Archive of Our Own

Tendo tells Raleigh about the internship on Friday, which makes it exactly a week since he flipped out in front of Mako. He’s pretty sure that’s how he’s going to measure the rest of his life. (Raleigh is melodramatic when it comes to his crushes, which Yancy used to tease him for, especially because Raleigh was also kind of a man-whore.) One month since he’d blown his chances. A year...

It's a weird conversation. Tendo just shows up around three in the afternoon, popping up behind the counter, looking a little paler than normal. He looks like he’s not slept in several days, his skin weirdly colorless and his eyes too wide.

"Want to go for a quick smoke?" he asks and Raleigh almost points out that Tendo has children now, but then Tendo will point out that Raleigh has a kid sister so he doesn't.

They take the stairs down to the back exit which leads to a tiny lot behind the building. It's dark and dirty and there's a truck parked about 6 feet from the exit and Raleigh can't really work out what was placed there. It's one of those places someone would joking call "a courtyard", but it's probably always been a bit of a pit. He pulls a carton of cigarettes out if his pocket and shakes one out for Tendo and one for himself. They just stand there—awkward and cold without coats, sucking on their cigarettes—for a couple minutes before Raleigh finally breaks.

"I completely fucked up at that investor thing," he says because he has to tell someone. His cheeks burn from cold and embarrassment.

Tendo nods for a few moments, holding his cigarette carefully between two fingers like he's some old movie star. "Did you get drunk and tell everyone about all your son's problems? Because if not, I didn't hear about it."

"I don't have a son," Raleigh says, without thinking. Tendo laughs a little.

"Oh my God," he mutters, shaking his head. After a couple moments, he finally asks, "So what did you do?"

"I freaked out in the middle of the party." He blows some of the smoke out his nose. "Ms. Mori had to pull me out."

Tendo's expression is suddenly more serious, his features creasing in such a way that tells Raleigh he's actually very concerned but doesn't want to show it too much. It's clear anyway what he's feeling, because Tendo has one of those faces and just he himself is one of those people that can't keep secrets unless it's about a surprise party. "That sucks."

Raleigh nods, dropping his own cigarette to the ground and grinding it under his shoe.

"D'you tell your doctor?"

Raleigh shakes his head. He knows the responses he'll get from professionals at this point, knows that it's not going to be the quick, immediate relief he needs, but something slower and much less useful in the short term.

"What about Jazmine?"

"She's got a ton of work right now. She doesn't need my shit." It's true, kind of. He also doesn't want to tell Jazmine because she tends to fuss over people. She's a very fussy sort of person. She likes mothering people unless they’re Raleigh, in which case she just worries and tells him what to do. Which is sort of like their mother.

"Do you know if she's applying for an internship position?"

Raleigh blinks and looks at Tendo, who, for the first time in his life, looks like he could actually be a father. Not like Raleigh’s father, who’s a shithead—but like an actual father. He looks serious but caring, the way Stacker used to when Raleigh would talk to him in the doorways of old, rusted out hangars. Tendo’s cheeks are gray from lack of sleep, but his eyes are focused carefully, his brow slightly creased. (It makes Raleigh feel comforted, despite himself.) "What internship?" he asks.

Tendo stamps out his cigarette. "We're getting Hansen an intern before he blows his fucking brains out. She should apply. She'd probably get it. She's studying corporate law, right?"

"Yeah."

"She should apply. I think it'll be good for you two to be around each other after Yancy and everything." Tendo's nose is starting to go pink from the cold. Raleigh's stomach flips at the name.

"Yeah."

Tendo shakes his head and turns back toward the door. "I'm sorry for—"

"It's cool, man." Because there's no reason for Tendo to feel the way Raleigh does about Yancy's name. Jazmine doesn't anyway—feel the same way about it, he means—but she also cried for about twenty minutes the last time she saw Raleigh while he was freaking out. Jazmine needs Raleigh to be her brother again and to remember Yancy with her, but he can only do the first so far.

“You can’t, like, repeat this or anything, but I think Mako is into you, by the way,” Tendo says when they’re back in the elevator.

Relief rushes through his system and he finds himself smiling, even though his cheeks still feel like they’re burning from the cold. He thinks about asking Tendo about her and Chuck and then decides against it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He emails Jazmine the moment he gets back to his desk and spends the last two hours at work playing solitaire on his computer. It’d be cool if Jazmine could move to Philly. She seemed to like visiting when he was at the facility and she’d joke about trying to work out ways to break him out so they could hit all the bars they could in one night.

And he just sort of stared at her because at the time he was on so many painkillers that he wasn’t sure how to laugh anymore. He felt kind of bad at about it. She talked and talked and he just stared at the wall because it was easier than responding and he didn’t have anything to say.

He needs to stop being a shitty brother and the moment he thinks that, Chuck Hansen appears from the around the corner, his briefcase in his hand. He’s scowling, but he actually nods at Raleigh as he moves towards the elevator.

And then he realizes he’s going to have to be nicer to Chuck.

 

Saturday, he’s lying on the sofa, eating old Chinese food that is smelling more and more like soy sauce the older it gets, and watching From Russia With Love (he found a classic Bond collection for fifteen dollars) while skyping with Jazmine. That is to say, he’s spending his Saturday like every other Saturday and he’s not going to look at Mako’s facebook or her twitter.

She started following him, though. Like, on twitter. He’s not sure what to do about that, but he knows he’ll have to limit his access to his tablet when he’s drunk from now on. He mostly tweets for Jazmine’s benefit. He’s much more of a facebook person, but Jazmine’s facebook app is always broken so he tweets about nothing so she can know he’s doing okay.

He feels like jerking off, but he’s also feeling too lazy to. Also he’s pretty sure masturbation and Chinese food are a bad mix. And he’s just about to post that thought to his twitter when his phone rings.

“Hey, Raleigh. It’s Adrian.”

Raleigh had still been looking at his tablet, but it feels almost like his vision just cuts out. “Hey... What’s up?” he responds because he’s not totally sure what else to say. His chest feels really cold all of a sudden and he blinks but all he can see is the sun shining bright at his eyes.

“Nothing much. I just thought I should check in with you. I’ve not spoken to you since you got sent home.” There’s a pause and Raleigh doesn’t know what to say, so he just hums a little and nods even though Adrian can’t see him. “Are you working?”

“Yeah... Uh, yeah, Pentecost hired me as a receptionist.”

“No shit!” Adrian laughs into the phone, the sound rich and deep—unlike Yancy’s laugh that always ended up like a snort. It stings a little, remembering, and Raleigh instinctively knows which question is coming next. “Are you going to school?”

“Nah, just answering phones,” he says, as lightly as he can. “What have you been up to?”

“I’m back in the States,” Adrian says and hesitates before continuing. “I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh.” There’s a moment where Raleigh can suddenly remember how they looked together, Adrian and Yancy. They tended to hold themselves similarly: eyes slightly narrowed, chins held in a way that bordered on cocky. Yancy was paler than Raleigh, but Adrian was much darker. He said his mother was Mexican, but Raleigh could never tell if that was true, because he tended to just toss it out as a joke. He was about half a head shorter than Yancy and his hair started to curl the moment it grew out beyond a buzzcut. And they would stand together in the sun, Yancy’s skin pink from being constantly burned, the backs of their hands bumping together, their knuckles meshing as if they were actually holding hands.

“Raleigh?”

“Sorry. That’s, uh, that’s really great. Where are you in the States?” He feels like he’s going to cry and he’s probably going to after he hangs up. He turns his focus on the TV, at the little colored disk bouncing around the screen because the DVD player’s been paused for more than ten seconds. He feels too detached to actually see it though.

“I’m back in Georgia.” He sounds a little awkward now, like he can sense the anger that’s starting to fizz in the back of Raleigh’s mind. “You’re up in Philly, right? That’s what Tendo said.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh says. He’s being sullen and stupid, but his mind is starting to wake up and all he wants to do is punch Adrian in the face. “Adrian, I’ve got to go. Jazmine’s trying to call me.”

“Oh!”

“I’ll talk to you soon, I guess.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

Raleigh hangs up and taps the skype app on his tablet. Adrian is apparently dating someone.

There’s a moment before Jazmine’s response appears. Wow. Fuck that guy.

Right??

 

Monday is uneventful. Doctor Gottlieb comes in a little after ten, muttering to himself. He outright glares at Raleigh when he passes the desk. Chuck heads out for lunch around one and doesn’t say anything to him. Raleigh considers asking him if he got Jazmine’s application, but at this point, he’s pretty sure that would hurt her chances rather than help them. Mostly, he just tries to keep up with the iO9 articles Jazmine keeps sending him via facebook and he realizes around four that he’s wasted an entire day.

He needs to get a hobby that isn’t smoking.

 

Tuesday he has an appointment with Dr. O’Brien and he accidentally arrives five minutes late because he forgot the time. Dr. O’Brien is staying late in her office so he doesn’t have to ask to leave work early and it’s so dickish of him to show up late.

He walks in apologizing and she just shakes her head and says, “You’re fine.”

He sits down and pulls off his coat. He wonders if it looks stupid with only one arm in and then he remembers that this is his first appointment since being released and tries to focus. They don’t talk about Adrian, not because he thinks he doesn’t need to, it’s just that he’s not sure how to talk about him and so he doesn’t. He doesn’t talk about Mako either.

They discuss his phone call to Dr. Kaminsky and Dr. O’Brien says he needs to improve how he deals with stress and he counters that on Friday he got triggered and flipped out and he dealt with it by himself really well.

Dr. O’Brien tells him to come in next Friday and that maybe it was a mistake just doing monthly appointments so soon after he was released.

 

By Wednesday, Raleigh’s pretty much given up the week as a major loss when Mako enters from the elevator, her hair sleek despite the wind outside. He smiles at her, noting the green slip of paper in her ungloved hand.

“Good morning, Mr. Becket,” Mako says, smiling a little at him as she takes off her coat, and for the first time since last Friday, her smile doesn’t seem pitying or condescending. She’s wearing a white blouse that day and it sits like a cloud against her skin, draping softly over the waistband of her wool trousers and the curve of her wrist.

It’s weird because he feels like he’s missed her and that doesn’t make sense. He feels an urge to ask her to lunch that day and represses it because it probably wouldn’t seem professional at all.

He smiles back. “Morning, Ms. Mori. How was your weekend?”

She does a funny little shrug that looks like she’s dancing a little. “It was okay. I got a lot of work done. Yours?”

“Relaxing,” he says, even though he’s lying and he’s got a fist-shaped dent in the wall of his apartment that proves it.

