GK Fic: Tennessee Waltz (B/N, NC-17) 2/4
Master Post
Part One
Later, when Nate had finally convinced Walt to go home, shower, and sleep, in that order, he lay quietly in his hospital room. His arm and his ribs and his head - and most of the rest of him - throbbed with slow, regular pulses of dull pain, but he was too wrapped up in his thoughts to give it much notice.
He reviewed in his head again the story Walt had told him. How Brad had only let Walt drive a couple of blocks away from the studio that night before insisting he turn around. How Brad had jumped out the moment they’d seen Nate’s car was still in the lot, not even waiting for Walt to stop. How they’d found the studio doors locked from the inside - and then they’d heard Nate scream.
“He picked up that big metal ashtray thing by the entrance and threw it through the glass,” Walt had said, still sounding amazed by it. “Thing’s gotta weigh two hundred pounds, and he handled it like it was nothing.”
Walt hadn’t seen what happened after that, because Brad had ordered him to stay outside and call 911 before dashing through the shattered door, and Walt, having seen what Brad’s face had looked like right at that moment, had wisely decided to do as he was told.
“I only saw the aftermath,” Walt had said. “Right before the ambulance got there. But it was… pretty bad.” From Walt’s expression when he’d said that, Nate was willing to bet that “pretty bad” was a distinct understatement.
Christ, he’d thought that was a hallucination, the bloodied disaster movie extra Brad he’d seen. But apparently he’d been all too real.
Walt had said Brad had only said one thing to him, after, while they were waiting in the ER for the word on Nate, before the police had arrived.
“He said… he said the guy asked him if he was there to save his filthy faggot lover.” Walt had stumbled over the words. “That’s how we realized he’d never been after me.”
“What did Brad answer?” Nate had asked.
Walt had shrugged uneasily. “I don’t think Brad answered him with words.”
Nate didn’t know how to feel about all this. He couldn’t be sorry that the man who’d tried to kill him was dead, but his heart ached that the death was on Brad.
He knew Brad would likely scoff at this. Brad was a warrior, one of the few men Nate had met in this day and age who merited the title, and Nate knew he’d done tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq before mustering out. Brad had killed before, Nate was sure of it.
But Nate also knew there was a big difference between killing enemy combatants in a warzone, and killing a civilian in a hallway in Tennessee - no matter what that civilian was doing in that hallway.
Even if Brad felt no moral qualms over it whatsoever (and Nate doubted that was true), the legal repercussions could be disastrous. Nate would have to do whatever he could to make sure Brad didn’t suffer for this.
“Mr. Fick?”
Nate looked up to see a dark-skinned man in a cheap sports coat and slacks in the doorway. He flashed a badge.
“I’m Detective Espera. You got a moment?”
Nate smiled tiredly. “Right now I’ve got nothing but moments, Detective. Please come in.”
Espera grinned back and sauntered in, closing the door behind him. He dragged the chair by Nate’s bed back a little ways - respecting Nate’s personal space, Nate noted with approval - and seated himself, pulling out a notepad and pen from an inner pocket.
“I’d like to get your statement on what happened Thursday night at the recording studio, sir,” he said. “The doctors said your recall of it was very good.”
Nate nodded. “Of course, Detective, but first, tell me what’s happening with Brad Colbert.”
Espera’s affable expression shut down. “I can’t give you any information on that right now, sir.”
Nate leaned forward, intent. “You know he saved my life, right? That man was trying to kill me, and he would have succeeded if Brad hadn’t shown up when he did.”
“That’s one interpretation of the events, sir,” Espera replied, “but at this time - ”
“No, Detective,” Nate retorted, “it is the only interpretation. I remember what happened, and that man was doing his damndest to make sure my skull got caved in. One more minute, and he would have had his chance. Brad Colbert was acting to save my life. You can be assured of this.”
Espera gazed at him a moment, then flipped back a couple of pages in his notebook. “The name James Trombley mean anything to you?”
Nate shook his head. “No.”
“Well, that’s who Colbert killed,” Espera said.
“That’s who tried to kill me, and who Brad stopped from doing so,” Nate countered instantly.
Espera snorted softly, giving Nate a wry look. “You sure you’re not a lawyer, Mr. Fick?”
Nate didn’t smile. “I will be whatever I need to be to make sure justice is served, Detective Espera. Brad Colbert should be getting a medal for this, not an arrest record.”
Espera raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? You didn’t see what happened, did you? You were unconscious by the time Colbert broke into the studio.”
Nate didn’t answer, but his silence was confirmation enough. Espera leaned back in the chair, affecting a nonchalant pose Nate didn’t buy for a second. His manner slipped a little, too, becoming less formal.
“Your boy Colbert killed James with his bare hands, dog,” he said. “Broke his nose, his jaw, and his eyesocket, and then you know what he did? Choked him to death. Just squeezed the life right outta him. That sound like a hero to you?”
Nate felt shock roil through him, but he fought to keep his face blank, and won. It didn’t matter. Or, it did, but not enough to change things. As Walt had put it, Brad had had Nate’s back, and so Nate would have his.
“It sounds,” Nate replied evenly, “like someone doing what they judged they needed to do to take down a would-be murderer. As you said, I didn’t see it, but neither did you. Of all people, I trust Brad to apply the proportionate response to any given situation, and so should you.”
He and Espera had a brief staring contest. Rather to Nate’s surprise, the detective looked away first, chuckling a bit. “Yeah, you definitely missed your calling, man.”
Nate suddenly felt bone-tired. “Just tell it to me straight, Detective,” he said. “Is Brad under arrest or not?”
Espera regarded him a moment longer, then huffed another short chuckle. “If what you say is true about Trombley trying to kill you - ”
“It is,” Nate interjected.
“ - then no. Good Samaritan Law, dog. If your man Colbert had a reasonable belief that your life was in danger, he is authorized to use force to stop the perpetrator, up to and including lethal force. God bless the great state of Tennessee, eh?”
Nate sagged, not even trying to hide the extent of his relief.
Espera grinned. “They might make him pay for the door he smashed, though.”
+
Brad never returned to the hospital.
