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There was initial confusion, waking up next to another living being. The fact that it was Rust, of all people, didn't make things easier — nor did the fact that they'd apparently held hands throughout the entire night.
But really, that wasn't the problem. No, the problem was just how little all of that bothered Marty. It had felt nice to share the bed with Rust. Had felt comforting, to hold on to him like that.
What all of that meant, he didn't know. Didn't really want to think about it too hard, either. So Marty pushed it aside, and got up from the bed as silently as he possibly could.
Rust looked pretty bad in the sharp light of day, but there was a peace about him that had been absent in the hospital. He looked relaxed, now. Back there he'd been high-strung and tense, like he'd shatter into a million pieces if he let up for just one second.
He crept out of the bedroom and closed the door, and then the memory hit him. The car! He ran out the door, anger already clutching at him. But the fire petered out; his car was still there, in one piece.
Marty stood there for a while, starting at the car without really seeing it. He flexed his hand, over and over again. The feel of Rust's grip still lingered.
----
"Listen," Rust said, eyes fixed on his sandwich. He seemed so focused on the damn thing that for a moment Marty wasn't sure if he was speaking to it, or to him. "About last night..."
Well, that answered that. "What about it?" he replied, taking care to sound as nonchalant as possible.
"I was out of it, and I agreed to something I normally wouldn't have."
Marty frowned. He'd expected some comment about having shared the bed, not this — whatever this was. "I'm drawing a blank, sorry."
Finally, Rust stopped studying his food. He raised his head, looking a bit frustrated. "The partnership. If you were serious about wanting me there, I will be — but not in that capacity."
"...Alright." Marty pushed around the eggs on his plate for a while, debating his response. He pierced the dome-shaped yolk with his fork and watched it bleed out. "I'm not gonna push you. But can you at least consider it?"
"If that's what you want," Rust said, after a moment of silence.
'Fuck that,' he wanted to yell, 'what do you want?' Rust's answer, however, was quite possibly something he didn't want to hear. Despite how hopeful things had seemed last night, they were apparently back to usual now. And Marty didn't dare ask.
----
"What is that thing?"
Marty had been so focused on his struggle to get the plastic patio chair through the front door that he hadn't even noticed Rust, sitting on the couch and staring at him.
"Hey," he huffed, "you're awake already? Did you find my note?" Rust had gone back to bed after eating, and Marty had taken the chance to go out and get his prescriptions — and the damn chair, that would just not fit through the door. With a growl, he squeezed the plastic until it creaked warningly. One more push, and it was finally inside.
"Yeah, I found it," Rust said. "You shouldn't have bothered though; I'd rather quit that shit cold turkey."
"Ooh no, forget it! You're taking your medicines, if I so have to shove them down your throat."
Rust's jaw set in a defiant scowl, but he didn't argue. "What's with the chair?" he asked again.
"Well, I figured you wanted to take a shower. You can sit in that."
Rust got a strange, blank look on his face. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, seemingly at a loss for words. "Thanks," he finally got out.
"Yeah, well, I couldn't have you cracking your head open again," Marty replied, trying to lighten the mood. He didn't understand Rust's reaction, but he'd figure it out.
Time was on his side, if nothing else.
----
Marty felt like a total creeper, as he stood outside the bathroom door and listened to Rust showering.
Rust had insisted on being alone in there, and Marty had given in under the condition that the door was left unlocked. And now he stood there, ready to barge in if he heard anything that sounded alarming.
A few choice curses and grunts were to be expected, but the bone-weary, defeated sigh that came afterwards, wasn't.
If he knocked and asked entrance like a civilized person, Rust would said no — so he simply rapped his knuckles against the door, before immediately opening it and stepping in.
Rust glared at him. "What?"
"There is nothing to be embarrassed about, Rust. If you need help with something, for fuck's sake, just tell me."
Marty tried to be inconspicuous as he looked Rust over. The special plastic covering over the stitches seemed to be holding up — as was the regular plastic bag he'd wrapped around Rust's arm. No blood either, good.
"Rust?" he prompted.
"I can barely lift my arms. It was okay at first, then I just — I just got real tired. There's no way I can wash my hair."
"Shit, is that all? You should've called for me."