She slides the slip of paper towards him over the counter, smiling a little, her front teeth very white against her dark lips. “This is the lunch order for Stacker and me today. Can you fetch this at noon?”

“Of course,” Raleigh says, taking the piece of paper and setting it by his keyboard. It’s McDonald’s again. He recalls with a strange sick feeling that lunch rush the last time he had to go there. His ears flush because even though he’s feeling better around Mako now, it’s still embarrassing.

And by ‘it’ he means the investor’s dinner.

Also his appointment with Dr. O’Brien yesterday isn’t helping.

“Are you okay?” Mako asks. He looks up at her. There’s a little crease of concern between her eyebrows. The blue streak in her hair seems brighter today. He looks at it.

There’s something that’s maddening about Mako and it’s a thousand tiny details that aren’t adding up right for him to get a full picture. She should’ve addressed the investor’s dinner a week ago (even though he was sort of hoping that she wouldn’t) the way she addressed that time he took an hour to get her and Pentecost’s lunches. She’s a professional person and his behavior wasn’t.

But she’s a professional person with blue streaks in her hair and metallic nail polish.

“I’m fine,” he says and wishes his cheeks would stop burning. He knows he blushes and he knows he’s blushing right now. “Just had a bad day yesterday.”

“What happened?” she asks, lips slightly pursed.

“I told my therapist what happened—” His cheeks burn hotter and he shifts in his chair, “—at the party, I mean.”

“Ah.” Mako nods as though she’s suddenly getting something. “What did he say?”

“She. And, um, it’s...” He’s not sure how he gets trapped in these conversations, but he always ends up half way through them and wishing he could die. Jazmine says he tends to overshare even though he doesn’t mean to. “I mean...”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Mako says, her voice suddenly much less casual and conversational and much more soft. “But I hope today is better.”

She smiles and he smiles back, feeling a bit like he’s been punched in the throat.

“Thanks.”

She opens her mouth to say something and then starts, reaching for the pocket of her trousers. She puts her phone to her ear, looking apologetic. “Hello?”

Raleigh looks back at his computer, feeling weirdly guilty for the article he currently has open about some freaky amusement park. Mako speaks into her phone for a bit in Japanese and Raleigh tries not to eavesdrop. Luckily, Japanese is different from English or French and so he can actually shut off that part of his brain.

It’s a hell-themed amusement part featuring lots of statues of people bleeding and screaming and being tortured and Raleigh has to question Jazmine’s judgment even though he’s not really being triggered by it.

“Feel better,” Mako says and hangs up, giving Raleigh a sheepish smile. “Apparently Chuck is sick today.” She sighs and pulls a notebook out of her bag, flipping through the pages for a moment. “Can you make a run to his apartment this evening and give him some papers for me? I’ll tell Tendo to enter it in as overtime.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Raleigh isn’t sure how he manages to forget about Chuck all the time. He doesn’t usually fall for girls who are dating other guys—unlike Tendo, who only ever fell for taken girls. But, then again, he did marry Alison, so maybe there’s something to be said for it.

He just seriously thought about marrying Mako. What the fuck.

She moves back into her office and Raleigh refocuses on his computer, feeling the weird twist in his insides that foretell the intense stir-craziness he’ll be feeling in an hour or so. He wishes he had anything to do. He’d been shown how to work the calendar and a host of other tasks during his first couple weeks and he’s not sure why he’s not been assigned to do any of those things. He feels like he’s wasting time and Pentecost’s money, sitting at the desk, sometimes answering phones or smiling when someone comes in.

Oh, wait—he also does Chuck Hansen’s faxes. And apparently he’ll be going by Chuck’s apartment this afternoon. That’s going to happen. And it’s going to suck balls.

At nine thirty, Jazmine isn’t on Skype or Facebook and he’s read everything that’s interesting on iO9 or Buzzfeed and he’s going to fucking die of boredom right here, at his desk, safe in the knowledge that at least he doesn’t have to go to see Dr. O’Brien next Friday.

And then he could hang out with Yancy and he wouldn’t have to just sit there thinking about Adrian fucking someone who isn’t his brother and he wouldn’t have to be nice to Chuck Hansen or worry what Mako thinks of him.

And he’d never have to see Jazmine again with her eyes filled with tears because she’s not only grieving but she’s just so disappointed to see him sitting there, blankly staring at the pale blue walls of his room, not really there at all...

 

“Mr. Becket.”

Raleigh jerks awake, hitting the back of his head against the underside of the counter. “Fuck...” he moans, clutching the spot with his right hand.

He looks up slowly now, his head throbbing and his neck and shoulders aching from his awkward accidental napping position. Dr. Gottlieb glares down at him, looking like he’s just licked a Warhead. But, then again, he always sort of looks like that. Raleigh finds himself momentarily distracted by how wide his mouth is, sort of fish-like.

“I do hope you realize that your—taking catnaps on company time is—completely inappropriate.”

Raleigh blinks, feeling a really nauseous as he always does when he’s not slept enough. “I’m really sorry...” he starts. The ceiling lights seem super bright all of a sudden.

“If I catch you again,” Dr. Gottlieb says, his left eyelid twitching and reminding Raleigh of just how weird looking he is, “I will have to report you to Mr. Pentecost. Do you understand?”

His speech is halting and strange, but it’s always a bit like that—just like how he’s always pretty weird looking. Raleigh nods again and then nearly screams because what the fuck that hurt so fucking much Jesus—

“Are you alright?” Dr. Gottlieb’s face has folded into an expression of concern that makes him look much younger than usual. He quickly crosses behind the desk, cane in hand, dropping his briefcase to the floor.

“Yeah, I just...” Raleigh swallows and gently touches the left side of his neck because he must’ve pulled something in his sleep. Unfortunately, he really can’t afford going to the hospital right now. “Ow. Uh. Do you have some Ibuprofen or Tylenol or something?” He tries to keep his gaze focused on the left corner of his desk because Dr. Gottlieb looks so fucking worried and Raleigh is so embarrassed right now he might just die.

Dr. Gottlieb pats him awkwardly on the elbow (his left elbow) and Raleigh tries to avoid flinching away. “I keep a bottle in my office. Just—just one moment.”

He moves arhythmically but quickly down the hall and Raleigh is left at his desk and he’s tearing up why is this happening.

Slowly, he moves his hand down to the base of his neck, to his shoulder. The musculature feels tight under his fingers. He hisses through his nose and screws up his face, as though that will help.

He thinks for a moment of the painkillers in his bathroom back in his apartment.

“Here.” He reopens his eyes to see Dr. Gottlieb standing in front of him with an orange prescription bottle that looks mostly empty. He fumbles for a few moments with the bottle and then hands Raleigh a pill that’s about the size of a dime. “Take it.”

“How much shit is in this?” Raleigh asks, but he puts the pill in his mouth anyway and washes it down with some of the water from his bottle.

“A great deal,” Dr. Gottlieb says. “Don’t take anything else for another eight hours.”

“Thanks so much, man... I...”

Dr. Gottlieb is looking sour again. “Don’t mention it.” He bends over awkwardly to pick up his briefcase and stands there for a moment, looking unsure of what to do, before turning around and moving back toward his office.

Normally, it takes Raleigh about an hour to feel properly awake again, but his head seems to be resolutely stuffed with cotton. During this time, no one passes his desk; the phone doesn’t ring. The pain fades slowly from his shoulder and turns into a kind of hazy sleepiness that would normally leave him staring at DVD menus, too lazy to reach for the remote. He goes out at noon to get the lunch order for Mako and Pentecost and the McDonald’s is much less hectic than last time. It looks like they’ve increased their staff since Raleigh came in last.

Mako leans on the doorframe when Raleigh hands her the bag, her eyes bright. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, wishing he felt a bit more awake and in control of his body. He finds himself swaying a little where he stands. “Anytime!”

She smiles, looking a little confused. “I’ll bring you the files in an hour.”

“Huh?” Raleigh makes a mental note that he definitely shouldn’t drink in the next twelve hours. Or twenty-four hours. This stuff is incredible.

The crease is back—the one between her eyebrows that shows she’s worried. It’s cute—like Jazmine’s dimples. He wants to press his finger into it, feel her skull through her skin. “The papers... The papers for Chuck. The ones you are bringing to his house later today.”

“Oh! Yeah! Sorry!” He laughs and his cheeks are burning like he’s gotten tipsy at a wake. Again. “Yeah... Awesome.”

“Okay...” she says, her smile becoming a little brittle with nervousness. “I will see you later.” She ducks back inside her office, shutting the door behind her.

Raleigh decides that he just isn’t going to speak until at least two thirty PM because he is really fucking high. He should’ve eaten something before taking this. He should eat something now but he’s too tired to get his wallet from his desk and then go all the way back to the vending machines in the break room. And he skipped breakfast that morning so literally all that is in his system are these fucking horse tranquilizers or whatever the fuck Dr. Gottlieb gave him.

Maybe he’ll be sober again by five.

 

His head doesn't really clear by two thirty. And it's not clear by three o'clock when Dr. Gottlieb leaves and shouts at him to shut up when Raleigh tries to thank him again.

And it's not really clear by four thirty when Mako sets a stack of folders on his desk, each carefully labelled with a brightly colored post-it note. There’s another post-it on top with the address of the apartment and the code to the front door.

"Tell him he doesn't need to be too fast with these," she says. Raleigh nods and his vision blurs for a moment. "We don't need them back until Monday."

"Okay!" he says, trying to sound cheerful but he just ends up sounding sort of constipated.

She hesitates. "Are you okay?" she asks, her expression a little tight.

"Yeah... Just—tired, I guess."

“Well—” she says and she bites her tongue for a moment, like she was going to say something and just barely restrained herself. “Make sure you get lots of rest when you get home!”

It’s weird. She’s smiling a lot as though she’s just made a joke. Raleigh smiles back, wishing he felt even sort of like a regular person. “I will, thanks,” he says, a little lamely.

She nods and winks before moving back down the hall. Raleigh’s jaw drops and he has to forcibly distract himself with putting together his things and not thinking about the way the thin gold chain of her necklace sits over her collarbones and the way the clasp shines on the back of her neck, just above the gold button on the back of her shirt.

He stands up from his chair, his head spinning, and realizes that he is so not okay to drive. But he has to drive, or else he has to justify being high at work. The best solution, he decides, is just to drive to Chuck Hansen’s really fucking slowly (which shouldn’t be too difficult with rush hour traffic) and hope that that allows him time to register everything around him.

So that’s how he ends up taking an hour to reach an apartment that should’ve only been maybe a thirty minute drive tops. His shoulder has started hurting again, but not as sharply as before—just a dull sort of ache that flares up when he takes off his seatbelt and gets out of the car. He needs a cigarette and his craving only gets stronger when he looks at Chuck’s building.