Nate didn’t realize he wasn’t coming back at first. After Espera had left, Nate had slept for the rest of that day and through the night, taxed to his limits. He’d woken feeling much better in mind, if not in body, and eagerly looked forward to seeing Brad, speaking to him.
It wasn’t even his physical infatuation with the man anymore, or at least not completely. Nate needed to see the person who had saved his life, to thank him. And to make sure Brad was okay in turn.
But it was his parents and sisters (and their husbands, and their kids) who came in a few hours after Nate’d woken, not Brad, having flown in from Baltimore and then come straight to the hospital from the airport. The rest of the day was therefore taken up in soothing maternal tears and paternal righteous rage and older-sisterly combinations of both. Nate was honestly worried his oldest sister Sabrina was going to stage an impromptu Gay Pride parade right there in the ICU, she was so outdone. Meanwhile everyone talked at once and young children wandered underfoot and Mark and Steven were each on a separate and continuous round of cell phone calls to apprise what seemed like half the world of Nate’s status, and the hospital staff watched in bewilderment at their apparent invasion by the world’s most politely stubborn barbarian horde.
Walt was there too, manfully submitting to Nate’s mother’s weepy embraces as a Nate substitute, since it wasn’t really a good idea to hug Nate himself at that moment, but in the organized mayhem that was a typical Fick family function (no matter the cause), Nate never had a chance to pull him aside and ask where Brad was. Being bedridden sucked for more reasons than just the obvious, it turned out.
Eventually the hospital kicked everyone out, and then it was time for tests and scans and poking and prodding and more tests, all of which were a lot more painful and exhausting than Nate wanted to admit, and he dropped to sleep again immediately after for another twelve hours. And then his family was back again the next day and it was the same thing again, except that they also moved him to a different room, perhaps wanting to get his family away from intensive care, and it was all madness.
And Nate loved his family, he really did, but he was about ready to scream with frustration by the time he finally stole a moment with Walt, on the third day after Espera’s visit, by dint of claiming he needed to talk business a minute, and shooing everyone else out to go get coffee - always an effective lure among Ficks.
“Walt,” he said the moment the door shut behind his mother, “where the hell is Brad? I need to see him.”
Nate didn’t even bother trying to disguise the urgency in his voice. Walt looked down, and Nate’s heart sank; Walt had that bad-news look on his face again.
“Brad’s gone, Nate.”
Gone? “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean gone. As in, no longer in Nashville.”
Nate stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
A flash of real anger crossed Walt’s face, and he said, “Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I thought he was - ” Walt broke off and shook his head, and went on tightly, “He caught me outside the hospital the day before yesterday - must’ve been right after the police cut him loose - and asked me to thank you for everything, but since his services were no longer needed - ” Walt practically spit that part, “ - he felt it was time to be moving on. His words.”
Nate didn’t even know how to respond to this. Brad had just - left? Without even saying goodbye? Without even doing Nate the courtesy of quitting his job in person, let alone everything else?
Nate’s body now knew what it was like to be literally kicked in the gut, but somehow this still felt worse.
He didn’t know what his face looked like, but it must not have been pretty, because Walt glanced up at him and winced. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” he rushed on, “but with your family and all - and I honestly didn’t believe at first that he meant it. That he would be that - cold. I told him that - told him, uh, a lot of things, really - but I guess he did mean it after all.” Walt shook his head, disappointment on Nate’s behalf writ clear on his face. “I’m really sorry, Nate.”
“Don’t be,” Nate said, mechanically. He wondered vaguely what else Walt had said to Brad, but it really seemed pretty irrelevant at this point.
Then the door opened to readmit the now-caffeinated and therefore hyper Fick flock, and the chance for any further conversation on the subject was lost. Nate was just as glad.
So. That’s how it was, then.
Brad Colbert had turned out to be not at all the person Nate had thought he was, but that was on Nate, not Brad. He’d built Brad up in his head to be this… Platonic ideal of a person, and Nate shouldn’t be surprised at all that the reality had failed to live up to the fantasy. Reality always did.
Here in the real world, where a man had tried to kill Nate with a bat because he liked men, and where Nate might never have full use of his left hand again, there were no white knights. There were only men who, thankfully, did their jobs well even if they failed at courtesy or friendship or - and that’s all it had been to Brad, clearly. A job.
Which was fine, Nate told himself. There had been no indication, outside of Nate’s own pathetic delusional yearnings, that Brad had had any reason to consider it anything more than that. And given that, maybe Brad’s solution was for the best: a clean, professional break in their (professional) relationship, before Nate had a chance to ruin it with a soppy display of gratitude, or worse, some hopeless and pitiful declaration of - something, to a man who obviously could never return the feeling.
No. This was good. This was better. Now Nate could move on. He had a life to move on with, and for that he would always be grateful to Brad.
And this hollow feeling in his chest, like something inside had been scooped out and thrown away, that would pass soon. He was assured of this.
+
Time flies when you’re having fun, which is probably why the next few months seemed to last an eternity as far as Nate was concerned.
Physical therapy sucked even more than pop culture depictions of it had led him to expect it would. His therapist was a sculpted mountain of a man named Rudy Reyes, who looked like he had recently escaped from the pages of a heroic Greek epic and talked like he was a regular on the Psychic Network. Or so Nate imagined, having never actually listened to the Psychic Network, but if they talked with perfect seriousness about the healing power of crystals and which incense aroma best helped in finding your inner core and aligning your chakras or whatever, then he was right on the money.
Which wasn’t to say Rudy was bad at his job, because he really, really wasn’t. Rudy, in fact, was terrifying in his cheerful, smiling relentlessness when it came to his mission to get Nate’s hand working again - and improve the rest of Nate while he was at it - and absolutely nothing fazed or deterred him, least of all the horrible mood Nate was invariably in when they worked together. His ability to placidly ignore the curses and verbal abuse Nate heaped on his head during their sessions (and the one shameful time Nate had tried to deck him) should probably be declared a mutant superpower.
