Archive of Our Own

“I think until Caitlin gets back, you should stay with me.” 

Rico had taken a long breath in, flattening his mouth and exhaling through his nose before he spoke. When he made his suggestion, it came out in one quick, certain rush. 

Crockett craned his neck sideways from the elevated hospital bed pillow to get a better look at him. His face was tight with worry, eyebrows furrowed, greyish eyes like steel in the fluorescent hospital light. Rico had been here every day, every moment he wasn’t working. Of course, the other members of the squad had been frequent visitors as well, but Rico was practically living at the hospital. On more than one occasion he had managed to convince the doctors that visiting hours didn’t apply to him, and he kept sneaking Sonny non-hospital food and cafecito.

Honestly, it was… kind of wonderful. 

Not that Sonny would have chosen to get shot or anything, but having to convalesce with Rico as nursemaid really, really wasn’t so bad. 

Caitlin, on the other hand, was still on tour. When things still looked bad— when there was some discussion still of paralysis , of brain damage , of— well. Better not to think about it, but when the doctors still weren’t sure how or if he was going to come out of all this, Caitlin started the process of cancelling her next few shows and booking a flight home. When Crockett phoned her with the good news— he had ultimately escaped with damage to muscle and not much else— she had asked if he would be okay with her waiting a bit longer to come home. 

He should have been hurt.

He was hurt, in a roundabout way. But it was hurt more over his own decisions than hers. Neither of them had been exactly what the other had expected. In a way, it was easier being apart. Didn’t have to think about things too deeply when he was falling asleep alone on the Dance like always.

But he didn’t know how to answer Rico. 

He wanted to say yes. Play pretend a little, let it feel like a vacation, get taken care of and not feel too guilty about it. It’s just that… he wasn’t actually too sure he trusted himself to keep it from going further than that. 

“I’m serious, Sonny. You’re going to need someone to carry stuff for you for a while, change bandages— I’m still shocked they’re even letting you go so soon.”

“Rico,” Crockett sighed, “Don’t be an old lady. I can walk, both hands work—”

“And you’re taking enough pain meds that I can picture you tripping over Elvis and into the waiting jaws of his cousins down in the marina.” Rico raised one eyebrow, daring Crockett to disagree. 

He was taking a lot of pain meds. But honestly, that was part of the problem— if he could barely trust himself sober— and he knew he couldn’t trust himself drunk— then how could he trust himself grinning and loopy on narcotics?

“You’ve already spent enough time babysitting me here,” Crockett lied, trying to come up with a reason to say ‘no’ that wasn’t ‘I’m concerned about my ability to keep my hands off you.’ “I’m not going to be a burden to you in your own home.”

Rico’s eyes darted off to the side and he pursed his lips very slightly, like he wanted to say something but decided against it. He leaned back slightly in the teal-upholstered hospital chair. “I could come stay with you, then. And we won’t have to move you when Caitlin gets back, then.”

That would most certainly be worse. 

The image of Rico tucking him into his marital bed at night, Rico using their shower and having to root through Caitlin’s shampoos and lotions, of the two of them sitting on the couch together where he and Caitlin had— no. No no nope. No. 

“ Move me ,” he scoffed, voicing not one iota of what was in his head, “Is that how I rate these days, like a piece of overstuffed furniture? You and the rest of the squad gotta hire someone to cart me around from residence to residence?”

“Sonny, I’m serious.” Rico put his hand on Crockett’s arm. “You lucked out big time, partner. I couldn’t live with myself if after all this, you…” He shook his head slightly, breathing out through his nose. “I dunno, ruptured some blood vessel picking up your mail, alright?” He lifted his palm from Crockett’s forearm and punched him gently instead.

Crockett bit the inside of his lip. 

“Besides,” Rico continued, “Castillo isn’t gonna let you anywhere near a case file until you’re on your feet and not… oozing,” he gestured, vague and yet somehow obscene, “But if you stay with me we can talk shop without him knowing.” 