Raleigh’s apartment is an area about equivalent with the lot behind the office and Chuck’s is... If one could create an absolute opposite for shitty, degrading brick, gum-covered stoops and a lot of mysterious trash bags containing something illegal, it would be Chuck’s apartment building. It looks like some kind of fancy hotel—with the glass doors and the smooth stone outsides. Raleigh approaches the front door, enters the code and goes in.

The entryway is narrow and stark, but well-kept. There’s a sign in front of the elevator saying that it’s broken. He walks down the hall, his footsteps kept silent by the thick, beige carpeting. According to Mako’s note, Chuck’s apartment is on the third floor. The stairs are tucked away at the end of the hall, equally carpeted and curiously steep.

He’s out of shape enough that he’s a little out of breath by the time he reaches the third floor and knocks on Chuck’s door—number three-oh-four.

And it takes a full five minutes for the door to open and there is Chuck. His hair is standing up and static-y in a way that reminds Raleigh of a little kid. Chuck stares at him, his eyes puffy and cheeks gray. His eyes are held wide, his jaw slightly clenched. Slowly, it occurs to Raleigh that Chuck is expecting him to speak first.

“I’ve got the files from Ms. Mori,” he says, half-heartedly gesturing at his bag.

Chuck nods, seeming a little tired. “That’s really great of you. Thanks.” He swallows, his gaze momentarily flickering away from Raleigh to something behind his head. “How are things at the office?”

“Um... Good,” Raleigh says and he tries to start getting the folders from his bag, but every time he shifts it at all, his left shoulder feels like it’s about to rip open. “Really quiet without your dog.” He smiles awkwardly, but at least his face doesn’t feel so soft anymore.

To his surprise, Chuck smiles too—not hugely, but enough to show that he can appreciate Raleigh’s statement. “Is Dad back there yet?”

It takes Raleigh a moment to put together what Chuck has just said with the information he has. “Oh! Uh, no, I’ve not seen him lately.”

Chuck nods again and leans a bit more heavily on the door. “How is Mako?”

“Good, I think. Didn’t you call her earlier?” He looks back up from his bag and notices Chuck’s eyes are unfocused. “Are—”

“Yeah, I think,” Chuck says, scratching absently and readjusting himself in his sweatpants. They’re gray and seem really worn out. They’re also riding really low and Raleigh really doesn’t need to see Chuck’s dick. He never wants to see Chuck’s dick. That’s probably where he draws the line for what he would do to help Jazmine get this internship.

And then Chuck tips forward and crashes into Raleigh’s left side.

It hurts so much that Raleigh’s vision flashes white. It feels like his neck is on fire but somehow he’s still on his feet, his knees shaking under the weight of Chuck, who is apparently just a giant bag of muscles and weighs about a thousand pounds and Raleigh takes a moment to try and remember how he used to actually lift anything.

His face feels like it’s on fire and he’s gasping for air, but he manages to push Chuck back onto his feet by using the momentum of his left leg. Chuck sways a little, gripping onto the doorframe. His face is pale and blotchy, his eyes shut and his throat shifting like he’s trying to swallow something.

“Imma throw up,” Chuck whispers and falls against Raleigh’s shoulder again. It’s the right one this time. Years of bar hopping have trained Raleigh enough that he ends up immediately wrapping is arm around Chuck’s waist.

“Okay... Just lean on me. We’re going to get you to the bathroom.”

He leaves the door open because he doesn’t really have another option and lets Chuck lead them a little through the living room—all white walls and white carpeting and black furniture—and down a short hallway. They turn right at the end into a black-tiled bathroom.

Chuck sort of melts out of Raleigh’s arms and onto the floor beside the toilet. Raleigh can see that Chuck is starting to hyperventilate.

“Hey, just lean over,” he says, gently bringing a hand to Chuck’s side to try and prop him up better. Chuck flinches away and Raleigh realizes that he’s crying. He shakes his head rapidly, stumbling to his feet, and pushes off his sweatpants.

And now Raleigh has seen Chuck Hansen’s penis.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He means to say it more gently, but it comes out more like yelling because he did not want to see Chuck’s penis ever. Chuck shakes his head and almost falls over again.

“It’s not just—I can’t—” He manages to sit on the seat, through he’s sort of leaning to the left and Raleigh goes to try and help him up because—

“Dude, are you seriously going to take a shit before you throw up?” Raleigh asks and Chuck just sort of weakly grabs Raleigh’s arm and throws up on his hand.

 

It takes about thirty minutes to get Chuck cleaned up. He’s basically unconscious and Raleigh could really use his left hand when he has to half-drag Chuck into the shower, pull off his shirt and basically hose him down. Chuck makes a weird noise when the water hits him—like a groan crossed with a snore—and rolls onto his side like he’s going to fall asleep.

Drying him off is even more difficult and Raleigh ends up leaving him wrapped in a towel for a bit while he goes and shuts the door and then looks around for Chuck’s bedroom to find some clean clothes for him. All the rooms in the apartment look like they’ve dropped out of a decorating magazine, but not as clean. The white carpet is sort of graying near the corners and there are marks on the walls. He passes the kitchen and finds Chuck’s dog—Max?—wandering in the middle of the white tile floor, tail between his legs as he waddles back and forth around a shit he’s taken by the stove.

Chuck’s room—by contrast with the weirdly empty living room and the unremarkable kitchen—is an absolute mess. Stacks of papers—some loose and some in folders—stand against one of the black walls, almost four feet tall. The bed is unmade, but Raleigh can’t really critique Chuck on that. There’s a mountain of dirty clothes next to the door to the closet and it takes up almost half of the floor space.

Inside the closet, though, all the suits and button-up shirts are hung up and the other clothes are neatly folded on the shelves. Raleigh grabs a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and heads back into the bathroom.

Chuck has curled up in a ball on the floor, still wrapped up in the towel, making weird little whining noises. It’s a struggle getting him dressed, but Chuck is slightly more conscious now and actually helps to tug on the pants. His face is slack and his eyes still closed, but he manages to pull the shirt over his head.

But finally, Raleigh gets Chuck back to his bed and Chuck curls up on his side and groans. His skin is hot to the touch, his cheeks red and shining from sweat.

It feels weird to be actually worried about Chuck because he’s kind of a terrible person, but there it is. He’s not seen someone this sick in while and it’s probably just a stomach flu, but throwing up and diarrhea is sort of unnecessary. He wonders what Chuck has been eating that day and remembers, distantly, when Jazmine got so sick when they were little that she was taken to the hospital and Raleigh stayed up all night because he couldn’t sleep knowing that she wasn’t just down the hall in her room; that she could die in the hospital and he would never see her again; that she would be up all night as well, too exhausted and too scared to sleep, even with their mother right beside her bed.

It was a few months after that that she first cut her hair short—just to her jaw and, because of the nature of who Jazmine was, always sticking up someplace with bits of leaf stuck in the knots because Jazmine was the sort of kid who could tangle short hair.

“Thanks, Ray,” Chuck mumbles, pressing his face again one of the pillows. “You’re a... a good guy.”

“It’s nothing,” Raleigh says and bends down by the bed so Chuck can see him better (he saw a bottle of contact solution by the sink in the bathroom and he’s just going to assume at this point. “Hey, I’m going to take the dog for a walk, okay?”

“Max’s harness is by the door,” Chuck whispers, but he’s clearly already unconscious. Raleigh shuts the door to the bedroom as he leaves.

Max is still pacing the kitchen. Raleigh quickly checks the cabinets and finds a lot of packages of fairly high-quality raw ingredients. It’s like Jazmine’s apartment up in Massachusetts. Figures Chuck would be a health nut.

Unfortunately, raw ingredients aren’t really going to be helpful at this point because Raleigh’s cooking skills are basically zero.

Cleaning the floor only takes about ten minutes or so, but Max keeps walking around him and Raleigh almost trips over him a couple times. It feels nice to get some of bleach on his hands after Chuck threw up on it. He’s pretty sure no amount of soap would’ve made that clean.

Max keeps barking and it takes Raleigh ages to get the harness on him because he’s moving so much. But eventually, they get out of the apartment and about ten feet from the front door, Max takes a shit.

He’s much happier afterwards and keeps trying to run ahead, but Raleigh is not going to walk any faster than he is right now. His shoulder aches and he wonders how fucked up he’s made it. Sleeping wrong is one thing—those sorts of pulls fade after a while—but having some guy who must weigh over a ton is another. Especially since his shoulder isn’t supposed to have too much weight on it because his collarbone is still sort of weird and while the areas to the left of his injury are largely numb, there are areas on the right where the muscle pulls at the places where it didn’t heal right and it hurts all the time, but this is way more painful than the usual.

He wonders if he can make a quick run back to his apartment.

He passes a little grocery store just around the corner and enters, sort of forgetting that he’s not supposed to bring animals in. The cashier doesn’t complain though, her expression a little sour, tracking him with her eyes. He grabs two jars of apple sauce, a bag of sliced bread, a couple bottles of Tylenol from the medicine shelf and a bottle of ginger ale. She doesn’t say anything as she rings him up, the stud in her nose making her look more like she’s sneering than she actually is.

Getting back into the building is more complicated than it should be, but eventually Raleigh gets his hand free enough to enter the code. Max tries to run ahead of him and Raleigh is jerked forward with such violence that his shoulder feels like it’s screaming, ripping at the stiff scar tissue. He needs to take, like, three Tylenol and just sleep for a thousand years.

But he can’t leave Chuck alone like this. Like, the situation is so fucked and there should be someone there or he’s pretty sure Chuck will die of starvation. Or of cracking his head open on one of the tile floors.

He would call Mako because he knows that she and Chuck are—well, anyway—but he doesn’t want to stand there with her, looking at Chuck’s penis which he’s basically a hundred percent certain he’s going to see again. More importantly, he doesn’t want to see how she’ll look at it.

 

It doesn’t take long to get a small dinner together for Chuck—a slice of toast and a bowl of applesauce—and Chuck basically inhales the food and seems to pass out again, face-down in the pillow. But when Raleigh goes to leave to room, he mumbles something that Raleigh can’t quite hear.

“What was that?” he asks because if Chuck has to go to the bathroom again that’s going to be terrible, but he’ll make sure it happens because the alternative is so much worse.

“Please stay.” Chuck thrusts an arm at Raleigh and catches the cuff of his shirt. “I shouldn’t be alone.”

Raleigh climbs over Chuck and sits down on the bed beside him. Chuck’s skin is still burning and radiates so much heat Raleigh can feel himself starting to sweat just from being near him. He just sits there for a few moments before pulling his phone out of his pocket to check if Jazmine’s texted him.

