Chapter Text
“No fucking peeking, anyone!” Darlene’s demand is muffled behind her bathroom door.
Dom hears shuffling, a metal belt hitting the grout-stained tile floor. She looks over at Elliot, arms crossed, a skull mask crumpled in his hand, and trying his best to be patient, but it’s hard to take him seriously in his glow-in-the-dark skeleton costume. (“I’m going back to basics this year, Darlene. Plus mom would never have let us wear this shit back when we were kids.”)
More shuffling in the bathroom, and did Dom hear a giggle?
Dom’s pulled from her thoughts when she hears the door knob jiggle then open unceremoniously, and Leon saunters in.
“Practicing your Kramer bit, Leon?” Elliot walks over to greet him and he smiles, really smiles, as he bumps Leon’s extended fist. The corners of Dom’s lips tighten into what she hopes looks like a smile.
“Glad to see you’re finally taking the time to indulge in the pleasures of the American situational comedy, cuz.”
Leon is wearing his usual cargo pants, t-shirt and jacket, and despite Elliot looking absolutely ridiculous right beside him, Dom gets scared for a second that she dressed up on the wrong day, that Halloween was next weekend, and she’s embarrassed herself in front of Darlene’s family.
“Raggedy Anne? Classic move, Jackie…”
Dom does a double take before realizing Leon is addressing her. “Huh? Oh, thanks!” She chuckles nervously, looking down at her baby blue gingham shirt, and touches the tips of one of her low pigtails. “I was legit afraid everyone was going to think I was the girl from the Wendy’s logo…um…Wendy.”
Darlene yells from the bathroom, “What’s up, Leon!” She sounds a little out of breath, even muffled through the door, and Dom is really starting to miss Darlene as her usual outside-of-the-bathroom self. Or she just wishes she was drunk already.
“Um, Dom, want a beer?” Elliot seems to read Dom’s mind--or just her nervous body language.
“Please,” Dom replies, but she’s already distracted trying to think of something to say to keep the small talk going, something to distract from her costume, which she’s now definitely embarrassed of. Jesus H, Darlene, how long does it take to change outfits…
Elliot hands Dom an opened Modelo and gives her a little reassuring smile. Dom thanks him for the beer, and silently, that he hasn’t brought any more attention to her. She reminds herself that she’s just trying to keep her social anxiety at bay long enough for Darlene to emerge from the bathroom. Dom takes a loooong swig.
“Easy girl,” says Leon. “We gotta long night ahead of us, and it’s best to pace yourself.”
Dom smiles nervously and nods. She wishes for a moment, a tiny fleeting moment, that she didn’t sneak out the restaurant exit the night she was proposed to. Then, maybe, spending-the-holiday-with-your-partner’s-family wouldn’t mean standing in a poorly lit one-bedroom in Queens with two men, one likely-stoned, one dressed up as a human skeleton, a sea of beer and nerves reaching high tide in her stomach, threatening to spill into her throat and mouth.
Is this the life Dom is choosing for herself? Money no longer a question, months of international travel to cleanse her memory of dead bosses and her hands of gun-molded callouses, and this is the best she can do for herself?
“Okay, everyone, close your eyes and don’t you care open them until I say so!” Darlene announces from the bathroom. Dom shuts her eyes close, relieved to be taken from her thoughts.
The bathroom door creaks open, and Darlene steps out. “Open your eyes, motherfuckers!”
Dom opens one eye, then the other, and sees Darlene, arms up in the air, shit-eating grin on her face. “Ta-da!”
Dom looks at Darlene up and down and scoffs. Darlene’s platform boots and tights jeans aren’t out of the ordinary, but when Dom sees the cheap polyester jacket that is dwarfing Darlene, and the cap on her head, both branded “FBI” in bold yellow letters, Dom can’t help but raise an eyebrow.
“Really, Darlene?” Dom questions, but Darlene immediately cuts her off.
“Waitwaitwait!” Darlene hops 180 degrees and shimmies her shoulders, encouraging her audience to read the back of the jacket, in the same tacky yellow print as the front of the jacket:
FEMALE
BODY
INSPECTOR
Dom really doesn’t want to dignify Darlene’s costume with a response. She looks over at Elliot, whose hands are covering the bottom half of his face with his mask, but Dom can still see him biting his lip and holding back laughter. Leon is grinning, but his response doesn’t really count—an Alderson can do no wrong in his eyes.
“Ha-ha, Darlene,” Dom says, satisfied that she’s keeping her resolve.
Darlene spins back around, clearing feeding off of Elliot and Leon’s energy. “C’monnn Dom,” she eggs Dom on. “I thought you’d be happy that I was taking the time to finally understand your career path. Plus, you know I always look respectfully.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, Dom wishes she could bide her time to come up with something that would shut Darlene up. But her eyes flit down to an exposed strip of skin between the top of Darlene’s jeans and her tank top that’s riding up ever-so-slightly, and she knows she’s just pretty much just fucked.
When she realizes she’s staring, Dom locks eyes with Darlene, who waggles her eyebrows at her. Dom quickly looks down, but not before she see catches Darlene smirk, sultry and assured.
Dom is suddenly grateful for the thick circles of red blush caked onto either side of her face, hoping they hide her quickly-flushing face.