While he was with Caroline, Crockett had never touched another person, male or female. He had been perfectly faithful up until they had separated.

He sighed, trying to keep it silent. 

He couldn’t think of any other excuse. 

“Alright.” He threw his hands up. “I relent, I relent. If you’re that bent on wheeling my sorry ass around, I ain’t gonna fight you on it.” 

Rico smiled bright as sunshine, corners of his eyes crinkling. “Oh, I’m gonna make your sorry ass do laps, forget pushing. Your doctor told me all the shit you gotta do for physical therapy.” 

Crockett wanted to reach up and touch his partner’s beautiful face. Feel the softness of his beard beneath the pad of his thumb, the warmth of his skin under his fingers. 

And therein lay the problem: he hadn’t ever wanted to touch anyone else when he was with Caroline. But he wanted to touch Rico. He didn’t want to break his vows. But in his most private thoughts— the ones he tried not to share even with himself— he might admit that he had made those vows in the hope that they might cure him of that specific longing. That he would marry Caitlin, and his desire for Rico would be erased. That he could just… tether himself to normalcy. Be a family man. Stop just being a sad broken cop with a painful crush on his partner.

When he and Caitlin returned from their honeymoon, he had convinced himself that was how it was going to be, up until the first time Rico grinned at him. His palms had gone sweaty, chest cold, arms limp, all autonomic function absolutely gone haywire. Nothing about his feelings had changed, except that now he could never act on them again. So he had kept extra inches between them in the car, avoided excessive after-hours socialization, rarely touched, tried never to bring up anything sexual.

Meanwhile, he and Caitlin had fought, made up, fucked, joked around, fought again. Like it had been with Caroline right before the end, except they had been married for less than four months. The normalcy he had been hoping for on their wedding day escaped his grasp until she left— and suddenly, side by side with Rico, laughing like dumb bachelors, he did feel normal. 

At Palmo’s, that second night, more than a little tipsy, eyes on Rico in that spectacular tuxedo, he had felt so himself, so casual, so at ease, that he had forgotten he was married. 

In their shared room, door swinging behind them, laughing at some stupid joke Rico had made, he had cupped his partner’s cheek and pushed him up against the wall, thigh pressed between his legs. He had leaned in to kiss him, and in an instant Rico had his hand between their faces.

“Whoah, whoah, hey,” he had warned, slithering out to the side, out of Sonny’s grasp. “You get a divorce recently you forget to tell me about?”

Crockett had felt his face go red with anger and embarrassment, but had doubled down instead of backing off. “Goddammit, Rico, she’s in Prague or San Diego or Uzbekistan, how the hell would she ever find out? You gonna tell her?”

Rico had laughed, dark and bitter, crossing his arms and leaning back against the door. “Don’t give me that bullshit. We both know you’re not that guy.” He gave Crockett a withering look, staring right through his haze of drunkenness. “And,” he added, voice dropping into a quiet, low register, “Even if you were, you made a choice, and I sure as hell ain’t helping you undo that choice.” 

Crockett had stood, reddening more, finding himself sweating through his tux, words floating like ghosts outside his reach. Rico had sliced through him. He had made a choice. And that choice hadn’t been Rico. 

But did that mean… 

Did Rico…? 

“Look,” Rico had sighed, relaxing his posture, “You’re drunk, and you’re lonely, and for the first time in your life, you gotta be a good boy and keep it to one chick,” he lied. They both knew it was a lie. The truth got folded back up and shoved to the back of the drawer, and they both pretended it was just about Crockett being a horny asshole. “Besides,” he smiled, a little false, but not alarmingly so, “I can’t imagine Palmo’s going to want to do business with us if he walks in on Cooper and Burnett getting busy.”

Crockett snorted, voice going a little high with insinuation. “I dunno, man, I saw the look he gave you when you said you were single.” They had laughed, and all had returned more or less to normal. 

Except for the fact that now Crockett knew that he was the kind of man who would break his vows. And he knew it would be for Rico. 