Rust snorted. "Didn't have to. You kept pretty close tabs on me, it seems."
Deciding to ignore that remark, Marty got undressed. There was no reason to get his clothes drenching wet, after all — and if they were both in a state of undress, it might help Rust feel less self-conscious.
But he didn't want to make it weird either, so his boxers stayed on.
"Okay," he said as he stepped in, taking the showerhead from Rust's trembling hand. He had to stand pressed against the tiled wall, but they both fit in there, even if just barely. "Gonna get your hair thoroughly wet now, and then I'll put shampoo in it."
"I have done this before, you know," Rust scathingly replied. "You don't have to walk me through each step."
"Fine," Marty snapped. "Don't complain to me if you get shampoo in your eyes." He waited a few seconds till Rust opened his mouth to reply, and then he raised the showerhead and let it stream down on top of his head. It was a petty revenge, sure, but Rust had earned it.
He regretted it when Rust spluttered — it probably wasn't the best idea to cough when you had stitches holding your gut together. Grimacing, he hung up the showerhead and grabbed the shampoo bottle.
Rust blinked the water from his eyes, glaring. He spat a mouthful of water at Marty.
"Nice aim," Marty said, deadpan. "How about a truce? I don't want to end up as a statistic on one of those lists about how the bathroom is the most dangerous part of your home."
"Would be kind of anticlimactic, yeah," Rust agreed.
Chuckling, Marty set to work. Rust leaned back into his touch, a small smile curving his lips.
----
They settled into a rhythm of sorts.
And the hell of it was, Marty grew to enjoy it. It was nice to have company, even if Rust grumbled about everything from having to take his medicines to the way Marty untangled his hair after showering.
Dinner had used to be a necessary evil; microwaving some formless lump of food that tasted as bad as it looked, and with the TV as his only company. Now, on some days he actually cooked — it had seemed so pointless before, wasting time and money on something only he would eat. Sure, his cooking probably wasn't the best, but Rust didn't seem to mind.
Then again, the guy had pretty much been living on beer, so it wasn't like he had much room to complain.
Rust healed, slowly but surely. As he got more mobile he was able to start taking showers on his own, which was a relief for Marty. It had begun feeling... strange. Not in a bad way, but that was the whole problem.
He also grew restless. Marty understood, and swung by the office to bring home the files of some outstanding cases. Rust pretty much threw himself over them, and offered up good ideas on almost all of them.
One of the cases — a young man trying to locate his biological mother — he even solved. He spent the whole day on the phone, and at the end of the day he handed Marty the file. A name and an address were scrawled at the bottom, in Rust's handwriting.
As much as Marty wanted to, he refrained from pushing the partnership idea. He still held hope that Rust would come around on his own.
----
"The hell is this?"
"It's beer. Getting your stitches taken out is worth celebrating, right?" Marty grinned as he shoved the can at Rust, before walking back to his chair. They'd just finished dinner and the beer would have to serve as dessert.
"Do you need to get glasses? 'Alcohol-free', it says." Rust sounded vaguely offended.
"So it does! Funny, hadn't noticed that. Now," Marty continued, cheerfully, "here's to..." he trailed off, searching for the right words.
"To not knowing when to die?"
"To surviving," Marty finished, and raised his beer into the air, holding it out over the kitchen table.
Rust followed suit, clonking the cans together.
Marty sipped his beer, noting that Rust took several gulps at once. It was a good thing he'd gone with the alcohol-free kind. It seemed that Rust had kicked his drinking habit with surprising ease, but there was no reason to tempt fate.
"Urgh," Marty grimaced. "That tasted like shit."
Rust shrugged. "I've had worse."
Silence settled, nice and companionable. Marty watched Rust out of the corner of his eye, following the movement of his throat as he drank. A strand of hair had escaped his ponytail to frame his jaw just so, and Marty was almost overcome with the urge to reach out and smooth it back.
"I guess it's high time that I get out of your way."
It took a few seconds for the words to pierce his reverie, and a few more to truly sink in. "Huh?" Marty finally managed to get out.
"I'll start looking for a place right away. Sorry it's taken so long."
The sheer dread that filled Marty was entirely unexpected, but only due to not having allowed himself to think about it. He wanted Rust to stick around, and deep down he'd known it from the get-go.