“Who’re you talking to?” Chuck asks, shifting so his face is turned towards Raleigh, still half-splayed out on his stomach.

“Just checking on my sister,” Raleigh says, unlocking the screen. There’s a Skype message from Jazmine that’s over an hour old which says, Youve not liked anything in over 3 hrs. Are you ok??

I’m fine, he types back, Just doing a favor for MR HANSEN.

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Chuck says, eyes still shut, mouth slack.

“Yep. She’s a couple years younger.”

Oh my God, Jazmine replies.

“Cool,” Chuck mutters, shoving his head deeper into the pillow. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“That’s a weird question,” Raleigh says, typing, ill describe everything later. “No, I’m not. You?”

“Nice...” Chuck whispers.

“Are you?”

Chuck makes some weird, half-sob, half-snort noise. “We broke up.”

“That sucks.”

Chuck’s eyes snap open and he shifts himself up on to his elbows, starting directly at Raleigh. “I fucked it up,” he says, his jaw set. “I tried to have sex with her.”

“Oh...” Raleigh sets his phone on to his lap, feeling much more nervous than he should with the amount of Tylenol he’s taken. “Did she... uh... Did she want to have sex?”

“Yeah,” Chuck says, nodding slowly. He rubs his face for a moment and when he raises it again, there’s a string of drool connecting his palm and his lip. “I came... early.”

Raleigh wishes he could be anywhere that isn’t this apartment right now. He would rather jump into a freezing lake than have this conversation. “Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Chuck insists, as though this isn’t obvious. His eyes are watery and his face is turning a weird purply-red. “We were just... Like I got the condom on and I went in and then she kissed me and I came.” He slams his face down into the pillow and groans.

Raleigh wonders if there’s a way he can have the part of his brain that will remember this conversation removed. “And then she broke up with you?”

“No.” Chuck’s voice is muffled by the pillow, but he’s still unfortunately audible. “I offered to eat her out and she said okay and she, like, thrusted strangely and I got a nosebleed and she looked and freaked out.”

“Wow...” Raleigh feels like his brain has just ground to a halt. All negative feelings that normally occupy the back of his mind cleared away. All optimism wiped out. All that’s left is the image of this horrible sexual encounter. He feels bad for being told this, because Chuck is clearly out of his mind loopy from being sick and not eating and shitting out the entirety of his digestive system and Raleigh kind of feels like he’s taking advantage, but at the same time...

It’s pretty amazing. So amazing that Raleigh kind of wonders if this is just some dream Chuck’s just had or is having right now—or maybe some weird memory from high school.

“She hates me,” Chuck moans.

“That’s... so terrible.”

Chuck is quiet for a long moment and Raleigh looks down to make sure he’s not suffocated. But he’s crying, which is sort of worse.

“I’m really sorry,” Raleigh says because there’s not really anything else that can be said.

Chuck shakes his head and then turns so he’s face Raleigh again. “My life is a fucking joke.” Raleigh nods once and bites his lip. “Get out.”

“I don’t think you should be alone,” Raleigh says because Chuck is shoving his thumb nail into the last joint of his middle finger like he wants to cut through the bone.

Chuck’s face crumples and he buries his face back into the pillow. Raleigh just sits and waits for him to speak again, but Chuck is silent for a long time. Then his breathing starts to slow and become louder and Raleigh slips off the bed, phone in hand.

He leaves the door open and walks quietly into the living room. His head is swimming from standing up and he remembers, again, that he skipped breakfast and lunch that day. He pulls his tablet out from his bag and looks up nearby restaurants that aren’t the Chinese one he normally orders from. They’re starting to know him there and it’s kind of pathetic on his part and this is as good a chance as any to branch out.

He will miss their eggrolls though.

He tries not to make too much noise—like watching anything on his tablet or listening to music—while waiting for his pizza so he can hear if Chuck needs anything. Max eventually wakes up from his nap on the armchair and jogs back to Chuck’s room, presumably to sleep beside his master instead. Raleigh sits in the doorway to the living room so he can hear if anyone knocks at the door and if Chuck has to use the bathroom again, scrolling through his Facebook.

Eventually, he taps the Skype app and writes, You would not believe the things I do for you.

??? Explain.

 

He has to haul Chuck to the toilet again around ten o’clock and Chuck isn’t even verbal anymore. He’s just sort of... there, but not really. Like he’s too exhausted to be fully present. Raleigh found earlier a plastic bucket under the kitchen sink and he places it on Chuck’s lap, patting him awkwardly on the back as he shits and pukes out his insides.

“I’m going to die,” Chuck mumbles, his forehead propped against the rim of the bucket.

“You’re going to be fine,” Raleigh says and takes the bucket away.

By this point, he’s basically certain that Chuck was telling him about a dream because according to Jazmine there hasn’t been a recent change in Chuck’s Facebook relationship status (she’s been regularly checking, for some reason) and there’s just... The idea of it is so absurd that Raleigh can’t imagine it happening outside of some terrible nightmare. Even his first time wasn’t that bad. He’d been a little premature, but at fourteen that wasn’t very surprising.

Chuck flops against him when Raleigh helps him up again, arms limp, and Raleigh is thankful for the miracle of painkillers.

Getting Chuck back to his room takes a while, but Raleigh manages it and Chuck doesn’t say anything when Raleigh starts to leave. He sort of wonders if Chuck woke up at all during that experience. It’d be better if he hadn’t, probably, because Raleigh really wants to forget a lot of today.

At eleven, he lies down on Chuck’s sofa, wearing his just his slacks because for some reason, he didn’t think to bring pajamas with him to work that morning. It takes him a little bit to take off the sling. He’s a little worried because he doesn’t have his other one here, but he’ll have to take his chances. He’s already sleeping on a sofa which will only serve to further fuck up his neck and shoulder, but there really isn’t another option and he is super fucking tired.

The leather makes the back of his neck sweat and his hair seems to itch on his scalp. He needs a cigarette, but he’s too lazy to move and he’s kind of too lazy to do anything except text Jazmine and, apparently, take shittons of pain medication. And take care of a guy that he really, really doesn’t like and he’s not sure why he’s bothering except that no one else is there. If there were anyone else to help Chuck out, he wouldn’t have even picked him up off the ground.

He needs a cigarette, but his eyes won’t open, even though he feels restless inside because the sofa is sticking to his skin.

He feels cold but he’s too lazy to try and find a blanket.

Jazmine leads him across the empty room. The wood floor leaves his feet with splinters and he can smell the wallpaper, peeling off the walls. The room smells like old smoke. The walls are greasy.

She stands him in a corner, presses his hands against the greasy walls, palms down, back to the corner. A cold breeze comes through the broken window just a couple feet to his left. The curtains flutter. She slams her hand over his mouth, palms rough.

“You won’t tell Dad?” she asks. He nods. His pinky twitches.

“Don’t tell Dad,” she says. He nods.

“Are you okay?” he asks and Raleigh cries out because he’s in pain and there’s dirt in his mouth and sun in his eyes. “Raleigh, don’t tell Mom.”

Yancy slams his hand over Raleigh’s mouth. “Raleigh, you can’t tell Mom. You can’t tell anyone.”

“Shut up, Raleigh!”

Yancy’s head snaps suddenly to the left, like he’s been hit, and he falls onto Raleigh’s chest and the sun fills Raleigh’s vision—

 

He wakes up sweating and crying, his shoulder so painful he cries out. He wraps his right arm around his left side, gasping for air, feeling like he’s just fallen in snow. His skin feels too tight and his shoulder feels like it’s on fire because it’s like the muscle’s ripped open and the gap is just flooded with blood.

Yancy’s head snaps to the left.

He can’t breathe from crying and he just has to sit there, cradling his arm, trying to think and do something but he doesn’t know what to do. His throat feels raw like it’s been scraped and he’s not breathing.

There’s a jiggling noise and Raleigh blinks, his vision snapping back into focus. He’s in Chuck’s weird empty living room with the kind of gray stains at the base of the walls and the plush carpeting. Max barks before coming in, tags jangling and skin flaps shaking. He barks again, but he’s too gentle to do anything else and too skittish to approach anymore.

“Ray?”

Raleigh stands slowly, his shoulder screaming in protest, and makes his way back to Chuck’s room. Chuck’s half-awake, partially sat up in bed. His eyes are open, barely. He looks up at Raleigh as he enters.

“You screamed,” Chuck says, his words breathy and slurred. “Are you okay?”

Raleigh nods, hiccupping. “Thanks.”

“Okay,” Chuck lowers himself back to the pillows, his eyes shut again.

Raleigh returns to the living room and spends the rest of the night watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix, Max sitting beside him and licking his arm every couple minutes.

 

At Three AM, he makes a pot of coffee in Chuck’s coffee maker because he’s fucked himself over for the day already. At Four AM Chuck wakes up and Raleigh helps him to the bathroom. It’s largely successful, but Chuck falls against him again and dribbles vomit on him—and Raleigh ends up double-dosing, though he’s not sure how likely that is to completely fuck him over. He needs to get back to his apartment at some point to take his Zoloft and grab his actual pain killers.

When Chuck is washing his hands—which he insists on doing, even though he’s leaning so heavily against the sink, Raleigh thinks it might crack off the wall—he reaches up to the medicine cabinet, grabs four different prescription bottles and opens them one after another, popping pills into his mouth with a steadiness that’s sort of alarming. Though not quite as alarming as the cabinet itself, which is packed with orange bottles, some flagged with little post-its marked with X’s.

He makes sure he doesn’t look at the labels on the bottles. It’s not really any of his business.

At Four thirty AM, Raleigh is staring at a pot on the stovetop and waiting for the water to boil. Chuck is snoring loudly in his room. Raleigh thinks for a moment that he should finish the rest of the pizza he ordered last night, but the thought of eating seems weird. Especially when he’s waiting for a pot to boil.

His skin still smells a little like vomit. His body is aching from lack of sleep. And Jazmine won’t be awake for two more hours.

There’s a knock at the front door just as the first bubbles start forming at the bottom of the pot. He drops the lid back down and heads towards the living room. Max follows him, probably thinking that Raleigh is going on a walk.

And in the hallway is Herc Hansen with a rolling suitcase and a laptop bag. His suit is sort of wrinkled and his cheeks are more stubbly than usual. He blinks in confusion for a moment at Raleigh, his eyes flickering down to his bare chest and the sling, before smiling broadly.

“Hello, Raleigh!” he says and pulls him in for a strong hug.