Rico, who had been the liaison for his doctors for the last week. Who had taken notes on his physical therapy routine. Who had been there when his wife was not. Who had even stayed when his ex- wife had been there, who had taken his son on a tour of the hospital while he privately reassured Caroline that he was, in fact, fine. Who had held his hand when he was going under and coming back out.

So it was with great hesitation that he got in Rico’s car later that day, one of the nurses wheeling him out despite his insistence that he could walk. 

Because it felt like, for the first time in months, he was going home with the right person.

“You feelin’ okay, partner?” Shortly after pulling onto the freeway, Rico patted his arm with the back of his fingers. 

Sonny shook himself from his stupor. Dislodged the fantasy version of this drive from his brain.

“I’m fine,” he murmured, a little too fast and too scratchy to be convincing. 

“You in pain?” Rico followed up, mistaking the grit in his voice for a physical malady rather than an emotional one.

“No, just thinking.” 

“Dangerous,” Rico smiled.

“Yeah, I heard the doctors saying I should avoid cognition for the next few weeks,” he joked. “No lifting, no sex, no heavy thinking.”

Rico huffed a quiet chuckle, all air except a little trill at the end. Sonny’s brain whirred. What else could he say to make him laugh?

“At one point I tried reading a book, and the nurse came around and yanked it out of my hands. Put on reruns of That’s Incredible! instead, said it was more my speed, didn’t want me to sprain anything.”

Grinning, Rico continued his quiet, breathy laugh. 

“Good thing I’m a cop, right?” Sonny elbowed Rico. “Not some egghead professor or nothin’. And thankfully I haven’t thought in my free time in years,” he half-sighed, shaking his head like he was talking about giving up smoking. 

Rico had a tell, cute as all get-out— when he was really tickled, or a little embarrassed, or feeling a bit over-affectionate, he’d cover his smile with one curled finger, just nearly touching his upper lip. He did it now, and Sonny watched him with half-lidded eyes and warm honey pooling in his veins. 

“Guess that five hundred page crossword puzzle book I bought for your recovery is medical contraband, now,” Rico tsk ed, shaking his head. 

“That off-label use’ll really getcha.”

He shrugged, eyes straight ahead on the road. “I’ll just arrest myself when we get to your house.”

The idea of your house made Sonny’s stomach contract. 

“You sure I can’t convince you to bring me to the Dance ?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m really keen on cooking you breakfast on a doll size stove, and crossing my fingers that you don’t pull all your stitches going up and down the galley stairs.” Rico rolled his eyes, breathing out through his nose. 

Despite the obvious futility, Sonny tried once more. “I’m less likely to move around in a smaller spa—”

“Forget it,” Rico stopped him, the finality in his voice like a hammer to Sonny’s forehead, “I’m not sleeping on your tiny-ass couch. You got like forty five guest bedrooms in your actual house.” He tilted his head to the side and gave Sonny an exasperated look, one eyebrow cocked. “Besides, I got enough back problems from four years of playing sleepover on a damn boat. I think I’m overdue for a little of that luxury you married into to rub off on me.”

Sonny snorted, despite himself. 

“Alright, alright. We’ll make sure you get ample time in the hot tub.”

Rico’s mouth curled up like he’d licked pennies.

Sonny’s forehead wrinkled. “What?”

“If you actually have a hot tub and you’ve been trying to convince me to come stay in 50 square feet of living space…”

“I didn’t tell you about the hot tub?” Sonny laughed, breezy, ever-so-slightly barbed. He hadn’t mentioned the hot tub to his partner because only one thing had happened in the hot tub, and that was aggressive, wave-pool-splashing sex with his wife. Caitlin loved the damn hot tub. 

Picturing Rico in the hot tub was… contraindicated. 

“As soon as the doctor says sex is back on the table,” Rico sighed, and Sonny’s body was instantaneously cocaine-taut, electric, at that bare suggestion, except— “You can go fuck yourself.”  