"Nah, it's fine," he said, careful to play it cool. "Any place you could afford right now would probably be a total dump. So wait a while, till we've gotten some cases going."
Rust studied him for a while before he reached across the table and grabbed the carving knife. Without saying anything, he jammed it into his empty beer can and began cutting it up.
"Uh, is that a no?"
"No," Rust said. Then, "I mean — no, it isn't."
"So you'll stay?" Maybe he sounded a bit too happy, for Rust glanced up, a thoughtful frown on his face. Marty opened his mouth to make a desperate attempt to change to subject, but there was no need — two seconds later Rust hissed, and looked down.
Marty followed his line of vision. "Goddammit," he swore, as he saw the blood that coated Rust's fingers. "I fucking knew it! You got your damn stitches out just a couple of hours ago, and now you go and chop off your fingers."
"It's nothing," Rust muttered, brushing him off. "I'm used to doing this with a smaller knife, that's all."
Marty got up and stalked around the table. He grabbed Rust's hand and inspected the cut. It wasn't as bad as he'd feared, despite all the blood.
Rust wrenched his hand from his grip. "It's fine, I said." Defiantly, he sucked at his fingers — hardly the best way to clean a cut, but Marty knew there was no point in trying to argue about it. Sighing, he went to the bathroom to get some band-aids.
It took him a few minutes to find them. Rust, that damn asshole, was back to cutting the can when he returned. Pissed, Marty snatched the knife and can from his hands, and wedged himself between the kitchen table and Rust, half-sitting on the edge of the table.
"Let me see it."
Rust held out his hand after a moment of hesitation. It was still bleeding, and Marty cleaned it up as best as he could. He wrapped a couple of band-aids around Rust's fingers, careful not to put them on too tight.
When he was done he looked up, and was met by that same blank look that'd been on Rust's face when he'd gotten that plastic chair.
And finally, it clicked into place.
Rust wasn't used to people caring about him. It got to him, to the point that he felt it necessary to school his features into a mask of nothingness, just to hide the turmoil of feelings that was surely brewing inside.
Marty swallowed. Little warning bells began to ring inside his head, but they went unheeded. He wanted to show Rust that he wasn't alone anymore; that someone out there cared for him — and that that someone was right in front of him.
Slowly, he reached out. Rust's eyes tracked his every movement, but he made no attempt to move. Marty tucked the stray strand of hair behind his ear, hand traveling down his neck to linger there.
It'd be so damn easy to just lean forward — God, it was just a matter of mere inches — and kiss Rust.
So easy, yet utterly impossible.
It was almost physically painful to move away. But he did it anyway, as he stood up and began to gather up the dishes, careful not to look at Rust.
"You shouldn't get the band-aids wet, so I'll fix the dishes myself."
"...Alright."
Marty waited until he heard Rust getting up and walking away. Then he buried his head in his hands, and took several deep breaths.
He was fucked.
----
"Your brother took the jewelry. Of course, you already knew that — otherwise you would've simply gone to the police with this matter."
Joan Evans paled under her heavy makeup, and Marty swore silently. "Miss Evans," he said, "what my partner is trying to say-"
"Associate," Rust corrected.
"Associate," Marty ground out from behind his clenched teeth, giving Rust a withering look. "I'm sorry to say it, but we're positive it's him. It turns out he has a heavy gambling debt, and a couple of pawn shop proprietors recognized him as someone who'd tried to sell them some suspect items. He was also very evasive when we spoke to him, going so far as to taking off in anger."
Marty suppressed a smile at the memory. Rust, every bit as good as he'd ever been, had cracked that little louse in a matter of minutes.
Their client dabbed at the corner of her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. "Mr. Cohle is right, I'm afraid. I've had my suspicions, but I'd hoped..." she trailed off, but her meaning was clear.
"Would you like us to take any further action? Perhaps contact the police on your behalf?" Marty asked, even though he knew the answer to that question already.
"Please, don't — I'll make arrangements on my own. I thank you, gentlemen, for having handled this so discreetly." She got up, nodding to them both.
Marty followed her to the door. He hoped things would work out for her, even if it didn't seem likely. When he turned back, Rust was writing in his ledger.