And it’s a Herc Hansen hug which Raleigh remembers Yancy and some of the other guys taking about when Herc served with them, but he’d not really believed them at the time. It’s like his arms are aware of the nature of the macho hug, where you slap the other guy on the back and grip his shoulders for a moment, but his hips sort of come forward so it’s like Raleigh’s also getting a hug from his crotch. He can feel Herc’s package. It’s pretty uncomfortable, but it’s still a hug, so Raleigh slaps him on the back like they’re old friends.

They break apart and Herc gives him a weird pat on his right shoulder, his fingers drawing a small circle on his skin before he lets go. “What... Uh... What’re you doing here?” he asks, his eyes drawn back to Raleigh’s sling. Raleigh can feel his cheeks flush a little.

“Chuck’s really sick so I figured I should keep an eye on him.”

Herc nods the way people do when they don’t feel like arguing. There’s an awkward pause and then Herc beams again when Max barks at him.

“Hello there, Max!” he says, kneeling to the door and rubbing him furiously. Max wags his tail furiously and tries to charge at Herc because that’s just fucking love, basically. He keeps trying to lick Herc’s face, but Herc pulls himself back each time, which makes Max just try harder.

The pot on the stove hisses and Raleigh excuses himself, figuring that it’ll be a chance for Herc to settle down, but Herc follows him into the kitchen, Max at his heels. Raleigh pours the hot water over cup of oatmeal he’d set up before and listens to Herc pour himself a cup of coffee.

Finally, Raleigh cracks under the weight of the silence, asking, “So how long are you planning to stay?”

Herc swallows a mouthful of coffee, brow furrowed. “What?”

“The... bags...” Raleigh feels his cheeks starting to burn and he makes a weak sort of gesture toward the living room. “Are you going to stay up here for a couple days?”

“Oh!”Herc nods and sets his mug down on the counter. “No, I just got back from the airport. Figured I’d catch Chuck before his work out started.”

“Oh... okay,” Raleigh says and it’s stupid for him to feel this useless, isn’t it? He is the receptionist, after all. It would make sense if he knew when one of the company heads was travelling, but he didn’t. And what did that say about him at work? “Where were you visiting?”

“Hong Kong. Business trip.” Herc watches for a moment as Raleigh stirs some applesauce in with the oatmeal and then slaps his hands against the counter. “I’m going to go check on Chuck.”

“I—Wait, no—” But Herc’s already out of the room. Raleigh quickly finishes making Chuck’s breakfast and follows him down the hall.

Luckily, Herc has kind of hung back against the doorframe, just watching his son with an expression that borders between annoyed and concerned. It’s a dad face, Raleigh thinks as he moves to Chuck’s bed and shakes him awake.

Chuck groans and blinks for a few moments, then grimaces at Raleigh. He pushes himself into a sitting position and Raleigh hands him the bowl of oatmeal. “Breakfast,” Raleigh says, lamely.

“Mm,” Chuck grunts. Herc watches him carefully, like he’s looking for fault in something.

“Your dad’s here,” Raleigh says, because he kind of feels like he’s being suffocated by the level of awkward in the room. Chuck nods at Herc, but seems more focused on trying to get the oatmeal from the bowl to his mouth. His hands are shaking so much that by the time the spoon reaches his mouth, half the food has fallen off. Fortunately, Max has jumped up onto the bed and is doing his part to clean up the rest. Chuck smiles at him distantly, his head listing to the left.

“You okay, Chuck?” Herc asks, still in the doorway. Chuck shakes his head slowly and tries to grab Raleigh by the left elbow. He shifts back just in time, but Chuck winds up falling off the side of the bed.

“I’m not...” He presses his lips together, shaking his head more furiously, and wraps his fingers around part of Raleigh’s orthosis, which fucking hurts so much and he’s getting really sick of Chuck seeming to make every attempt to fuck up his shoulder because it’s probably going to fully dislocate any day now.

“Help me out here,” he grunts and Herc jumps before starting forward. Together, he and Raleigh haul Chuck back to his feet. It’s easier on his shoulder with Herc’s help, because Herc is apparently as tough as he was when Raleigh was in the army, because Raleigh can tell he’s taking most of Chuck’s weight.

 

By the time Chuck’s back in bed, he’s pretty much awake and talking. Mostly he’s asking why Raleigh is in his home, which is a fair question, but before Raleigh can explain, Herc cuts him off, saying:

“For fuck’s sake, Chuck, he just had to wipe your fucking arse. Can’t you just say ‘thank you’ and be a fucking adult?”

Chuck goes silent at this and Raleigh takes a moment to check his forehead. His skin is still hot to the touch, but it’s not as burning hot as it was the night before. He feels a slight sense of relief because it’s five AM and it’s feeling like Chuck might be well enough that Raleigh can leave him until his lunch break.

“Oh, fuck off,” Chuck snaps and slaps Raleigh’s hand away, his face red. “You too, dad.”

“I’m going to get you some soda,” Raleigh says because this whole situation is awkward as fuck and he’s not really sure how he ended up in the middle of it. And somehow the addition of Herc Hansen—which should’ve alleviated some of the discomfort—has just made things worse. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Wait,” Chuck says, his head listing again to the left. “You need a shirt. You can borrow one.”

“Oh... thanks...”

“S’no problem.”

Max rests his head against Chuck’s arm and absently licks his fingers. Raleigh ducks out of the room and Herc follows, sighing loudly.

“I’m sorry he’s being such a cunt,” Herc says, leaning heavily against the counter. “But, uh, I’m guess you’ll be getting something in return for this, eh?

Raleigh wonders if he would be fired for blackmailing Chuck in order to get Jazmine the internship. I touched your butt and saw your dick. Hire my sister. Also you threw up on me and I had to clean up dog shit. “I don’t think so... I think that conversation would be, like, really awkward...”

Herc snorts. “Yeah, probably. I can’t imagine anything with Chuck not being awkward though.”

Raleigh nods and pours some ginger ale into a glass. Herc shifts a little closer and Raleigh looks over at him. Herc touches his shoulder gently.

“When, um... When did you and he start dating?”

Because Raleigh is dumb and stupid and because he’s never really been capable of not fucking up around Herc Hansen unless Yancy was right next to him—he laughs out loud. It’s just because Chuck makes him so fucking angry. And he makes Chuck so fucking angry, as Chuck has tried to emphasize every day at work.

But Raleigh knows Herc Hansen and so even though he can’t control his laughter, he’s not surprised when Herc says, “What’s so funny?” like Raleigh’s just personally insulted him.

Because, really, he has. And he’s not going to just ignore that, so he takes a deep breath and forces his laughter to an end.

“I’m sorry,” he says, chewing on his lip. “It’s just... Chuck and I aren’t dating. Like, we’ve barely even spoken and never outside of work and also, like, he hates me so... I’m sorry for laughing. It’s not because... Like, it’s not because of the gay thing... It’s just... Chuck’s not... uh...”

Herc shakes his head and turns away. “Yeah, you’re too decent to date Chuck. I just assumed because you were here and it’s so early... Also, you’re wandering around half-naked, I mean...”

“It’s fine. It’s not an insult,” Raleigh says and he realizes again, when Herc smiles weakly at him, how much he misses Yancy when he talks to Herc. It’s like there’s something wrong with the room—like there’s a hole in the air where they’re both expecting Yancy to be. Because Herc and Raleigh hadn’t been very close in the army; not as close as Herc and Yancy. (Herc had become a weird, quasi-father figure for Yancy toward the end. He’d been invited to the wedding. Raleigh wonders what Herc did with the invitation.) And he knows that when Herc looks at Raleigh, he sees half of a set—or at most, a shallow reflection of the brother he knew better.

Raleigh sees himself that way too sometimes.

Herc slaps him on the back. “You’re a good kid, Becket.”

“You’re not too bad yourself, sir,” he says, because maybe if he jokes enough his eyes will stop tearing up. Herc laughs, arms crossed over his chest.

“Listen, if you have to go, I can look after Chuck for a couple hours.”

That wakes him up a bit. “Oh... Yeah, thanks. Um... I’m just going to walk Max and then, uh, you can look after Chuck while I’m at work?”

“’Course.” Herc smiles and slaps his right shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Becket. A really good guy.”

 

He manages to drop by his apartment for the Zoloft and the pain killers. A woman stares at him from an upper window as he gets out of his car, her hair pulled back too tightly from her face, a cigarette in her fingers. She’s very blonde and he realizes belatedly that it’s the Russian woman from the board, red nails glinting in the morning sun. She whistles at him as he walks by and shouts, “Hello, Mr. Becket! Where did you sleep last night?”

He grins. “That’s none of your business, Mrs. Kaidonovskii! Not unless you want to get involved.”

She winks and he notices that she doesn’t have anything on her shoulders, just a towel wrapped around her torso. He feels his ears burn, but he smiles anyway, because he’s shallow enough to admit that a good looking woman hitting on him is a good looking woman hitting on him and he’s not picky about dubious power dynamics when he needs an ego boost.

“Don’t tempt me,” she calls and puts out her cigarette on the window ledge. “It’s seven. You’d better run along.”

“Thanks,” he says and she waves once more before turning back inside.

He jogs up the stairs, is again embarrassed by how out of shape he is and grabs a pack of cigarettes from the carton just inside his door. His apartment smells like cheese and he feels both embarrassed and comforted to see his clothes all over the floor and boxes of mac ‘n’ cheese in the kitchen just waiting for him to feel like eating them. Moving quickly, he stuffs some things—a fresh shirt, a pair of sweatpants, his meds, some socks, his other sling—into a bag that gets tossed into his back seat.

He stops at Starbucks before heading into work and ends up grabbing a green tea latte.

He’s at his desk by eight thirty and when Mako enters, her cheeks flushed from cold, her face framed by a blue wool scarf, he stands up and offers it to her.

“Good morning, Miss Mori,” he says, feeling his cheeks burn. She smiles, delight clear in her eyes.

“Good morning, Mr. Becket,” she says, unwinding her scarf; her hair falling into place around her jaw. “You didn’t have to bring me this.”

He shrugs. “Just something to get you through the day.”

She lowers her gaze for a moment. “Thank you,” she says, slowly, thoughtfully, and makes her way back to her office.

He tries to put her out of his mind.

He actually sees when Stacker comes in that morning, the skin under his eyes deeply shadowed like he’s not been sleeping. Standing, he looks thinner than he did the last time Raleigh was in his office. Or maybe it’s just the morning slump everyone gets that’s making his suit look less crisp. He definitely seems tired, which is weird because Lieutenant Pentecost was never tired. Not that he was ever bursting with energy, but it was just... a constant level.