Nate knew the way he was behaving was disgraceful, regardless of whether it bothered Rudy or not, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Worst of all, he couldn’t even take pleasure in his improvements. Each time he caught himself feeling satisfied over his improved musculature, or at regaining a new fraction of the range of motion of his hand, it was immediately followed by disgust at himself. So he could pick up a pen with his left hand and hold it for ten seconds; a toddler could do that. Was Nate really congratulating himself on achieving the manual dexterity of a baby?
It was as if some part of him felt like he didn’t deserve achievements, or didn’t deserve to feel good about them, at any rate. Which made no sense at all, and Nate knew it. But he had this tangled snarl of hurt and rage and more hurt lodged within him, and who else could he unload it on, other than himself?
No one who deserved it, anyway. Certainly Walt and his family deserved none of it, and Nate was determined that they would never even know his rage was there. Even his anger toward Rudy was an insufficient outlet, a tiny fraction of what he kept bottled up inside, because Nate was frankly scared of what could happen if he let it loose.
Not least because he knew what everyone would assume was the cause of it if he did. Poor Nate Fick, traumatized victim. Look at his PTSD. Let’s put him in more therapy.
Fuck that, Nate thought. He was no victim, and he sure as hell didn’t have PTSD. His attacker was dead; he had his closure there. His problem came from a far, far more pathetic cause, one which Nate had no intention of telling anyone about, ever. It was Nate’s fault, this problem, and he would fix it on his own.
Broken hearts mend. And surely hearts that had had no business getting broken in the first place mended even faster, right?
+
In addition to ruthlessly policing his diet, his exercise regimen, and even his sleeping time (Rudy had Ideas about the essential importance of meditation and candles and Nate didn’t even know what all to the success of Nate’s recovery), Rudy had also forbidden Nate from returning to work until all his injuries were healed. And Walt, the traitor, had backed Rudy up on this. Nate hadn’t known how to explain to them that this only gave him interminable free time to wallow in the sucking tar pit that was his emotional state without giving up far more intel than he wanted to, so he’d gritted his teeth and borne it as well as he could.
His nieces and nephews had made admirable distractions for a while, until his parents and sisters finally bowed to the inevitable pressures of career and school and life, and headed back to Baltimore after almost two months of camping out in Nashville to help him out, with occasional flights back and forth for absolutely essential things. Nate was sad to see them go, but relieved that they were no longer throwing their lives into upheaval on his behalf.
The problem was, now he was alone.
Oh, Walt came by regularly, and Ray visited him a number of times, and any number of other acquaintances and colleagues (some of whom frankly surprised him) made a point of stopping by at least once or twice to see him and offer solidarity. Detective Espera even came by once, and shared a beer with him and talked about the Memphis Tigers and his three little daughters. And of course he had his sessions with Rudy, too.
But that wasn’t enough to fill the blank hours between, and keep him from brooding on something he’d never had and never would. It did nothing for his frustration when trying to do even the simplest tasks that required two hands, only to have his bad hand spasm or crap out on him. It did nothing for the nights he woke up, dripping with sweat from nightmares he refused to recall, or the even worse nights where his arm throbbed and ached and cramped and refused to let him sleep or concentrate on anything.
Without telling anyone, because it was no one else’s business, Nate had stopped taking anything stronger than Advil for the pain, because the absolute last thing he needed on top of everything else was an addiction to painkillers. No point in taking risks. And if lately he’d needed to drink half a bottle of bourbon to get to sleep without them, well, bourbon was still better than Percoset. And wasn’t like he needed to be at work the next morning, was it?
No one needed to know. He was fine on his own.
+
It was probably inevitable that of all people to find out what was really going on, it would turn out to be Ray.
Walt and Rudy were predictable, you see. Rudy’s visits were scheduled, and Walt never came by without calling ahead first to make sure Nate was available, because Walt had actual manners. So Nate always had plenty of warning to fix things up before either of them came by, or to beg off with a plausible excuse if it was really not a good idea for either of them to see him. He’d had to cancel his last three appointments with Rudy, now, but Nate’d told him and Walt both that he was down with the flu, so that was okay.
Ray, by contrast, clearly regarded manners as an unfortunate nuisance that only happened to other people, and so had no qualms whatsoever about showing up at any time and with no warning. The last time he’d dropped in unannounced Nate had very nearly been caught, but had managed to pass it off as simple sleepiness, and had kept Ray from seeing in any further than the front hall before getting rid of him.
This time, though, there was no hiding it.
Nate came awake with a groggy jerk at three loud bangs on his front door, followed less than a second later by the sound of the door slamming open and Ray’s voice shouting gleefully, “Get your hand off your dick, Fick! Your best pal Ray-Ray is here to entertain you!”
Jesus, how could he have forgotten to lock the door? Instinctively, Nate tried to lunge up off the couch, with some crazy idea of cleaning up before Ray walked the twenty feet from front door to living room in his head, but his balance was shot to hell, and he fell heavily between the couch and the coffee table instead, nearly knocking the table over and producing a loud enough crash to wake the dead. He groaned at the impact on his still-tender ribs.
There was a pause from the entrance hall, and then Ray laughed. “Dude, are you like stampeding buffalo through here or - ” He rounded the corner to the living room entrance, and the sentence died unfinished on his lips.
Nate struggled upright on the floor and glared at him balefully, watching Ray’s eyes travel slowly over the wreckage of the room - dirty clothes and shoes and books and DVDs and CDs and old vinyl records scattered everywhere, used and crusty dishes and glasses crowding every flat surface, the overturned lamp Nate had stumbled into a couple of days ago and not bothered to pick up, the opened packages of junk food oozing crumbs and sauce onto the loveseat and armchair and carpet - and come to rest on the most damning evidence of all: the coffee table. Which was currently festooned with no less than four empty bottles of Jack Daniels, along with an indeterminate number of beer cans, several of which had fallen over when Nate jostled the table in his fall and were now desultorily glopping the remains of their contents onto the table and off onto the floor.
“Holy shit,” Ray said at last, in the quietest voice Nate had ever heard from him.
This wasn’t going to go well, so Nate might as well be surly from the start. “What the fuck do you want, Ray?” Nate muttered, pulling himself up with his good arm to get his ass back on the couch. His mouth tasted like a rancid gym sock. A gym sock filled with monkey shit.
