him that he should date them, and Nathan was being all awkward about the whole thing like he wished they'd never asked. It was ridiculous and she kind of wanted to just lock all three of them in a closet to see if that worked as well as it did on TV.
###
Audrey's voice startled Duke out of contemplating whether he wanted to buy hickory- or applewood-smoked bacon for breakfast the next morning. And he had been doing so well avoiding the two of them for the past few weeks. Stupid bacon, distracting him from doing important things like keeping a watch out for people who couldn't just leave things well enough alone.
"What?" he asked, his voice clipped. Most people would hear that and leave him be. He didn't hold much hope of Audrey noticing and deciding to leave him alone, though. "Did you solve the Trouble?"
"No," Audrey said, "although it looks like you're right. You heard about Gose?"
Of course he'd heard about Gose. The entire town had heard about Gose, and had a good laugh at his expense. He had known as soon as he heard it that he was right about the sex trouble. Being right hadn't made the twist in his gut when he was forced to admit nothing had been real any less painful, though.
He picked up the hickory-smoked bacon and put it in his basket, and moved down the aisle hoping that Audrey would take the hint and go back to her own shopping.
Instead, she followed him, asking, "So, did you give any more thought to what we said?"
She had got to be fucking kidding. She knew this was all being caused by a Trouble, but she was still going after it? What the hell kind of person did she think he was, that he'd take advantage of them like that? If he did, they'd never be able to look him in the eye again once the Trouble was cleared up. He'd rather have them as friends than briefly have them as lovers and be forced to give that up when they came to their senses.
"Still a no," he said, poking a chicken breast to see if it was still good. The little part of himself that liked the pain made him add, "Maybe come see me when this Trouble is dealt with, if you still want to."
Audrey seemed to get it, finally. She let him get three whole rows away. Then he heard her shoes and she caught up with him again.
"Come on Duke, it'll be fun!"
That was the kicker. Fun. They would keep him while he was fun, and then leave him by the side of the road like a Christmas puppy that got too big for the house. He didn't want to just be their fun side thing. He wanted-
"You don't have to commit to us or anything!" she added. "We could just try it!"
The air wooshed out of him before he could stop it, and he took a step back, the knot in his stomach only growing. He had known they didn't want anything serious, he had known that. So why did it hurt so fucking much to hear it straight from her mouth? Why did it make him feel like someone had just pulled a rug out from under him, like he'd had the wind knocked out of him?
"No means no," he spat. "Leave me alone, Audrey."
She gaped at him, and he told himself that he didn't care about the hurt look that flashed across her face. "If that's what you want," she said, her mouth firming into a thin, flat line.
It wasn't what he wanted. It was the last thing that he wanted, but he couldn't say that, not to her. She would take any sign of weakness and pick at it, until she had opened him up and scooped out all she wanted. He wondered if she would even have the decency to sew him up afterwards, or would they just leave him bleeding on the floor, emptied and broken.
Audrey was still staring at him, her shoulders slumped now, defeated. He didn't want to look at her, didn't want her looking at him like that, so he turned and walked away.
###
"-and the next," Vince took over, rubbing his neck where there were still two red hand prints over his throat, "Dave was trying to do away with me."
"Do away with you? Really?" Audrey asked, perching on the edge of her desk. The Teagues were sitting in two chairs in front of her desk, Dave looking abashed and Vince just looking slightly confused and indignant that she was criticising his word choices. Really, he needed to get used to that if he was going to use ridiculous euphemisms. "Can't you just say trying to murder you?"
They both looked aghast at that.
"I would never-" Dave started at the same time Vince said, "There's no need for such harsh language."
"We're all just lucky Vince used to be-" Vince elbowed Dave in the side "-Vince knows how to defend himself," Dave finished, rubbing his side balefully.
"Given the out of character actions on Dave's part," Vince said, "we thought we'd come check in with you, see if there was any... Trouble afoot." He whispered the last, leaning in close to her.
"You two usually know about Trouble before I do," Audrey pointed out. They had their thumbs on the pulse of the community, and if they weren't such a valuable resource, she would almost consider hauling them in for obstruction of justice more than once. It was lucky that they seemed to know everything and were willing to tell her a fraction of what they knew.
"We did hear about poor Mary Anne Gose," Dave said. "The poor girl must be ashamed to show her face in town; no one has seen her since she and Josh, well, you know."
"Haven't seen Josh either," Vince said. He and Dave exchanged a Look, capital letters and everything. Audrey was certain that they knew something they weren't telling her, but that was pretty much standard operating procedure for dealing with the Teague brothers.
"Well let me know if you hear anything," Audrey said. She pushed herself off the desk when the two of them stood up and began showing them out. "And Dave, if you feel like murdering someone again, come on back here and we'll lock you up until you cool off."
"Thanks Audrey," Dave said before getting on the back of their tandem bicycle and cycling away.