Of course, Tendo comes in a couple minutes later, five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes. He slumps over the counter and groans softly. Raleigh considers rumpling Tendo’s hair, but the last time he did that, they didn’t end up speaking for a week. Also Raleigh got his nose broken for the second time, but that was another matter.

“I was up until five last night,” Tendo says by way of an explanation. “Emil got a cough from Sara and I hate everything.”

“I saw Chuck Hansen’s dick,” Raleigh says, because traditionally this is how whining works with him and Tendo: they just try to one-up the other for pain until they both call a truce.

“Big deal. I’ve seen Chuck Hansen’s dick. I’m pretty sure everyone in this G. D. office has. Welcome to the club, Becket.”

“Did you just say “G. D.”?” Raleigh says, laughing because Tendo censoring himself is hilarious and this moment is never, ever going to be forgotten.

“Fuck off.” Tendo slides himself off the desk and rolls his neck. “I’ve got kids. Sue me.”

“But you’re still smoking,” Raleigh points out, tongue between his teeth. Tendo flips him off and walks off down the hall, swaggering a little as always.

Raleigh turns back to his computer, resisting the urge to fist pump. He decides that day that he’s not just going to kill time at his desk, that he’s going to be a self-starter and find work to do himself. Because he’s sick of being constantly bored, he’s tired of feeling like he’s wasting Stacker’s money and he needs to take his mind off of the pain in his shoulder from having to support Chuck’s entire weight over and over again.

By eleven he’s logged onto Facebook.

And there’s an alert for a friend request from Adrian Greene. (He’d forgotten, for a moment, that Adrian deleted him about two months after Yancy.) He ignores it and switches to Buzzfeed, because there is literally nothing to do. The phone isn’t ringing. He’s never been asked to add anything to the calendar. He’s getting stir-crazy and his shoulder hurts like a fucking bitch. He suffers from chronic pain anyway—because a bullet through a nerve cluster tends to have that sort of effect—nothing that’s happened lately is helping at all.

He wonders what would happen if he double-dosed on Zoloft.

At twelve, the elevator doors open and he looks up to see Herc Hansen walk in, still wearing the same suit from that morning. And Raleigh feels his stomach drop because he knows something bad has happened. He just knows it.

(Because while Herc was the sort of advisor that Yancy needed, at base, he’s the sort of person that drives Raleigh crazy: unexpressive and simultaneously over-emotional, smart and professional but unreliable when it came to anything that was outside his “line of sight”.)

“Hello, Mr. Hansen,” he says, struggling to smile. He thinks he sort of manages it on the left side. “I—I thought you were going to look after Chuck...”

Herc has the balls to look confused for a moment before saying, “Oh... Oh right, yeah, I was, but he seemed to be doing a lot better, so I thought I should come in and lend Stacks a hand. Oh, one sec...” He fishes for something in the pocket of his trousers and drops a key on the counter. “The door key.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you around, Raleigh. ‘Kay?” And then he’s gone.

And Raleigh wants to kill something.

 

He’s at Chuck’s apartment by one and he’s pretty sure he’s still reeking of cigarette smoke from the drive over. Chuck’s basically unconscious when Raleigh gets there (“basically” because he’s still awake enough to tell Raleigh to fuck off). He makes Chuck some toast and heats up some applesauce for him and Chuck eats about half of it before Raleigh has to haul him to the toilet again. Chuck is less coherent than earlier and he keeps holding onto the collar of Raleigh’s shirt, as though it will help somehow.

It’s two fifteen when Raleigh gets back to work because Chuck kept grabbing onto his wrist and making him stay by his bed, brow creased as though he was going to say something. It was only five minutes before Raleigh was going to leave that he says, “Do you think skipping medication yesterday is going to kill me?”

“Uh... I don’t... Probably not,” Raleigh says, trying to break Chuck’s grip on his shirtfront. “I mean, unless you were having major allergies or something.”

“Yeah? How d’you know that?” Chuck sneers at him, but it’s so drunk looking that Raleigh just ignores it.

“I’m a doctor,” he lies. “Field training.”

 

Mako is standing beside Raleigh’s desk when he comes back to the office. His cheeks burn in premature embarrassment, but he continues forward.

“Where were you?” she asks, expression pinched. He hesitates, but there’s no light in her eyes right now. Just straight, pure anger.

“I had to go check in to make sure Chuck was doing alright,” he explains lamely. A small crease appears between her eyebrows.

“You’ve been gone over an hour. I shall have to report you to Mr. Pentecost.”

“I—”

“I told you before this sort of thing was unacceptable. Do you feel you should not be reported?”

“Miss Mori, please—”

“Yes?” Her eyebrows are raised like she’s challenging him in her sleek charcoal sweater and her black skirt and her bright blue shoes. Her gold necklace hangs gracefully over her chest.

“Listen,” he says, a bit more forcefully than he means to. He tries to dial it back as he continues, “I had to stay over at Chuck’s last night because he’s, like, really sick and I didn’t feel like I should leave him alone. I mean, he’s throwing up and stuff and I just... I don’t know. Mr. Hansen said he’d watch him in the afternoon, but he couldn’t, I guess, so... I thought I should go check on him and it took longer than I thought.”

His shoulder hurts so much, he’s starting to get weird numb flashes through his neck and back. Mako watches him carefully, lips pressed together. Her expression doesn’t change as he speaks—just stays the same: chilly and challenging. At the end of his explanation, she drops her eyes for a moment and bites her lower lip.

She meets his gaze again, frowning a little. “It’s not your job to look after Chuck Hansen. Your job is to be here to answer the phones.”

“Look, when I went over there yesterday, he couldn’t even stand up. It was terrifying. I don’t think he should be left alone and I—”

“He’s a grown man.” The timber of her voice has shifted. It’s no longer careful and measured. She shuts her eyes for a moment and sighs. Her shoulders drop and her hands relax (he hadn’t noticed they’d closed into fists). She reopens her eyes and smiles a little.

There’s a moment of hesitation and then she says, “Thank you for looking after him. I... I still have to tell Mr. Pentecost about this, but it’s not... I doubt he’ll be very upset. You don’t need to come and look after Chuck again today. I’ll do it myself.”

Raleigh swallows. “Sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m very grateful to you.” She worries her necklace for a moment, her mind clearly elsewhere. Sighing, she turns away. He wonders if her feet hurt in those shoes. They’re the same color as traffic lights.

 

“Hey!” There’s a loud bang just above Raleigh’s head and his heart leaps into his throat. Newt is standing at the counter, hands pressed down against the surface. He must’ve slapped it to make Raleigh jump, but he’s not slept properly and it feels like his mind is empty and his right ear feels like it’s melting.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Geiszler!” he says, surreptitiously closing the news article he had open before. “How are you?”

“I’m alright.” Newt drums his fingers on the counter, bouncing a little. It hurts Raleigh’s eyes to look at him, so he drops gaze to the phone. “I—”

“Do you need me to call Dr. Gottlieb?”

“Oh! Hermann told me he had to lend you some of his pain killers!” Newt says, his voice, as usual, sounding like it’s stuck of scream-level. Raleigh blinks slowly and nods. “They’re wild, right?”

“They were really strong,” Raleigh says and he can feel his face burning up. “Do you want me to call Dr. Gottlieb?”

Newt leans across the counter—far enough that Raleigh’s sure his feet must’ve left the ground on the other side. “You okay, man? You’re acting kind of weird.”

“I’m fine,” Raleigh says, because it’s harder to clear his head when he’s double dosing on pain killers and hasn’t eaten in over twelve hours. His eyes are stinging like they’re filled with sand. “Do you want—”

“Dude,” Newt snaps, eyes wide behind his glasses, “Stop.”

“No!” Raleigh says, sharper and louder than he intended. He can see the concern in Newt’s face and a flash of a tattoo under his cuff as he reaches forward. Raleigh jumps back, his chair tipping a little.

“Hey, I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

His head feels like it’s on fire and he wants to throw up except there’s nothing in his stomach. “Yeah, I’m fine just—”

“Is everything alright here?”

Raleigh looks up to see Herc standing there, hands in his pockets. He’s looking carefully between the two of them, smiling but obviously trying to work out what’s going on. It’s an expression Raleigh’s seen on Herc several times before. It’s why he was a good superior officer—because he took the time to size up a situation before entering too far.

But he’s still annoyed at Herc, so he just glances at Newt, who isn’t look at him, but instead is lowering himself on the other side of the desk and putting up his hands.

“We’re cool! I just made Raleigh here jump,” Newt says, smiling stiffly. “Sorry if we were too loud.”

“You okay, Raleigh?” Herc asks, his eyes slightly narrowed as he examines Raleigh’s face.

“I’m fine,” Raleigh says too harshly, nodding even though it hurts his neck. “I’ve just not gotten a lot of sleep.”

Herc laughs shallowly, lowering his head. “Oh yeah. I’d bet.” He straightens his neck and points to the two of them. “Play nicely now, alright?”

Raleigh nods and Herc turns away. There’s a moment and then they hear a door close and Newt says, “So what did Herc do?”

“Huh?” Raleigh turns back to look at him, slowly. Newt looks worried.

“You seemed like you didn’t want to talk to him.” Newt grins sheepishly and lowers his voice to quiet screaming. “Like, join the club. Herc Hansen’s a fucking mess.”

Raleigh’s cheeks burn. “I... don’t think we should talk about this.”

“No, man, it’s cool! I’m not going to tell anyone.” Newt takes off his glasses and rubs them with his tie. “Like, my beef with Herc is like—”

“Nope. We’re not doing this.” The thin string that’s been Raleigh’s patience that day snaps. He picks up the phone and holds it to his ear. “Do you want me to call Dr. Gottlieb?”

“Geez! Chill the fuck out!” Newt pushes back from the counter, looking angry and somehow hurt. Raleigh feels a rush of guilt and carefully puts the phone back down on the receiver. “I’m just trying to be a nice guy, alright? I didn’t mean to make you jump! I didn’t mean to insult—”

“Listen, I’m sorry. I just—”

The phone rings and Raleigh answers it, trying to ignore Newt as he scoffs and walks away, probably to bother Dr. Gottlieb. Which will mean Mako will probably get mad at him again.

“Hansen-Pentecost—this is Raleigh. How can I help you?”

“Hey... hey Ray...”

Raleigh starts because Chuck’s voice sounds way worse over the phone. Also Chuck just called him. There are a lot of reasons to jump.

“Hey, Chuck. Are you okay?” Raleigh glances at the time on his computer. It’s five until three. “I’m going to be out of work in just an hour or two.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Raleigh chews his lower lip. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay.” His voice is quiet, but his throat is obviously doing badly.

“Can you hold out a couple hours? I think Mako’s going to come over to help you with me.”

“Oh.”