Great , Sonny breathed, wishing he could say it outloud: now I’ve got whiplash of the dick.

“That part of my physical therapy?”

Rico’s distaste dissolved immediately into a shy, annoyed smile. 

Sonny found himself unable to stop tracing the contours of Rico’s face with his eyes. Looking at anything else— the car, the horizon, the rows of palms flashing green and brown in front of the blinding noon-white ocean— was like trying to pull an electromagnet away with his bare hands. He wanted to stop being so stupid, so obvious, wanted to stop looking for excuses to cheat on his wife. But he also kind of hoped Rico would notice. That their eyes would catch like they used to, a tiny piece of smoldering ash afloat on a warm wind, landing soft in dry kindling. That they’d stumble over the threshold together, Rico’s hand on his waist and mouth along his jawline. That they’d let the fire between them grow, blaze, and burn out gloriously on royal blue silk sheets, Sonny’s fingers curled in the fabric, ghosting where Caitlin had touched a month, two months ago, a few weeks, whatever, whenever she’d last been home. Spent and ember-hot, falling asleep skin to skin like they had so many times on the Dance . Sonny pretending none of it meant anything, even as he bit his tongue not to whisper love into the palm of Rico’s hand. 

But Rico kept his eyes on the road.

If he knew Sonny was stuck staring, he did a good job of pretending he didn’t notice.

Sonny took a deep breath in and peeled his gaze off his friend, like ripping a bandaid too slow. 

“Hey, if we’re not going back to the boat, who’s feeding Elvis?” 

The corner of Rico’s mouth quirked up. “I haven’t been the one feeding him this whole time. Gimme one guess who has.”

Sonny assumed it had to be Gina or Trudy, and went for comedy instead.

“What, Marty finally makin’ some friends around here?”

“You kiddin’?” Rico laughed, an abrupt expulsion of air. “It’s a miracle Castillo hasn’t called Animal Control on your ass. No,” he shook his head, smiling, “One Isadore Moreno is feeding your swamp dog.” 

“ Izzy is taking care of— you’re pulling my damn leg, Rico.”

“No, he insisted , and told me I was to keep it ‘completamente confidencial’ between the two of us, because, and I quote, he didn’t want you thinking he’d ‘gone soft.’” Rico raised his eyebrows. “He visited you more than once while you were unconscious, you know.”

“Well fuck me sideways, our favorite rat has a tender heart.” Sonny found himself a little misty thinking about this new revelation, and blamed the pain meds.

Rico ignored the instructions to perform unconventional coitus and instead nodded, lips slightly pursed. “What the hell he sees in you, I’ll never know.”

Even if it was a joke, it stung. Izzy was slippery, obnoxious, untrustworthy but— well. Maybe Sonny did treat him a little harshly sometimes. Rico had always been a little more patient with him, but after all, that was just Rico. There was a reason he usually played the good cop. 

He leaned his head back against the seat and wondered what anyone saw in him. He couldn’t quite remember closing his eyes, but when he opened them, he was at Caitlin’s house. His house. 

God.

Without Caitlin there, it felt like a high class hotel. Not a place where people lived . 

Rico walked him in, arm around his waist as he stepped gingerly across the yard and through the door; he had been given a walker but hell if he was going to limp around like a nursing home resident looking for rice pudding. He had attempted to make a compromise and acquiesce to crutches, but the nurse had sighed and told him he would rip all his stitches open. 

Inside, Rico deposited Sonny on the couch, and then brought his bags inside. Luggage at hand, he gestured vaguely down the hall with his head.

“Which bedroom’s closest to that jacuzzi?”

Sheepish, Sonny laughed, false and a little hollow. “Master bedroom, but if you want to sleep there I’m fine with that.” Rico’s face remained vague and impassive. Sonny tacked on, “Besides, it’ll be less of a hassle if I bleed all over the guest sheets, anyway.” He smiled with his teeth, making it clear he was absolutely by no means suggesting they stay in the same room. This was a friendly joke, not a come on. Married men didn’t hit on their work buddies. 