"What do you think the connection is?" Audrey asked Nathan when she stopped by his office, going in to lean against his desk. She ran a finger down the back of his hand, enjoying the way he shivered a little at the touch.
"Does there have to be a connection?" Nathan asked, turning his hand over and catching hers, lacing their fingers together. He only held on for a brief moment before letting go and going back to work, a touch of red coloring the tips of his ears.
"When is there ever not?" she asked. "What are the odds of two Troubled people experiencing enough emotional stress at the same time to activate their Affliction?"
Nathan made an agreeing noise. "But what's the connection? The Goses had sex on the docks, Dave tried to kill Vince. Sex and murder."
"Maybe it's not sex," Audrey said. "Maybe it's lust instead. Lust and murder are two strong emotions."
"I'm pretty sure murder isn't an emotion, Parker," Nathan said dryly.
"That just shows you've never wanted to murder someone," Audrey said. She supposed she could have gone with "hatred" or some other real emotion, but that didn't feel right for Dave and Vince. Maybe annoyance? Something that would spark murderous feelings if driven too hard.
"I think you underestimate how I felt about Duke growing up," he said, then winced. Duke was still a touchy subject for both of them, especially given the way he was avoiding the hell out of both of them. If she had known asking Duke to date them would result in him acting like an awkward high school kid when he turned them down, she might have decided to call the whole thing off.
...Nah.
"Speaking of Duke," she said, and Nathan groaned.
"Can we just drop it?" Nathan said, his voice heavy with regret. "He's barely speaking to us now."
"Why Nathan Wuornos, I'm going to start thinking that you miss him," she said, keeping her tone light.
He just raised an eyebrow at her.
"Now that I've seen Dave and Vince," she said, "I'm wondering if maybe Duke's being affected too."
"Can't you accept that he just doesn't want us?" Nathan asked. "Probably for the best, too, since he'd just stick around until he got bored or we wanted more from him, and then take off."
"No," she said simply, because the thought itself was just ridiculous. It was Duke. She'd caught him staring at them with naked want more than once, and as far as she was concerned, that was proof that he wanted them. And any objections he had were made up because he was being stubborn, or something stupid like that.
"No, I can't just accept that," she reiterated when Nathan looked like he was going to argue with her. "And I'll prove it to you if I have to, but he's interested in us as more than just a fling. I can feel it."
"Oh god," Nathan muttered and put his head down on the desk. She patted the back of his head comfortingly before leaving to go back to her desk and do work.
###
"I told you-" Duke stormed out of his bedroom to the deck where Audrey and Nathan were standing, waiting for him.
"We're not here about that," Audrey said quickly, before he could get going. "Unless you've changed your-"
Nathan casually slapped a hand over her mouth, that stupid doe-eyed look crossing his face the same way it always did when he touched Audrey. It made Duke seethe inside with how much he didn't want to compete with Nathan for her affection. How much he didn't want Nathan to see him as competition. He just wanted them, but he'd built it up so much in his imagination it could only be disappointing.
"Have you seen August Bruler around here?" Nathan asked, letting his hand drop from Audrey's face.
"Not since last month," Duke said, the muscles across his back pulling as he tensed. It was never good when they came to him for help. It just ended in tears and drinking and dead bodies. "But," he continued, reluctantly, "I know where he lives, up on Cliff Drive."
"Good!" Audrey said. "Let's go!" She wrapped her arm around his, Nathan on his other side, and began marching him off the boat.
"Why does everyone think I want to help?" he muttered, but didn't try to resist as they walked with him. He never did.
Cliff Drive was aptly named, winding along the edge of a steep drop-off to a rocky beach below. Houses dotted the edge, some with thin steps carved into the cliffside, a dangerous descent to a beach no good for sunbathing or wading.
August Bruler's house was modest compared to the ones surrounding it. A knee-high whitewashed picket fence surrounded the manicured lawn. Duke only knew where it was because he'd had to make a package delivery or two to him. The last had been just the other month, even, one of the few runs that he still did with the Gull's responsibilities weighing him down.
Audrey knocked on the door while Nathan and Duke stood behind him. "Mr. Bruler?" she yelled through the door. "It's Haven PD. We'd like to talk to you about-"
The slam of the back door was loud over the crashing of the waves below. Of course he was running. Of course. Duke should have brought his whiskey, because he was sure he was going to need it by the time the day was over.
"He's running," Nathan said needlessly.
The three of them hopped the fence and took off after Bruler. By the time they rounded the house, he was already halfway down the rickety steps set into the cliff. Audrey was the first to reach the steps and hurtled down them like she knew no fear.
Duke followed after her, and like always, that was his first mistake.
His feet went out from under him on the first step with a shout and it was only sheer luck that he grabbed a rock sticking out of the cliff face and didn't end up smashed to smithereens on the rocks below.
"Duke!" Nathan shouted, his face appearing over the edge of the cliff.