Ray stared at him a moment, then without another word turned and walked into the kitchen. After some clanking and shuffling that was probably Ray kicking some of the trash on the floor out of his way, he returned with a mostly-clean glass of water and three Advils, which he handed to Nate silently.
Nate tossed the pills and water down and handed the glass back to Ray, who took it and then just stood there, studying Nate like he’d never seen him before. His continued silence was getting positively unnerving.
Finally Nate couldn’t stand it anymore. “I should get a prize,” he rasped. “You think there’s a Boy Scout badge for rendering Ray Person speechless?”
Ray snorted reflexively, but his expression didn’t alter. “Probably, dude,” he replied, “but they might take points off for being a fall-down drunk. I hear the Scouts frown on that.”
Nate considered trying to work up some righteous indignation at the accusation, but who was he kidding, really. “Sanctimonious bastards,” he opined instead.
Ray raised an eyebrow. “At least you still have all your SAT words.”
Nate gave him a look, and slumped against the back of the couch, suddenly aware that he was wearing nothing but boxers and a filthy T-shirt. He tried to remember the last time he’d changed, or showered, and couldn’t. He must look delightful, and smell even better.
Ray eyed the couch dubiously, then shrugged and flopped down next to Nate anyway. “Well, my friend,” he said, “I’ll say this for you: when you decide to fall apart at the seams, you don’t do it by half-measures.”
“Fuck you,” Nate answered, wearily.
“Now, is that any way to talk to your pal Ray, who brought you yummy pills to make the bad hangover go away?”
“If you’re going to talk in rhyme,” Nate said, “You can leave.”
Ray snorted again, and fell silent for a bit. Nate was content to let it stretch this time. He tried to think, to plan how to counteract whatever undoubtedly wild overreaction Ray was going to have to all this, but his head hurt and his arm hurt, and he was too exhausted to give it more than a token attempt. The jig was well and truly up. In a way, Nate was glad.
Eventually, Ray said, quietly, “So. Is this about the thing?”
There was no need for him to specify what “the thing” was, of course. Nate’s impulse was to deny it immediately, but instead he forced himself to actually think about the question.
Was this about the thing? Or was it about - the other thing? Nate had thought he knew, but now he wasn’t so sure anymore. He wasn’t sure there was a difference between the two anymore. He wasn’t sure there ever had been.
“Yes,” Nate said. “No. I don’t know.”
Ray huffed a breath. “Okay then.”
Nate opened his mouth to say something, he didn’t know what, but what came out was: “He left.”
The instant he said it, he wished he could take it back, but it was too late, even if Ray probably had no idea who he -
Ray had turned his head and was looking at Nate consideringly. “Yeah,” he agreed, “he did.”
Nate’s surprise must have shown on his face, because Ray rolled his eyes. “Oh, please,” he said. “I may be a dumb hick from Missouri, but I am not anywhere near as stupid as either you or Brad think I am. You really think I didn’t know what was going on between you two?”
Suddenly the dam broke, and Nate was abruptly furious, because even if Ray knew who Nate was talking about, he obviously still didn’t get it, at all. “Between us? There was nothing between us, Ray. That’s the whole goddamn point!”
Ray’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”
“It was a job, Ray,” Nate tried to explain, though God knew why he was bothering. “It was just a job to him, and that’s completely fine. It should be fine. He and I worked well together, and he was - it was professional to him, of course it was, and I was the one who went and blew it all up into this - thing, and turned it into some fucking gayass Lifetime movie melodrama, because I’m just this - ”
He stopped himself, took a breath. Ray was staring at him in something like astonishment, and Nate almost cringed under the look, but forced himself to go on anyway. In for a penny, in for a goddamn pound.
“It’s disrespectful, Ray. To him. He saved my life, he put blood on his hands to do it, and I have the - the audacity to not be satisfied with that? It’s pathetic.”
There was silence for a moment. Ray was still gazing at him with that expression of - what? Shock? Incomprehension? Disapproval? Nate decided he didn’t care anymore. He sighed, feeling all the anger run out of him like water, leaving only weariness behind. He was getting very good at weariness these days.
“It’ll be fine, Ray,” he said. “It was stupid, but it’s past now, and I’ll get over it. I just - felt like getting a little drunk first.”
Ray blinked, and closed his mouth, which had been hanging slightly open. He glanced at the overflowing coffee table, then back at Nate. He shook his head, seeming to be having a highly irritating conversation with himself. Abruptly he barked out a laugh that sounded equal parts exasperated and appalled with the world, and stood.
Nate guessed he was leaving, and wondered if Ray was done with him now, or if he’d get over it eventually. He wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. “Are you going to narc on me to Walt?” he asked, expecting the answer to be a resounding Yes.
Ray fixed him with a gimlet stare. “Dude,” he said, “I am not going to say a goddamn word to Walt.” With that, he marched into the kitchen again. After several minutes of slamming and crashing and clanking noises, he stomped back into the living room clutching two grocery bags, stuffed with what Nate realized was all the rest of his alcohol stash. He opened his mouth, but Ray forestalled him with an imperiously pointed finger.
“Listen up, Fick. I would tell you that you are the dumbest motherfucker to ever walk this earth, but unfortunately I’ve already met him. So congratulations, you’re only the second dumbest motherfucker to walk the earth. Fortunately for you, you have a Ray, and you’d better thank your lucky fucking stars that you do.”
Ray pulled out his cell phone, and snapped a picture of the room before Nate could react.
“Ray - ”
“Shut up,” Ray said. “That was for insurance. Now. Take a fucking shower, and either hire a maid or burn this shit down, because the way it and you look right now you’re going to end up on Cops, and my TiVo is broken. I’m taking this shit - ” and he shook the bags at Nate, “ - the hell with me, because you don’t need it.” He looked shifty. “And because I’m having a party next week. To which you - ” he pointed again, righteousness reasserted, “- are not invited. I’ll be back.”
Nate stared at him in total bewilderment. “You will?”
“Count on it, yo,” Ray informed him ominously, and flounced out.