Rico ignored all of this and dragged his suitcase down the hall. 

This had been the way of it since the wedding— Rico wasn’t distant , exactly, but his patience for a certain kind of joking had drained right out. Whenever he turned away like that, Crockett wanted to push back harder, to say something worse or more inappropriate. He wanted to blame Rico for having to be the bigger man. Blame him for being in the very position that Crockett had put him in.

He slumped back on the couch and put his palms over his eyes, grinding the heels of his hands against his cheekbones, tight and hot feeling.

No. That wasn’t exactly right. He wanted Rico to play along like he always had, because then he could blame Rico for his infidelity. 

Great fucking friend he was.

The couch bounced slightly, and the air grew familiar with a light, crisp cologne.

“You okay?” 

Crockett peeked out from behind one hand. 

“Yes, and stop asking.” He made an attempt to casually cross his legs, but felt something behind his stomach pinch and tighten, and settled for spreading his feet out wide in front of him. “I promise I’ll tell you if something’s gone wrong, okay?”

Through his fingers he could see Rico’s eyebrow raise ever so subtly and a lopsided, wan smile spread over his face. 

“I don’t believe that for one minute, and frankly, if you do, they gave you too much dope.”

Crockett snorted and let his hands fall to his sides. 

Rico rested a warm hand on the back of the couch, hovering soft against the top of Sonny’s head. Just short of a friendly hair-ruffling. A ghost of a pat. 

“I got two questions for you,” he began, crossing one ankle to his knee, “What can I do to make you comfortable or keep you occupied, and when dinner rolls around, what am I cooking?”

Crockett skipped right over the loaded first half of the question. “Rico, come on, you don’t have to cook for me— besides, there’s nothing in the fridge, this is like a damn model home—”

“I picked up groceries yesterday and we are not gonna live on only takeout until you’re able to navigate the kitchen again.” 

Groaning, Sonny’s hands went back over his eyes. 

“Goddammit, you shoulda just let me die, man, I can’t have you playing private caterer for me, I don’t—”

Rico smacked him on the top of the head, none too gentle. “Don’t joke about that shit, Sonny. I don’t mind.” His tone softened. “And besides, it’s not any harder cooking for two than one, you’re just going to have to live with being a vegetarian for the foreseeable future.” 

Sonny groaned again, this time fully performatively. “Is that a doctor-approved diet for an invalid like myself? Will my sutures close properly without any protein or fat?”

“Oh, you wanna compare scars?” Rico rolled his eyes, but he was grinning. “See how well each of us has healed over the years?”

Hands out front in a stop gesture, Sonny laughed and flopped his head forward. “Hey, buddy, I seen you naked enough times to know you ain’t the Bride of Frankenstein, okay? I’m sayin’, just because you can process bunny chow into new skin, don’t mean I can.” 

“Well, there’s always Hungry Man.” Rico gave him a look poised, somehow, on the exact line between affectionate and withering. 

Sonny just laughed. 

Rico sat up, patting him on the back. “You think about it. I gotta call in, talk to Castillo about some paperwork I should be doing. What do you need?”

Guilty and uncomfortable about it, Crockett requested a glass of water and a book. He read, trying not to listen too closely to the sound of Rico’s voice over the phone, soft and warm, a half-whisper so as not to bother him. He thought, hazy, that even if he wasn’t married, even if he hadn’t fucked it up between them, Rico was too damn good for him. And then at some point, he drifted off, feet up on the couch, head flopped back against a scratchy decorative pillow.    

 When he woke up, cotton-mouthed and blurry, it was to the sound of the radio and the smell of frying onions.

Sonny kept his eyes closed for a moment longer.

He swallowed and rubbed his tongue against his dry teeth, and he listened. Something popped and sizzled in a pan. A hiss, and metal scraping quick and practiced. Rico’s voice, singing, coming in quiet, quiet, along with the song crackling through the countertop radio. Footsteps, light and soft, just a shuffle to this side and that, and then a loud angry whoosh as something else was added to the fire.