Duke readjusted his already slipping grip. He had known that some day being friends with Audrey would kill him, he had known it. Audrey was already chasing after Bruler on the beach below, not having noticed or heard him falling, too engrossed in the chase to care.
He was left with Nathan, Nathan who was only trustworthy when in the company of Audrey, who otherwise Duke didn't trust any further than he could throw him, on a good day.
"Grab my hand," Nathan said, stretching down to him. If he could reach up just a couple inches he could catch Nathan's hand and be pulled to safety. Unless...
Unless Nathan's plan was more to drop him off the cliffside and be sure that he hits the sharpest rocks on the beach. Unless the whole threesome plan had been Audrey's idea and Nathan was just going along with it because it was Audrey, and this would be a perfect chance to get rid of him.
"Duke," Nathan said, stretching further down, his face showing something that could be panic or could just be deep satisfaction.
He didn't want to die like this, and Audrey wasn't around to make Nathan do the right thing.
"For god's sake Duke, what are you waiting for?" Nathan yelled.
He didn't want to die like this, and Nathan's hand was right there. He couldn't climb up, he couldn't swing over to the steps, his only choice was to let go and fall, or let go and hope that Nathan, who'd tried to kill him once before, pulled him up instead of dropping him.
He closed his eyes and stretched an arm up to clasp Nathan's hand.
###
Nathan lay next to him, panting from the exertion of dragging him up the cliff face without falling over himself. He had put himself between Duke and the edge, like he was worried Duke was going to roll off of it somehow, like it was Duke's fault that he'd gone tumbling over the edge.
He could hear Audrey clambering up the steps, cursing at their slipperiness, and found that he didn't care whether Bruler was with her or not.
It turned out to be or not. He also didn't care enough to ask what happened to him. Not when Audrey sat down between the two of them and put her hand on each of their shoulders. He shivered underneath her touch, trying not to cringe away from the feelings she was pulling to the surface.
"What happened to Bruler?" Nathan asked. Duke could see one of his hands coming up to cover Audrey's and wondered if he was even aware of how often he did that.
"Lost him," Audrey said, scowling a little. "But what happened to you guys?"
"Duke fell," Nathan said, and Duke felt the urge to deny it even though it was true. "Almost went over the cliff."
"Excuse me," he said and waved his scraped up fingers at them both, "but I did go over the cliff thank you very much."
"You okay?" Audrey asked, squeezing his shoulder. He nodded, suddenly shaky with the thought that he might never had had this again. He forced himself to still under her hand before she could notice how much he wanted to lean into her.
She was rubbing her thumb over his collarbone when he said, before he was even aware that he was going to do it, "I don't want to be your mistake."
Audrey's laughter made him stiffen, made him turn his head away in shame. They could have already decided it was a mistake, and had been looking for a way to let him down easy even though he'd been the one turning them down. They could have decided it was a mistake and were relieved that he had come to the same conclusion himself. His gut churned with the thought.
"How could you ever be a mistake?" she said instead, smiling fondly down at him.
He turned his face away again, couldn't bear to look at them any more.
"We wouldn't ask if we weren't serious," Nathan said. "I don't-" he cleared his throat like the close-mouthed "feelings are for other people" man he was. "I don't do casual."
Duke just breathed in deep and didn't respond. He couldn't. What could he say to that? That he didn't believe them? That he thought that they would wake up one morning and realize what a bad idea asking him to share their relationship had been and kick him to the curb like so much trash?
"You heard the man," Audrey said. "He doesn't do casual."
"How do I know..." Duke drifted off, unsure what he was even trying to ask.
"None of us do," Audrey said. "That's the fun part. We never know if today is our last day together, what will happen tomorrow. We just have to trust that there will be a tomorrow."
"I don't know if I can do that," Duke said shakily, sitting up and hanging his head. "I want..." And oh, how much he wanted. "But I don't know if I can."
"We're pretty sure you're being affected by Bruler's Affliction," Audrey said, like that solved everything. "That your general distrust of people is being turned up high."
That didn't solve anything, even if it was true. Even if it wasn't just a lie she was using to get him to agree to a threesome. Troubles didn't always just disappear and leave the person the same afterwards, and if they were betting on that he didn't want to have any part of it.
"And if it's not?" he forced himself to ask instead of getting up and walking away.
"We'll work with it," Nathan said, sitting up too and brushing grass out of his hair.
"We'll make it work," Audrey added.
They sounded so sure, and he wanted to believe them. He wanted to believe them so badly that it almost hurt.
"Come home with us," Audrey said. "Come home with us and let's try to make this work."
She stood and held out a hand to him. He knew, he just knew that if he took it, that would be it. She and Nathan would pull him in and, if he was lucky, never let him go. Nathan could have let him fall, but he didn't, and Duke didn't have any doubts that Audrey would have pulled him up without a thought. This couldn't be any harder than letting Nathan take his weight on the cliffside.
Slowly, he reached up and took her hand.
THE END