Part Three
Part One
Later, when Nate had finally convinced Walt to go home, shower, and sleep, in that order, he lay quietly in his hospital room. His arm and his ribs and his head - and most of the rest of him - throbbed with slow, regular pulses of dull pain, but he was too wrapped up in his thoughts to give it much notice.
He reviewed in his head again the story Walt had told him. How Brad had only let Walt drive a couple of blocks away from the studio that night before insisting he turn around. How Brad had jumped out the moment they’d seen Nate’s car was still in the lot, not even waiting for Walt to stop. How they’d found the studio doors locked from the inside - and then they’d heard Nate scream.
“He picked up that big metal ashtray thing by the entrance and threw it through the glass,” Walt had said, still sounding amazed by it. “Thing’s gotta weigh two hundred pounds, and he handled it like it was nothing.”
Walt hadn’t seen what happened after that, because Brad had ordered him to stay outside and call 911 before dashing through the shattered door, and Walt, having seen what Brad’s face had looked like right at that moment, had wisely decided to do as he was told.
“I only saw the aftermath,” Walt had said. “Right before the ambulance got there. But it was… pretty bad.” From Walt’s expression when he’d said that, Nate was willing to bet that “pretty bad” was a distinct understatement.
Christ, he’d thought that was a hallucination, the bloodied disaster movie extra Brad he’d seen. But apparently he’d been all too real.
Walt had said Brad had only said one thing to him, after, while they were waiting in the ER for the word on Nate, before the police had arrived.
“He said… he said the guy asked him if he was there to save his filthy faggot lover.” Walt had stumbled over the words. “That’s how we realized he’d never been after me.”
“What did Brad answer?” Nate had asked.
Walt had shrugged uneasily. “I don’t think Brad answered him with words.”
Nate didn’t know how to feel about all this. He couldn’t be sorry that the man who’d tried to kill him was dead, but his heart ached that the death was on Brad.
He knew Brad would likely scoff at this. Brad was a warrior, one of the few men Nate had met in this day and age who merited the title, and Nate knew he’d done tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq before mustering out. Brad had killed before, Nate was sure of it.
But Nate also knew there was a big difference between killing enemy combatants in a warzone, and killing a civilian in a hallway in Tennessee - no matter what that civilian was doing in that hallway.
Even if Brad felt no moral qualms over it whatsoever (and Nate doubted that was true), the legal repercussions could be disastrous. Nate would have to do whatever he could to make sure Brad didn’t suffer for this.
“Mr. Fick?”
Nate looked up to see a dark-skinned man in a cheap sports coat and slacks in the doorway. He flashed a badge.
“I’m Detective Espera. You got a moment?”
Nate smiled tiredly. “Right now I’ve got nothing but moments, Detective. Please come in.”
Espera grinned back and sauntered in, closing the door behind him. He dragged the chair by Nate’s bed back a little ways - respecting Nate’s personal space, Nate noted with approval - and seated himself, pulling out a notepad and pen from an inner pocket.
“I’d like to get your statement on what happened Thursday night at the recording studio, sir,” he said. “The doctors said your recall of it was very good.”
Nate nodded. “Of course, Detective, but first, tell me what’s happening with Brad Colbert.”
Espera’s affable expression shut down. “I can’t give you any information on that right now, sir.”
Nate leaned forward, intent. “You know he saved my life, right? That man was trying to kill me, and he would have succeeded if Brad hadn’t shown up when he did.”
“That’s one interpretation of the events, sir,” Espera replied, “but at this time - ”
“No, Detective,” Nate retorted, “it is the only interpretation. I remember what happened, and that man was doing his damndest to make sure my skull got caved in. One more minute, and he would have had his chance. Brad Colbert was acting to save my life. You can be assured of this.”
Espera gazed at him a moment, then flipped back a couple of pages in his notebook. “The name James Trombley mean anything to you?”
Nate shook his head. “No.”
“Well, that’s who Colbert killed,” Espera said.
“That’s who tried to kill me, and who Brad stopped from doing so,” Nate countered instantly.
Espera snorted softly, giving Nate a wry look. “You sure you’re not a lawyer, Mr. Fick?”
Nate didn’t smile. “I will be whatever I need to be to make sure justice is served, Detective Espera. Brad Colbert should be getting a medal for this, not an arrest record.”
Espera raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? You didn’t see what happened, did you? You were unconscious by the time Colbert broke into the studio.”
Nate didn’t answer, but his silence was confirmation enough. Espera leaned back in the chair, affecting a nonchalant pose Nate didn’t buy for a second. His manner slipped a little, too, becoming less formal.
“Your boy Colbert killed James with his bare hands, dog,” he said. “Broke his nose, his jaw, and his eyesocket, and then you know what he did? Choked him to death. Just squeezed the life right outta him. That sound like a hero to you?”
Nate felt shock roil through him, but he fought to keep his face blank, and won. It didn’t matter. Or, it did, but not enough to change things. As Walt had put it, Brad had had Nate’s back, and so Nate would have his.
“It sounds,” Nate replied evenly, “like someone doing what they judged they needed to do to take down a would-be murderer. As you said, I didn’t see it, but neither did you. Of all people, I trust Brad to apply the proportionate response to any given situation, and so should you.”
He and Espera had a brief staring contest. Rather to Nate’s surprise, the detective looked away first, chuckling a bit. “Yeah, you definitely missed your calling, man.”
Nate suddenly felt bone-tired. “Just tell it to me straight, Detective,” he said. “Is Brad under arrest or not?”
Espera regarded him a moment longer, then huffed another short chuckle. “If what you say is true about Trombley trying to kill you - ”
“It is,” Nate interjected.
“ - then no. Good Samaritan Law, dog. If your man Colbert had a reasonable belief that your life was in danger, he is authorized to use force to stop the perpetrator, up to and including lethal force. God bless the great state of Tennessee, eh?”
Nate sagged, not even trying to hide the extent of his relief.
Espera grinned. “They might make him pay for the door he smashed, though.”
+
Brad never returned to the hospital.