The pain in Sonny’s chest had nothing to do with his gunshot wound. 

As he tried to will saliva into his mouth, he was struck with the absolute staggering intimacy of what was happening right now. The last time he had been shot in the line of duty, he’d gone to the waiting arms of his young bride. Caroline had fussed and fretted and mopped his brow and changed his bandages and followed him around like he was an injured bird— good god, they were babies then, Billy not even a twinkle in their eyes— 

And now Rico…

Lord.

If this was their first go around— if they hadn’t already fucked and split, if Crockett hadn’t already obliterated any chance of Rico ever really being his , every part of this would be knife’s-edge tense. The vulnerability of having someone take care of you like that, the self-consciousness of them touching you half or all the way naked, the god damn domesticity of it all. There’d be no way they wouldn’t end up in some dumbass romcom compromising position together.

But this was the part of the record where the needle skipped. Where the same few bars played without resolution. There was no build up, no climax. 

Just his ex tending his wounds in his wife’s house. 

Come to think of it— ‘ex’ was overstating it. For Rico it had never been more than friends with benefits. Crockett wasn’t an ‘ex’ anything to him, they’d just stopped getting each other off. He was merely nursemaiding his shitty lovesick friend like he was applying for sainthood. 

Crockett buried his face in his hands and groaned subaudibly.

With his fingers pressed to his eyes, he listened to Rico quietly singing along with the radio for just a few more bars. A harmless guilty pleasure in a sea of darker, deeper guilt. Then, as obviously and loudly as he could, he sat up.

He stretched his arms up over his head, something twinging in his abdomen, and yawned. “Whatcha cookin’?”

Rico looked backwards over his shoulder. “Something Italian. Haven’t decided yet. How’d you sleep?”

“Soundly. Vicodin’ll do that.” He rubbed at his eyes for what felt like the thirtieth time. “By the way, I will take one tonight before bed, but no more after that.”

“You are free to call the doctor and ask,” Rico warned, making a quiet noise of frustration, “But you’re gonna feel like you got hit by a truck if you just go cold on pain meds a week after major surgery.”

“Yeah, but that’s gotta be better than feeling…” He searched for the right word. Foggy? Inebriated? Out of control? “Asleep.”

At this, Rico snorted. “Sleep’s good for you. You need time to heal, man.”

Crockett wanted to argue but couldn’t come up with a solid reason that wasn’t ‘I don’t know if I can trust myself around you if I’m high.’ Instead he sighed and muttered, “I just feel weird .”

Rico flipped something in the pan, and then glanced at Sonny with a subtle sadness. Sonny wanted suddenly to self-immolate, to be launched wholesale into space, or at least sink deep enough into the couch that Rico couldn’t see him anymore. 

“I’m sorry, man. But you almost died, you were put in a medically induced coma, and had major surgery right next to your spine . It’s… probably gonna be a while before you’re feeling hunky-dory again.” His tone was so gentle it hurt.

“Well,” Crockett grumbled, mouth still dry, head still muzzy, “You know what would make me feel great ?”

“Dinner?” Rico smiled, his one arched eyebrow making it clear he knew that wasn’t the answer.  

“A beer.”

“Oh yeah, make you feel real great,” Rico laughed, “So great you forget to breathe.”

“Oh come on, Rico, one beer ain’t gonna send me into respiratory collapse.”

“Doc said no,” he shook his head.

“All the more reason to get off the damn pain killers.” Gingerly, Sonny shifted himself inch by inch back into a normal seating position. His back felt like Swiss steak. “You decided what you’re cooking yet?”

“Penne alla vodka.”

“Thought I couldn’t have any booze?”

Rico laughed quietly, lifting the lid on a pot of water. “Well, I was gonna make a frittata, but your eggs are three months past the sell-by.”

“They’re fine,” Crockett shrugged. “I made fried eggs just a few weeks ago.”