She thinks to herself that she’ll use the ride to the club to decide whether or not she’s mad at Darlene for wearing that stupid costume. Of course she’s not really mad (it would be stupid to be mad), but Dom doesn’t understand how someone could have claimed to do so much growing up and then leave the house in a costume that would have only been revered by teenage boys in 2005. Weren’t Darlene and Elliot too traumatized to go out on one of the biggest nights of the year, like she pretty much was?
On their way out of the door, Dom looks over and she sees Darlene giggling in her costume, oversized and cheaply made and immature and frankly a little bit embarrassing. She can’t help but let out a breath she forgot she was holding.
…
Dom is wondering how the hell Elliot and Darlene—well, probably just Darlene--found this club in an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn. She is beginning to regret drinking her third Halloween-themed cocktail, red and syrupy, at their previous stop. It was liked she skipped over the drunk part and went straight to the pulsing temples and droopy eyelids part of the inebriation experience.
She found a little patch of concrete right by a cluster of old cars, making sure she’s still within eyeshot of Darlene and Elliot, but she needed to peel herself away to let her ears ring and adjust back to an appropriate decibel.
As Dom kicks some gravel beneath her, she wonders if she’ll feel embarrassed tomorrow of her three-club streak of making out with Darlene in each club bathroom, patrons banging on the door, to no avail. She hugs her lips together, dry and red, the impression of the paper-towel dispenser fresh on the back of her head. Dom’s always prided herself on being able to be both depressed and horny, but was more proud of her ability to hide both.
Fumbling with a box of matches, Leon walks towards Dom, seemingly out of nowhere. “Mind if I join you for a sec?”
Dom nods absentmindedly, shooing her thoughts away, rummaging around in her brain for the best way to start a conversation. Leon exhales loudly, but just focuses on striking a match against the little box in the same hand he’s trying to juggle his joint in.
“I don’t even understand how you can consider yourself a Halloween enthusiast when you’re not even dressed up.” Dom scoffs, regretting immediately how bitter her words sounded.
Leon doesn’t flinch.
“The self is performative, Jackie; everything I wear is a costume.” Leon cryptically pauses, inhaling deeply on his joint. “Haven’t you read Judith Butler? With you guys playing for the same team and all…” Leon trails off, noticing that Dom is looking elsewhere, at Darlene trying to convince Elliot to dance with her.
“You jealous of your girl?” Leon takes another puff
“What do you mean?” Dom is sheepish—what it really so obvious?
“All I’m saying is she’s over there dancing with her bro, and you’re here with me, refusing to smoke--which is cool—but I can tell you’re not where you want to be right now.”
“Okay, you caught me,” Dom snorts humorlessly. “But can you really blame me?”
“Look, Jackie, you don’t strike me as the dancing type, but I feel like you gave up on the night before it really began,” Leon flicks the tip of this joint, and pieces of ash and embers dance across the wet pavement.
Dom feels her chest tighten. “I guess I’m just not really the Halloween-type gal,” she tried to retort.
“Then I’m confused—what kinda gal are you?”
Why did Leon pick tonight of all nights, this moment of all moments to try and understand her? Couldn’t he tell she was trying to best to be anonymous, unreadable, unseeable? At least to everyone who’s name wasn’t Darlene Alderson?
“I’m not tryna be nosy or anything. I just wanted to start a conversation is all,” Leon followed up, puffing liberally on his joint.
Dom finally resigned. “What the hell are we doing here tonight, Leon? Huh? Darlene and Elliot are clearly having the time of their lives without us. I mean, Elliot’s sober for Christ’s sake.” Dom’s face contorted into a look of frustration, confusion. If Leon hadn’t asked how she was doing, she wouldn’t have gotten so damn worked up over something so stupid.
Leon remained unfazed. “Hm,” he thought for a moment, sticking his tongue into his molar, as if trying to get something unstuck from inside of it. “I don’t know, man. It’s just not that deep to me. It’s been a long time coming for my boy and his sis.”
Dom suddenly felt how stiff the cold air had made her fingers. She opened and closed her fist, flexing her digits, pretending to direct her full attention towards her hands, anything to shift her focus from the guilt puddling in her stomach.
“’S cool if you don’t wanna talk. I’m gonna go tell Elly that if we don’t get Taco Bell after this, that I’m never going out with y’all every again. Last call?” And he holds out what’s left of the joint, but Dom waves it away.
“I sincerely wish you two the best, Jackie. If there’s anything my boy Elly has taught me these past few months, it’s the power of transformation when you open up your heart, when you embrace the possibilities.” Leon looks up at Dom and flicks the rest of the joint on the ground, before pivoting and putting his hands in his pocket, silhouette fading back into the club.
Dom shivers and shuts her eyes hard. Why couldn’t she have just picked a costume that involved a mask or a cloak or something…or at least a fucking jacket. The ghost of her stitches on her chest pulse and sting for a second.
She’s smarter than to be frustrated with Leon’s ambiguous and unsolicited advice. It’s just that it was so much easier to self-sabotage when she didn’t have people she cared about as collateral damage of when she wanted to withdraw deep inside herself.
She itches at her scar, trying to relieve the hurt there.