Raleigh’s throat feels thick and he has to swallow hard before he speaks again. “Or... would you rather—like—do you want her to come over by herself?”

“I don’t care,” Chuck snaps and there’s the regular, every day, trying-to-destroy-Raleigh’s-will-to-live Chuck Hansen. “I just was calling to... Bye.” There’s a click and a dial tone. Raleigh hangs up.

Newt comes back out a couple minutes later, hands in his coat pockets, beside Dr. Gottlieb. He nods to Raleigh sourly as they move together toward the elevator. Dr. Gottlieb doesn’t even acknowledge his presence—just walks past and drops papers that Newt stoops to pick up for him. They’ve got similar postures, both sort of hunched that speaks of years spent at too small desks; their heads are always bent towards each other as they argue while waiting to the doors to open.

The painkillers are starting to wear off.

 

Adrian’s profile picture is a photo of him sitting on a mossy boulder with a can of beer, his younger brother with the prosthetic foot drinking on the ground beside him. His cover photo is a promotional still from Django Unchained. Adrian’s always been kind of shitty at updating his Facebook. His last status is from August and it just says, “Glad to be back in Georgia!”

And Raleigh goes through to see if he can find the profile picture he used to have before Raleigh was discharged. The one where Yancy has his arm around Adrian’s shoulders and his nose is seriously burned, but he’s smiling and talking to someone outside the edge of the photograph—but his fingers fiddle with the collar of Adrian’s shirt. Adrian, meanwhile, is looking straight into the lens, smiling proudly, small creases at the corners of his eyes. His hair is a little longer than normal, curling into the little spirals that Yancy liked to pull straight. In the picture, Adrian’s left hand rests on top of Yancy’s, reminding him of his presence the same way Yancy does by fingering his shirt collar.

You can see their rings in the photo too—small, cheap and plain. They left stains on their skin because the metal turned out to be copper and Yancy used to joke that that’s how badass and committed they were: they got accidental “tattoos” instead of engagement rings.

Adrian has both those rings.

And the photo’s been deleted from Facebook.

 

He knocks on the door to Mako’s office at four forty-five, his lower lip raw from him chewing on it. His shoulder is hurting again and he decides that no matter what, he’s changing slings the moment he gets to his car. It takes a couple of seconds for the door to open, but then Mako is standing there, her hair pulled back in bobby pins. She immediately begins pulling them out nervously, like she’s somehow been caught.

“Hi,” Raleigh says because he’s stupid and awkward and he can’t think of what to say. The door slowly swings open further without her hands to hold it in place and he knows that he definitely saw her office the day before, but he was pretty fucked up then and so it all feels brand new.

It’s like walking into the cold air in the middle of winter—relieving and cleansing in the most dramatic way. Her desk is obviously in use (her laptop is still open), but the items on it are arranged neatly by the corners. They aren’t in rows. They just sit there in little clusters: a couple frames, a little porcelain sculpture of a cat, a stand-up desk calendar... There are little stacks of brightly colored post-its and notepads in the middle beside a flower-patterned pencil holder. Shelves hang off the walls, various papers and whatever else all organized in boxes that are carefully labeled in Mako’s handwriting. He smiles a little at one box which is simply marked: “old flash drives”.

There’s a window directly behind her chair. It’s not very big, but Raleigh always forgets how much he misses natural light until he’s been in the office for eight hours a day and hasn’t gotten to see it in ages.

He’d sort of thought, until recently, that maybe he’d gotten his fill of it in the army when his skin was peeling from burns, but the warm light of afternoon touches Mako’s hair and skin in such a way—lights up the hairs on her face like a tiny halo—that he’s beginning to take back the entire idea.

“Can I help you, Mr. Becket?” Mako asks, bobby pins tucked neatly in her palm. He’s not been this close to her (without being high) since the party. He’s blushing just thinking about it again—that he made a complete ass of himself and she doesn’t even seem to think twice of it.

Like she didn’t care enough to notice.

But Mako doesn’t have to care about Raleigh. They barely know each other. But he still wants to know her—because she’s smart and pretty and he’s not really much of anything. The only thing he has to his name is an honorable discharge and he’s pretty sure that she has a masters.

Still it’d be nice.

“I want to help you out with Mr. Hansen—Chuck Hansen, I mean. He was really out of it earlier and he kept falling and I don’t want you to have to drag him around yourself.” He smiles at her and she smiles back beautifully, her teeth pearly white.

“I would definitely appreciate it, Mr. Becket,” she says, still smiling. “I’ve also taken care of Chuck a lot when he’s sick. It’s not pleasant work.” She moves back to her desk and closes her laptop. “You should be getting ready to go, Raleigh.”

He finds himself grinning. “I’ll be waiting in my car.”

She drops her gaze, biting her lower lip like she’s trying to hold back laughter.

 

To be honest, Raleigh can't always tell what his arm looks like anymore. Since the army, mirrors feel more and more fake to him and he can't really tell by just looking down. He knows it's going to get thinner over time, knows that it already has, but he can't tell how much. Jazmine told him he should measure—see how much of a difference there is between his right arm and his left--but he doesn't want to. For a lot of reasons but also just because it would confirm what he kind of already knew: that his left arm was losing muscle mass. He can't really face that at this point.

He knows that one day he'll look in the mirror and his arm will be all skinny and wasted looking and his shoulder will point like a right angle—no musculature, just skin and fat lying over bones.

It goes back and forth: sometimes it feels like nothing is different (definitely untrue as he's been majorly slacking on his workout routine for the past two months) and sometimes it feels like it can only be two inches around, just lying there like a broken twig under his shirt sleeve.

And all this is why he almost always wears the orthosis. It's not really good for him most of the time, but he hates watching people glance at the other sling, the one that he's supposed to wear for resting. The dark blue one that the doctor insisted he wear for at least half the day.

But when he wears it, it's so dark and so institutional looking and so clearly there that it means people look at it and then their gazes move to see the rest of his arm, trying to examine what's wrong with him, looking at his right-angle shoulders that look like a starved child and they wonder how delicate the area is because the muscle is all dead and wasted and so there's nothing to protect the bones that jut out through the skin.

At least the orthosis doesn't call too much attention to the area. At least he just looks stupid with his arm held up like he's holding a purse. At least it doesn't function as a sign, pointing at his left side that says fucked up.

It takes some maneuvering to take off his shirt in the front seat of his car (he's out of practice), especially with the orthosis on. Chuck's shirt also has weirdly sized button holes and he fumbles with just the bottom two for over a minute. Eventually he gets them all undone and, once his right arm is out, works the sleeve (which is slightly narrower than he's used to, but it would make sense that Chuck would wear his shirts tight) over his left arm. His pinky finger twitches like it's trying to help the rest of him but can't. His skin feels weird under his fingertips, which is a sure sign that he's starting to go a bit nuts. He shouldn't have had that coffee earlier.

There's a sound outside the car—something between jingling and clattering. He turns to look out the window and sees Mako standing there by her car. Her mouth is open—not like she wants to speak but like she just had the wind knocked out of her. Her hand is raised but her fingers are slack. She’s just dropped her keys.

For a weird, vain and insecure moment, he thinks that she’s staring at his arm—or at the ugly stretched scar tissue by his shoulder—when he recognizes the expression on her face. Her eyes are wide and dark, focused on his chest. She’s checking him out.

Awkwardly, he raises his right hand in a little wave and she turns away, empty hands shaking as she tries to unlock her car door. He rolls down the window and smiles as she bends down to get her keys.

“I’ll meet you at Chuck’s,” he says. She covers her mouth to muffle her laughter and nods to show she’s heard him and he finds himself laughing too. “You find me that sexy?”

She straightens up, raises an eyebrow, her mouth still smiling in such a way that shows she’s trying to suppress it.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Becket. My father is a retired Royal Air Force officer. You know I can’t date an Army boy.”

He smiles and then her words click into place. “Your father?”

“Mr. Pentecost,” she says with a shrug and a movement in her jaw that shows she’s ready for any reaction to this news.

Unfortunately, all he can think of to say is, “Wow.” But she smiles anyway.

“Have fun... stripping?”

Raleigh lifts up the dark blue sling and tries to be casual. “Switching.”

She nods and opens her door. “See you in a few minutes,” she says and slams it shut again.

Raleigh wonders if he should be concerned how often he thinks about marrying her. And he wonders again when he gets to the front door of Chuck’s apartment building and Mako doesn’t comment on Raleigh’s sling when she sees him, just smiles and asks what took him so long.

And because Raleigh’s not about to admit I need a smoke so I chain smoked the entire drive here, he says, “Traffic.”

They head up together, Mako moving easily on the stairs in her red heels. Raleigh’s a little out of breath by the time they reach the door, which is embarrassing. Mako notices and smiles a little and doesn’t say anything. For a moment, Raleigh considers saying something, but what is there really to say? Oh, they let me out of the VA hospital, so I stopped working out and now spend most of my free time drinking and watching TV?

Max practically knocks Raleigh down as he barrels towards Mako, barking excitedly and running in circles around her. She laughs and bends down to rumple his fur. For a second, she reminds him of Jazmine when she first got her dog, Molly, and she video chatted with him and Yancy and Molly would launch herself at Jazmine every few seconds, desperate for more attention.

“Dad?” Chuck calls from the bedroom. Raleigh can hear the sounds of some commercial playing on the television.

“It’s me!” Mako shouts back, giving Max one last pat before getting up. “And Raleigh Becket!”

“Oh. Good.” Chuck pauses for a moment. “I’ve not thrown up since lunch.”

Mako gives Raleigh a confused look and Raleigh just shakes his head and shouts, “Have you eaten anything since then?”

“Yeah, I finished the toast.”

“Good work!”

Mako giggles and Raleigh bites his lip to stop from laughing. Finally, she pulls off her coat and points at him. “You walk Max. I’ll check on Chuck.”

“What if he has to go to the bathroom?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Do you have to go to the bathroom, Chuck?”

“No!” Chuck calls back, as though the question is somehow very offensive.

Mako jerks her thumb towards the door to the hallway, shoulders shaking with laughter, so Raleigh gets Max’s leash and reluctantly leaves Mako in the apartment. It’s kind of fun walking Max this time, because he doesn’t have to rush back to anything. He knows there’s a park around here somewhere, so he sets off, keeping Max on a short leash.

He kind of loses track of time and realizes later that he’s been out for almost an hour. He’s also discovered that Max isn’t fixed and can really bring it when he smells a lady dog. Unfortunately, the other dog’s owner doesn’t appreciate Raleigh’s joking comments to Max about how that bitch is just going for him because of the size of his dick—but her disapproval might be due to the two small children that are following her who Raleigh doesn’t see until it’s too late.