He stood and watched for a while, before heaving a sigh. "So," he said, "still averse to being partners, huh."
"Yep," Rust replied, without even bothering to look up.
"Why?" Marty regretted asking as soon as the word has escaped his mouth. It had sounded pathetically plaintive, damn it all.
Rust, naturally, picked up on it. He put aside his ledger and raised his head. "It's not you, Marty. I need it to — to feel right. That one moment where everything crystallizes into a feeling of belonging, like this is what you're supposed to be doing. All those years I spent on fishing boats and tending bars, I... I just did it, y'know? Didn't matter that I hated it; I could drink to keep myself going, so it was fine. But this, this is different. I want it to be right, and I want to earn it."
Marty swallowed. "I get it, man. I won't ask again. You just — you tell me when you're ready, yeah?"
"You got it."
----
That night, sleep wouldn't come.
Giving it up as a lost cause, Marty got up and allowed his feet to lead him to the bedroom. The door was half-open, and the light was still on inside.
He hesitated briefly, before sneaking a peek through the opening. Rust was lying fully dressed on top of the blankets, arms crossed over his chest, and staring up at the ceiling.
Thus reassured that he wouldn't be walking in on something private, Marty opened the door fully and stepped inside. "Hey. Mind some company?"
Rust waved him closer.
In a repeat of that first night, Marty sat down on the edge of the bed. Despite the similarities, this time it was different. Sure, there had already been affection back then, a feeling of protectiveness and wanting to make everything okay again — but there had also been something else, lurking just beneath. He'd just begun grasping it back then, and now... Now it was right in front of him, there for the taking.
Rust's eyes had sleepily been staring up at the ceiling — counting the cracks, perhaps — but when Marty leaned forward his gaze shifted, focusing on him instead. That made it harder, somehow, and Marty struggled with deciding whether or not to take the plunge.
In the end, he didn't have to. The choice was made for him.
A smile spread across Rust's face. It was unlike anything Marty had ever seen; wide enough to show both rows of his teeth, and even crinkle the corners of his eyes. It was pure happiness, without any dark shadows. Rust had never looked like that before, and it absolutely floored him.
Before he'd had a chance to regain his equilibrium, Rust lifted his hands and wrapped them around his shoulders. He used the hold as leverage as he surged up to capture Marty's lips.
Rust kissed him as if he were an old lover, slowly, and as familiar as breathing. There was no hesitation in it; nothing that said that this was the first kiss they ever shared.
It made no sense, and Marty had a hard time responding. Rust must've noticed for he pulled back with a frown. He studied Marty's face for a while, squinting, then he abruptly squeezed his eyes shut and let go off Marty as if burned.
"This one was real, huh." Rust's voice was hoarse, and he kept his eyes shut.
Marty said nothing, mind reeling.
"I'm sorry, Marty. I fucked up. But there were stars in your ceiling, and it was so bright, and I — I thought..."
Finally, it hit him. Rust hadn't been kissing him, not really. "You were having one of your hallucination things? Is that it?"
"Yeah," Rust whispered. He looked miserable, like he was just waiting to be kicked out.
It reminded Marty of the day everything had gone to hell. He had looked the same in the parking lot, when they'd fought. Hell, if it could even be called that — Rust might've denied that he'd been holding back, but Marty knew better. He'd just stood there and taken it, had barely even defended himself. And fuck, had he thrown even one single punch?
He couldn't remember. But he damn well remembered how it'd ended; with Rust, quitting without a word in his defense, before disappearing to fucking Alaska to piss away his life.
Marty wasn't about to make that mistake again. "Shit, man," he said, forcing a laugh, "who'd you think I was? Some pretty little thing? No, wait, don't tell me — I probably don't want to know."
Rust's eyes slid open. He looked at Marty, as if assessing the situation. Marty grinned at him, like they were sharing a funny joke, as he did his best to hide his hard-on.
"No," Rust answered, quietly, "you probably don't."
For the first time, the silence hung heavy and awkward. "We should try to get some sleep," Marty finally forced out. "We have that important gig tomorrow, remember?"
Rust nodded, and Marty took that as his cue to leave.