Nate didn’t realize he wasn’t coming back at first. After Espera had left, Nate had slept for the rest of that day and through the night, taxed to his limits. He’d woken feeling much better in mind, if not in body, and eagerly looked forward to seeing Brad, speaking to him.
It wasn’t even his physical infatuation with the man anymore, or at least not completely. Nate needed to see the person who had saved his life, to thank him. And to make sure Brad was okay in turn.
But it was his parents and sisters (and their husbands, and their kids) who came in a few hours after Nate’d woken, not Brad, having flown in from Baltimore and then come straight to the hospital from the airport. The rest of the day was therefore taken up in soothing maternal tears and paternal righteous rage and older-sisterly combinations of both. Nate was honestly worried his oldest sister Sabrina was going to stage an impromptu Gay Pride parade right there in the ICU, she was so outdone. Meanwhile everyone talked at once and young children wandered underfoot and Mark and Steven were each on a separate and continuous round of cell phone calls to apprise what seemed like half the world of Nate’s status, and the hospital staff watched in bewilderment at their apparent invasion by the world’s most politely stubborn barbarian horde.
Walt was there too, manfully submitting to Nate’s mother’s weepy embraces as a Nate substitute, since it wasn’t really a good idea to hug Nate himself at that moment, but in the organized mayhem that was a typical Fick family function (no matter the cause), Nate never had a chance to pull him aside and ask where Brad was. Being bedridden sucked for more reasons than just the obvious, it turned out.
Eventually the hospital kicked everyone out, and then it was time for tests and scans and poking and prodding and more tests, all of which were a lot more painful and exhausting than Nate wanted to admit, and he dropped to sleep again immediately after for another twelve hours. And then his family was back again the next day and it was the same thing again, except that they also moved him to a different room, perhaps wanting to get his family away from intensive care, and it was all madness.
And Nate loved his family, he really did, but he was about ready to scream with frustration by the time he finally stole a moment with Walt, on the third day after Espera’s visit, by dint of claiming he needed to talk business a minute, and shooing everyone else out to go get coffee - always an effective lure among Ficks.
“Walt,” he said the moment the door shut behind his mother, “where the hell is Brad? I need to see him.”
Nate didn’t even bother trying to disguise the urgency in his voice. Walt looked down, and Nate’s heart sank; Walt had that bad-news look on his face again.
“Brad’s gone, Nate.”
Gone? “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean gone. As in, no longer in Nashville.”
Nate stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
A flash of real anger crossed Walt’s face, and he said, “Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I thought he was - ” Walt broke off and shook his head, and went on tightly, “He caught me outside the hospital the day before yesterday - must’ve been right after the police cut him loose - and asked me to thank you for everything, but since his services were no longer needed - ” Walt practically spit that part, “ - he felt it was time to be moving on. His words.”
Nate didn’t even know how to respond to this. Brad had just - left? Without even saying goodbye? Without even doing Nate the courtesy of quitting his job in person, let alone everything else?
Nate’s body now knew what it was like to be literally kicked in the gut, but somehow this still felt worse.
He didn’t know what his face looked like, but it must not have been pretty, because Walt glanced up at him and winced. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” he rushed on, “but with your family and all - and I honestly didn’t believe at first that he meant it. That he would be that - cold. I told him that - told him, uh, a lot of things, really - but I guess he did mean it after all.” Walt shook his head, disappointment on Nate’s behalf writ clear on his face. “I’m really sorry, Nate.”
“Don’t be,” Nate said, mechanically. He wondered vaguely what else Walt had said to Brad, but it really seemed pretty irrelevant at this point.
Then the door opened to readmit the now-caffeinated and therefore hyper Fick flock, and the chance for any further conversation on the subject was lost. Nate was just as glad.
So. That’s how it was, then.
Brad Colbert had turned out to be not at all the person Nate had thought he was, but that was on Nate, not Brad. He’d built Brad up in his head to be this… Platonic ideal of a person, and Nate shouldn’t be surprised at all that the reality had failed to live up to the fantasy. Reality always did.
Here in the real world, where a man had tried to kill Nate with a bat because he liked men, and where Nate might never have full use of his left hand again, there were no white knights. There were only men who, thankfully, did their jobs well even if they failed at courtesy or friendship or - and that’s all it had been to Brad, clearly. A job.
Which was fine, Nate told himself. There had been no indication, outside of Nate’s own pathetic delusional yearnings, that Brad had had any reason to consider it anything more than that. And given that, maybe Brad’s solution was for the best: a clean, professional break in their (professional) relationship, before Nate had a chance to ruin it with a soppy display of gratitude, or worse, some hopeless and pitiful declaration of - something, to a man who obviously could never return the feeling.
No. This was good. This was better. Now Nate could move on. He had a life to move on with, and for that he would always be grateful to Brad.
And this hollow feeling in his chest, like something inside had been scooped out and thrown away, that would pass soon. He was assured of this.
+
Time flies when you’re having fun, which is probably why the next few months seemed to last an eternity as far as Nate was concerned.
Physical therapy sucked even more than pop culture depictions of it had led him to expect it would. His therapist was a sculpted mountain of a man named Rudy Reyes, who looked like he had recently escaped from the pages of a heroic Greek epic and talked like he was a regular on the Psychic Network. Or so Nate imagined, having never actually listened to the Psychic Network, but if they talked with perfect seriousness about the healing power of crystals and which incense aroma best helped in finding your inner core and aligning your chakras or whatever, then he was right on the money.
Which wasn’t to say Rudy was bad at his job, because he really, really wasn’t. Rudy, in fact, was terrifying in his cheerful, smiling relentlessness when it came to his mission to get Nate’s hand working again - and improve the rest of Nate while he was at it - and absolutely nothing fazed or deterred him, least of all the horrible mood Nate was invariably in when they worked together. His ability to placidly ignore the curses and verbal abuse Nate heaped on his head during their sessions (and the one shameful time Nate had tried to deck him) should probably be declared a mutant superpower.