All-in-all, it’s an eventful walk and when he gets back to Chuck’s apartment, he can hear the television still going and he walks back to the bedroom.

Mako’s sitting up, back against the wall, her fingers drawing circles through Chuck’s hair against his scalp. She looks up when Raleigh comes in and smiles.

“America’s Next Top Model,” she says by way of explanation.

Raleigh smiles back. “I like models,” he says and moves around the bed and the piles on the floor to sit on the other side of Chuck.

“Of course you do,” Mako says as Raleigh settles in. Max jumps up on the bed and Chuck stirs for a moment, but Mako gently shushes him and pushes his head back down against the pillows. She smiles at Raleigh again, looking a little sleepy herself. “He wakes up whenever I try to change the channel.”

“I’d wake up too.” Max climbs into Raleigh’s lap, which is nice. He should get a dog, except he barely takes care of himself, so a dog might just die under his watch. There’s a silence and it’s the worst because Raleigh realizes with a sudden shock that, at this point, he just really needs to talk to someone. He has to say something or he’s going to actually explode. “Especially since, like most injured veterans, I had a remote built into my arm.” He gestures to the sling. It’s the lamest joke he’s ever made and he’s pretty sure that Jazmine is going to materialize in the room just to slap him across the face. Mako squints at him, nose wrinkling again. “It’s really practical.”

“You’re stupid,” she says, shaking her head and smiling.

His head aches a bit, but he looks over at her, at the way her eye make-up has become a little smeared at the corners of her eyes. She looks really light weight, but she climbed all those stairs better than he did, so she must be hiding it somehow. He wonders if it would be weird to invite her to go to the gym with him.

“How was walking Max?” she asks, watching the television and absently petting Chuck’s hair. Raleigh’s glad that Chuck’s sleeping again. He’s not sure he could stand hoisting him out of bed one more time. His shoulder seems to hurt every time he moves. He wonders if enough time has passed for him to take more Tylenol.

“It was okay,” he says. Max, who seems pretty worn out, licks Raleigh’s fingers. Raleigh swallows around the lump that seems to be forming rapidly in his throat and focuses on Max. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” She leans over the side of the bed and pulls out a beer can. It’s unopened. She laughs a little and cracks it open, then offers him some. “Chuck keeps a six-pack over here.”

He considers it, but then remembers all the pain killers in his system. “Uh, no thanks.”

She takes a sip and doesn’t say anything for a moment, then looks back towards him. “What did you want to ask?”

“Oh. Um.” Raleigh hesitates, but he’s too tired to really see the obvious benefits of backing out now. “I just wanted to say I’m really sorry. About the party, I mean. I was... I mean, the way I acted was super weird, right?”

She takes another sip, expression thoughtful, and then looks directly into his eyes. “There wasn’t anything wrong with how you acted.”

Shit. He’s going to cry. Slowly, he turns back toward the television. “I don’t... I mean, I just wanted to apologize. And I wanted to know why...” I wanted to know why you never called me out on it seems like a weird thing to say. He tries to focus on the TV, on the girl trying to balance in crazy high stilettos.

“Why what?”

“Just... I don’t know. I was worried I fucked things up.”

“What would you—Raleigh, what would you have fucked up?”

He doesn’t look at her because he’s pretty sure he’s going to start crying at any minute. “I had a fucking break down. Like. That kind of fucks everything up by definition, right?”

Mako hums in response, drinking more of the beer. Raleigh wonders why she knew that there was a stock under Chuck’s bed. He looks at her. Her mouth is twisted to one side and there’s the little line between her eyebrows that shows her concentration. After a few moments, she looks at him too, expression serious.

“You know the way Chuck is, right?”

Raleigh laughs despite himself. “Yeah.”

Mako smiles a little. “We grew up together. As brother and sister.” She grins nervously. “It takes a lot more than one moment to fuck things up.”

As brother and sister. Raleigh smiles back, lump growing in his throat. His cheeks are burning. He feels relieved, but also he’s also pretty sure he’s going to start crying from it. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

Mako shrugs. “Chuck usually gets annoyed when I do and I guessed that you were the same.” She runs her fingers through Chuck’s hair again. “Was I wrong?”

“I thought I’d pissed you off,” Raleigh says and Mako nods thoughtfully.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

There’s a moment—where they’re looking into each other eyes and Mako’s lips are slightly parted and Raleigh is still feeling a little giddy because hadn’t Mako just basically told him herself that she and Chuck weren’t dating? And Max has wandered down to the foot of the bed to curl up by Chuck’s feet. And Mako looks like an old movie star with her red lipstick and her smudged eye make-up. Her nails are painted dark gray and her gold necklace catches the light of the television.

And it’s just a moment.

“Chuck told me you didn’t sleep at all last night.”

Raleigh finds himself laughing—that desperate kind of laughter that he seems to have a lot right after he’s been crying. “How the fuck does Chuck know that?”

“I think he and Max communicate... telepathically,” Mako whispers dramatically, grinning widely.

“And you said I was stupid?”

She giggles and puts a finger to her lips. “Sh!”

They both jump when Chuck mumbles something in his sleep. They both watch him for a few moments, waiting to see if he’ll wake up, but he doesn’t.

“Did he say anything about when Herc was over here before?” Raleigh asks and Mako nods, looking bemused.

“He said that he was here, told Chuck to suck it up and then left a little while after because he got a text.”

“Seriously? What was the text?”

Mako shrugs again and drinks some more beer. “I don’t think I always understand Herc.”

Raleigh nods and thinks about the friend request from Adrian Greene. “He’s not a bad guy, just... I don’t know. He and my brother used to be really close.”

“Yeah?” Mako asks, head tilted to one side. She looks a little sleepy. He thinks, for a moment, how she’d look, blinking herself awake beside him, the striped light from his venetian blinds curving with the lines of her cheeks.

“Yancy invited him to his wedding. Yancy’s wedding, I mean. He was going to get married... before...” Raleigh’s voice cracks and he looks down, at the navy blue sling. His neck twinges from the sudden movement.

“Do you two talk about him at all? You and Herc, I mean?” Mako asks and she doesn’t say Yancy. She must know, somehow, that just hearing the name hurts him. He can say it, but he can’t hear it.

“Not really. I don’t really like talking about him a lot.”

She nods, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes over-bright. “I get it.” And he can tell that she really does and he wishes so much that he could kiss her right now, but he can’t get the right leverage on his arm and Chuck’s in the way, so he substitutes a kiss with a smile.

“Thanks.”

Her face shifts into something gentler than before, softer. “You should go home and sleep. We both have work tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to come over in the morning?” he asks, because he really doesn’t want her to have to drag Chuck around alone.

“I’ll call you if I need you,” she says and Raleigh shifts forward to climb off the bed.

But Max, apparently, isn’t that into the idea, because he jumps to his feet and waddles over to Raleigh and, because Raleigh is sort of half-lying down, crawls over his chest and launches himself off from Raleigh’s shoulder to restart the process.

His left shoulder.

He actually screams and he’s pretty sure he curses a blue streak because his arm is so fucked and it wasn’t this fucked before—it wasn’t even this fucked after he got shot. Except it was, but it hurts so much, his vision cuts out for a moment and Mako is leaning over him and Chuck is talking and Max won’t stop barking and it hurts so fucking much.

“Raleigh! Raleigh! Are you okay?” Mako says, her hand resting gently on his right arm. Her voice is worried and, through the tears that have welled up in Raleigh’s eyes, the blue streaks in her hair appear brighter than usual, like lights.

“What’s going on?” Chuck asks, words slurred, but he sounds better than he did on the phone. “Max, what—ow! Mako, that’s my leg!”

“Sorry,” she says and Raleigh feels like there’s a rope tied around his ribs, stopping them from opening fully.

“I’m fine,” he manages to choke out. “It’s fine! I just... I fucked it up a couple days ago—yesterday—and I... ow... Jesus fucking—”

“You need to go to the hospital,” Chuck says and he’s still wavering a little, but he points to Raleigh’s shoulder. “I can tell that’s bad.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.” Raleigh sits up slowly. Mako is standing at the end of the bed, her face twisted with concern. “I’m fine. I’ll drive myself over there.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Mako asks. Raleigh nods. The initial shock has faded and what’s left is a strong, but not too distracting throbbing pain. It’s bad. It’s really bad. If he hadn’t been dealing with chronic pain for the past several months, it would’ve seemed a lot worse. Now it was just more.

“I’m fine. I’m really, really sorry. I’m going to—bye.”

He leaves as quickly as possible and he can feel his cheeks burning. He grabs his coat, but doesn’t put it on even though it’s cold as fuck outside because putting it on is going to make him have to move his shoulder a lot and he isn’t doing that if he can help it.

He gets into the front seat of his car, lights a cigarette and looks up the address for the nearest hospital. Traffic has thinned out a lot by this point, not that it had been too bad that afternoon. He tries to keep a little below the speed limit, because his shoulder is still hurting a lot and he’s not driving with a seatbelt, so he’s going to be as careful as possible.

 

It’s the wrong side of midnight by the time he’s let out, pumped full of painkillers with his arm so tightly strapped into place that he’s still questioning how exactly he’s supposed to shower.

The hospital parking lot isn’t very well lit, but Raleigh stays in his car for a bit. He sits there for a few moments, because he needs to finish his cigarette and “Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” is playing on the radio and he’s not quite ready to return to the emptiness of his apartment for real.

He can see the front doors from here, two rectangles of gold light in the dark that’s interrupted by a handful of streetlamps. People come in and out—doctors, an old woman in a wheelchair, two men surreptitiously holding hands. Raleigh blinks and realizes, belatedly, that the men are Herc and Stacker. He watches them as they walk together, Herc’s leaning against Stacker’s shoulder. Stacker brings his hand up to rub circles into Herc’s back and suddenly Raleigh can remember the blistering heat of the summer sun—the gritty air—the sweat that pooled above his upper lip—ducking into the tiny bit of shelter created by the shadow of the hangar, even though the metal sides reflected back the heat ten times over.

And just within the doorway inside, hidden by the darkness of the shadows, two men, tangled up in one another. Herc’s hand slid down Stacker’s back, pushing up his shirt and tucking into the waistband of his trousers. Stacker’s fingers clutching at Herc’s hair. And they kissed in the shadows, lips crushed together, eyes squeezed shut against the brightness of the light just outside.

Herc opens Stacker’s door before getting in on the driver’s side. There’s a moment, when he passes under one of the streetlamps where Raleigh can see the lines on his forehead and around his mouth. He’s worried.

Raleigh wonders what Herc did with the invitation Yancy sent him.