There was no sleep to be had that night. His mind replayed the kiss over and over, as bitter disappointment tore at his insides.
----
In the morning, both of them acted like nothing had happened. They went in to the office and got to work — which meant that Marty pretended to go over some old files, while Rust appeared to be meditating at his desk.
Business had been slow for a while, so there really wasn't much to do until their meeting. It was with the CEO of a small company, and from what he'd been told over the phone it was apparently a case of corporate espionage. Jobs like that brought in good money, so he was looking forward to it.
Ten minutes before they were leaving, a little boy burst through the doors. He looked around, wild-eyed. "You guys are detectives, right?"
"Uh, yes," Marty said, apprehensive.
"Then I wanna hire you!"
Marty glanced over at Rust. He was studying the boy with interest, and nodded at his words. "What's the job, kid?"
The boy's boldness faltered, as his face scrunched up in an obvious attempt to not start crying. "My cat ran away. He's never been outside before, and-"
"I'm really sorry," Marty interrupted, thinking it better to nip this one in the bud. "But we can't help you with that. Sorry," he repeated, trying to let the kid down as gently as possible. If he'd thought there was a chance of finding the cat he would've agreed to help, but the odds were high in favor of it lying next to a road somewhere. And he really wasn't up for dealing with that.
From the corner of his eye he saw Rust getting up from his desk. He grabbed his jacket and walked towards the door. "Let's go," he said to the boy, who lit up in a grateful smile.
"Wait, wait — Rust, we have that meeting, remember?"
"You're more than capable of getting the details on your own. There is no point in refusing a job when we can simply split up and do both, right?"
Marty raised his hands in frustrated defeat, groaning. "Whatever you say, man."
Rust gave him a curt nod, then he ushered the boy out the door and took off with him.
"I must be insane to want you as my partner," Marty muttered to himself.
----
A couple of hours later, Marty returned to the office to find Rust already there. He was bent over his desk, intently scribbling something in his ledger. He didn't even look up when Marty entered.
"The meeting went fine, good of you to ask," he snapped. "How did your so called job go?"
"Good."
"It... did?" Marty was intrigued despite himself. "You actually found the cat?"
"Sure did."
"Found it alive, I mean."
Rust raised his head a bit, cocking it to the side as he stared at the paper. Then he lowered his head again and began scribbling anew. "Alive and well," he said. "Like all animals — humans included — it did its best to remain in a safe area, when faced with an unfamiliar situation."
"Meaning...?"
"We found it in the rose bushes in the garden, hiding. Had to lure it out with meatballs."
Marty chuckled. "I'm glad to hear it. Good job, buddy." He actually meant it.
Rust finally put down his pencil and looked up. "Thanks," he said, smiling.
"So," Marty drawled as he wandered over to Rust's desk, "not case notes, then?"
"Nah, they sorta are, actually."
Since Rust made no attempt to close the ledger or otherwise hide it, Marty leaned down to take a look. It was a sketch of the boy, beaming happily, and with a big cat in his arms.
"I wanted to draw something good in there, for once. A case with a happy ending."
"It's really good, Rust — regardless what you said about life being too short, I don't think it's too late for you. You've always had a talent for it, I mean."
Rust raised an eyebrow, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "You trying to get rid of me, Marty?"
"No! Shit, no — I didn't mean that you should go off and be a painter somewhere, I just meant that you could mess around with it a bit. Like during your free time or so."
"Mm. Speaking off free time, give me an hour? There's something I gotta do."
Marty shrugged. "Sure, go for it. We can go over the new job when you get back, and 'sides, you've earned some time off after solving such a big case." He aimed a teasing grin at Rust, who snorted in response.
"You're just jealous that I was the one to crack it," he said. "See you in a bit."
----
Less than an hour later, Rust strolled into the office — clean-shaven and with short hair. For a second it was almost as if they had been transported back to 1995, but then Rust looked at him. There was a warmth in his eyes that hadn't been there, back then.
"I'm ready now," he said. There was no doubt what he was talking about.
"You sure?"
Rust nodded. "If you'll still have me."
Foregoing words, Marty grabbed the pad of post-it notes. He wrote '& Cohle' on one, and walked over to the wall with the logo and stuck it next to his own name.
"Welcome aboard, partner."