Nate knew the way he was behaving was disgraceful, regardless of whether it bothered Rudy or not, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Worst of all, he couldn’t even take pleasure in his improvements. Each time he caught himself feeling satisfied over his improved musculature, or at regaining a new fraction of the range of motion of his hand, it was immediately followed by disgust at himself. So he could pick up a pen with his left hand and hold it for ten seconds; a toddler could do that. Was Nate really congratulating himself on achieving the manual dexterity of a baby?
It was as if some part of him felt like he didn’t deserve achievements, or didn’t deserve to feel good about them, at any rate. Which made no sense at all, and Nate knew it. But he had this tangled snarl of hurt and rage and more hurt lodged within him, and who else could he unload it on, other than himself?
No one who deserved it, anyway. Certainly Walt and his family deserved none of it, and Nate was determined that they would never even know his rage was there. Even his anger toward Rudy was an insufficient outlet, a tiny fraction of what he kept bottled up inside, because Nate was frankly scared of what could happen if he let it loose.
Not least because he knew what everyone would assume was the cause of it if he did. Poor Nate Fick, traumatized victim. Look at his PTSD. Let’s put him in more therapy.
Fuck that, Nate thought. He was no victim, and he sure as hell didn’t have PTSD. His attacker was dead; he had his closure there. His problem came from a far, far more pathetic cause, one which Nate had no intention of telling anyone about, ever. It was Nate’s fault, this problem, and he would fix it on his own.
Broken hearts mend. And surely hearts that had had no business getting broken in the first place mended even faster, right?
+
In addition to ruthlessly policing his diet, his exercise regimen, and even his sleeping time (Rudy had Ideas about the essential importance of meditation and candles and Nate didn’t even know what all to the success of Nate’s recovery), Rudy had also forbidden Nate from returning to work until all his injuries were healed. And Walt, the traitor, had backed Rudy up on this. Nate hadn’t known how to explain to them that this only gave him interminable free time to wallow in the sucking tar pit that was his emotional state without giving up far more intel than he wanted to, so he’d gritted his teeth and borne it as well as he could.
His nieces and nephews had made admirable distractions for a while, until his parents and sisters finally bowed to the inevitable pressures of career and school and life, and headed back to Baltimore after almost two months of camping out in Nashville to help him out, with occasional flights back and forth for absolutely essential things. Nate was sad to see them go, but relieved that they were no longer throwing their lives into upheaval on his behalf.
The problem was, now he was alone.
Oh, Walt came by regularly, and Ray visited him a number of times, and any number of other acquaintances and colleagues (some of whom frankly surprised him) made a point of stopping by at least once or twice to see him and offer solidarity. Detective Espera even came by once, and shared a beer with him and talked about the Memphis Tigers and his three little daughters. And of course he had his sessions with Rudy, too.
But that wasn’t enough to fill the blank hours between, and keep him from brooding on something he’d never had and never would. It did nothing for his frustration when trying to do even the simplest tasks that required two hands, only to have his bad hand spasm or crap out on him. It did nothing for the nights he woke up, dripping with sweat from nightmares he refused to recall, or the even worse nights where his arm throbbed and ached and cramped and refused to let him sleep or concentrate on anything.
Without telling anyone, because it was no one else’s business, Nate had stopped taking anything stronger than Advil for the pain, because the absolute last thing he needed on top of everything else was an addiction to painkillers. No point in taking risks. And if lately he’d needed to drink half a bottle of bourbon to get to sleep without them, well, bourbon was still better than Percoset. And wasn’t like he needed to be at work the next morning, was it?
No one needed to know. He was fine on his own.
+
It was probably inevitable that of all people to find out what was really going on, it would turn out to be Ray.
Walt and Rudy were predictable, you see. Rudy’s visits were scheduled, and Walt never came by without calling ahead first to make sure Nate was available, because Walt had actual manners. So Nate always had plenty of warning to fix things up before either of them came by, or to beg off with a plausible excuse if it was really not a good idea for either of them to see him. He’d had to cancel his last three appointments with Rudy, now, but Nate’d told him and Walt both that he was down with the flu, so that was okay.
Ray, by contrast, clearly regarded manners as an unfortunate nuisance that only happened to other people, and so had no qualms whatsoever about showing up at any time and with no warning. The last time he’d dropped in unannounced Nate had very nearly been caught, but had managed to pass it off as simple sleepiness, and had kept Ray from seeing in any further than the front hall before getting rid of him.
This time, though, there was no hiding it.
Nate came awake with a groggy jerk at three loud bangs on his front door, followed less than a second later by the sound of the door slamming open and Ray’s voice shouting gleefully, “Get your hand off your dick, Fick! Your best pal Ray-Ray is here to entertain you!”
Jesus, how could he have forgotten to lock the door? Instinctively, Nate tried to lunge up off the couch, with some crazy idea of cleaning up before Ray walked the twenty feet from front door to living room in his head, but his balance was shot to hell, and he fell heavily between the couch and the coffee table instead, nearly knocking the table over and producing a loud enough crash to wake the dead. He groaned at the impact on his still-tender ribs.
There was a pause from the entrance hall, and then Ray laughed. “Dude, are you like stampeding buffalo through here or - ” He rounded the corner to the living room entrance, and the sentence died unfinished on his lips.
Nate struggled upright on the floor and glared at him balefully, watching Ray’s eyes travel slowly over the wreckage of the room - dirty clothes and shoes and books and DVDs and CDs and old vinyl records scattered everywhere, used and crusty dishes and glasses crowding every flat surface, the overturned lamp Nate had stumbled into a couple of days ago and not bothered to pick up, the opened packages of junk food oozing crumbs and sauce onto the loveseat and armchair and carpet - and come to rest on the most damning evidence of all: the coffee table. Which was currently festooned with no less than four empty bottles of Jack Daniels, along with an indeterminate number of beer cans, several of which had fallen over when Nate jostled the table in his fall and were now desultorily glopping the remains of their contents onto the table and off onto the floor.
“Holy shit,” Ray said at last, in the quietest voice Nate had ever heard from him.
This wasn’t going to go well, so Nate might as well be surly from the start. “What the fuck do you want, Ray?” Nate muttered, pulling himself up with his good arm to get his ass back on the couch. His mouth tasted like a rancid gym sock. A gym sock filled with monkey shit.
Ray stared at him a moment, then without another word turned and walked into the kitchen. After some clanking and shuffling that was probably Ray kicking some of the trash on the floor out of his way, he returned with a mostly-clean glass of water and three Advils, which he handed to Nate silently.
Nate tossed the pills and water down and handed the glass back to Ray, who took it and then just stood there, studying Nate like he’d never seen him before. His continued silence was getting positively unnerving.
Finally Nate couldn’t stand it anymore. “I should get a prize,” he rasped. “You think there’s a Boy Scout badge for rendering Ray Person speechless?”
Ray snorted reflexively, but his expression didn’t alter. “Probably, dude,” he replied, “but they might take points off for being a fall-down drunk. I hear the Scouts frown on that.”
Nate considered trying to work up some righteous indignation at the accusation, but who was he kidding, really. “Sanctimonious bastards,” he opined instead.
Ray raised an eyebrow. “At least you still have all your SAT words.”
Nate gave him a look, and slumped against the back of the couch, suddenly aware that he was wearing nothing but boxers and a filthy T-shirt. He tried to remember the last time he’d changed, or showered, and couldn’t. He must look delightful, and smell even better.
Ray eyed the couch dubiously, then shrugged and flopped down next to Nate anyway. “Well, my friend,” he said, “I’ll say this for you: when you decide to fall apart at the seams, you don’t do it by half-measures.”
“Fuck you,” Nate answered, wearily.
“Now, is that any way to talk to your pal Ray, who brought you yummy pills to make the bad hangover go away?”
“If you’re going to talk in rhyme,” Nate said, “You can leave.”
Ray snorted again, and fell silent for a bit. Nate was content to let it stretch this time. He tried to think, to plan how to counteract whatever undoubtedly wild overreaction Ray was going to have to all this, but his head hurt and his arm hurt, and he was too exhausted to give it more than a token attempt. The jig was well and truly up. In a way, Nate was glad.
Eventually, Ray said, quietly, “So. Is this about the thing?”
There was no need for him to specify what “the thing” was, of course. Nate’s impulse was to deny it immediately, but instead he forced himself to actually think about the question.
Was this about the thing? Or was it about - the other thing? Nate had thought he knew, but now he wasn’t so sure anymore. He wasn’t sure there was a difference between the two anymore. He wasn’t sure there ever had been.
“Yes,” Nate said. “No. I don’t know.”
Ray huffed a breath. “Okay then.”
Nate opened his mouth to say something, he didn’t know what, but what came out was: “He left.”
The instant he said it, he wished he could take it back, but it was too late, even if Ray probably had no idea who he -
Ray had turned his head and was looking at Nate consideringly. “Yeah,” he agreed, “he did.”
Nate’s surprise must have shown on his face, because Ray rolled his eyes. “Oh, please,” he said. “I may be a dumb hick from Missouri, but I am not anywhere near as stupid as either you or Brad think I am. You really think I didn’t know what was going on between you two?”
Suddenly the dam broke, and Nate was abruptly furious, because even if Ray knew who Nate was talking about, he obviously still didn’t get it, at all. “Between us? There was nothing between us, Ray. That’s the whole goddamn point!”
Ray’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”
“It was a job, Ray,” Nate tried to explain, though God knew why he was bothering. “It was just a job to him, and that’s completely fine. It should be fine. He and I worked well together, and he was - it was professional to him, of course it was, and I was the one who went and blew it all up into this - thing, and turned it into some fucking gayass Lifetime movie melodrama, because I’m just this - ”
He stopped himself, took a breath. Ray was staring at him in something like astonishment, and Nate almost cringed under the look, but forced himself to go on anyway. In for a penny, in for a goddamn pound.
“It’s disrespectful, Ray. To him. He saved my life, he put blood on his hands to do it, and I have the - the audacity to not be satisfied with that? It’s pathetic.”
There was silence for a moment. Ray was still gazing at him with that expression of - what? Shock? Incomprehension? Disapproval? Nate decided he didn’t care anymore. He sighed, feeling all the anger run out of him like water, leaving only weariness behind. He was getting very good at weariness these days.
“It’ll be fine, Ray,” he said. “It was stupid, but it’s past now, and I’ll get over it. I just - felt like getting a little drunk first.”
Ray blinked, and closed his mouth, which had been hanging slightly open. He glanced at the overflowing coffee table, then back at Nate. He shook his head, seeming to be having a highly irritating conversation with himself. Abruptly he barked out a laugh that sounded equal parts exasperated and appalled with the world, and stood.
Nate guessed he was leaving, and wondered if Ray was done with him now, or if he’d get over it eventually. He wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. “Are you going to narc on me to Walt?” he asked, expecting the answer to be a resounding Yes.
Ray fixed him with a gimlet stare. “Dude,” he said, “I am not going to say a goddamn word to Walt.” With that, he marched into the kitchen again. After several minutes of slamming and crashing and clanking noises, he stomped back into the living room clutching two grocery bags, stuffed with what Nate realized was all the rest of his alcohol stash. He opened his mouth, but Ray forestalled him with an imperiously pointed finger.
“Listen up, Fick. I would tell you that you are the dumbest motherfucker to ever walk this earth, but unfortunately I’ve already met him. So congratulations, you’re only the second dumbest motherfucker to walk the earth. Fortunately for you, you have a Ray, and you’d better thank your lucky fucking stars that you do.”
Ray pulled out his cell phone, and snapped a picture of the room before Nate could react.
“Ray - ”
“Shut up,” Ray said. “That was for insurance. Now. Take a fucking shower, and either hire a maid or burn this shit down, because the way it and you look right now you’re going to end up on Cops, and my TiVo is broken. I’m taking this shit - ” and he shook the bags at Nate, “ - the hell with me, because you don’t need it.” He looked shifty. “And because I’m having a party next week. To which you - ” he pointed again, righteousness reasserted, “- are not invited. I’ll be back.”
Nate stared at him in total bewilderment. “You will?”
“Count on it, yo,” Ray informed him ominously, and flounced out.
Part Three