“I’m… going to pick up new eggs before I feed any omelets to someone with a hole in their guts. You wanna eat expired eggs once you’re healed, be my guest.”

“I’ve never had an egg go bad on me,” Sonny argued, apparently willing to die on the hill of ‘eggs’ but not his medical discomfort. “Not a grocery store egg, anyway. Sure, you get’m on the farm, leave’m on the counter, then you might be in trouble, but these things are laid by plastic hens, anyway. When was the last time you cracked open a bad egg?”

Sonny could hear the eye roll in Rico’s voice, even if he couldn’t see it on his face. “Salmonella doesn’t—” He paused with a verbal screeching of the brakes— a swallowed grumble. “Sonny, are you just being an asshole, or are you actually on a crusade to eat expired food?”

He started to laugh, and once he got started he couldn’t stop. It hurt, like someone was repeatedly punching him in the kidney. He leaned back and tried to quiet himself, hand on his chest, cackling through stabs of pain. 

Rico was in the midst of draining pasta, but he hesitated with the pot in the air, unsure whether to finish or put it down. “You okay?”

“What,” Sonny chuckled, “I’m not allowed to laugh, either?”

Shaking out the last bit of water from the pasta pot, Rico shook his head. “You just seem a little…”

“Loopy?” Sonny suggested, feeling very much like a stranger in his own body.

“Yeah,” Rico nodded. “Disorientation, agitation, they can be signs of a bad reaction to the drugs. Your breathing okay?”

“Yeah,” Sonny nodded, generally feeling off but not in any discernibly specific way. “Gotta kind of a stitch when I breathe in too deep, but it’s in my back where they sewed me up.” He giggled, high pitched and childish, and then covered his mouth. “I— I mean that, for real, it’s not a joke about getting stitches.”

Rico abandoned dinner and found his way to the couch. He placed two fingers on the side of Sonny’s neck and looked at his watch.

Sonny could feel his pulse speed up under Rico’s touch.

It beat the same rhythm it had for a year at least: I love you.

He wondered if he could ever say it, casual and brotherly like Rico had in the car that day. If there would ever be a time he could strip the subtext out of that phrase. He did love Rico that way— like a friend, a partner, hell, family— but he couldn’t imagine telling him that without… without fucking fagging it up like he had been for the last four years.

How do you tell the guy you’re in love with, ‘hey, I love you,’ without immediately giving away that you mean it like lovers? Like fingers clasped surreptitiously under a table? Like waking up skin to skin? Like sheepish laughter, one hand on his hip, slow-dancing to jazz records in a tiny apartment living room, pretending that’s how friends behaved?

Like: I wanted you so bad I married a stranger to keep my hands off you .

Crockett inhaled sharply, severing those thoughts like a knife through twine. 

“What’s the verdict, doc? Am I gonna live to see the sunrise?”

“Yeah, but I might not,” Rico sighed, half-smirking.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re stressin’ me out ,” he answered, gently slapping Crockett’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. He got back up and returned to putting dinner together.

As he deposited forks into two bowls, Rico chewed at his lower lip. 

“You want to eat there, or try coming to the table, or…?”   

Sonny jumped at the possible permission to locomote. “Table’s good!” He leaned his weight forward onto the balls of his feet, hand on the couch’s armrest. He felt a bit like someone was wrapping a rubber band progressively tighter around his waist— immense pressure, laced with a stinging squeeze of pain. He suppressed a grunt and pulled himself to standing.

He was two steps away from the couch when Rico suddenly had him around the waist and under the arm.

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Rico squinted and furrowed his brow. “You like the idea of pulling your stitches?”

“It’s ten steps, man, if I can’t do that, they may as well send me to early retirement.”

Rico made an inscrutable face, eyebrows high on his forehead, mouth neutral, and walked Sonny the rest of the way to the table. Silent, he opened a series of drawers until he found two place settings and napkins, went back to the counter for the bowls, and placed them in front of himself and Sonny. He picked his fork up, breathed in slowly through his nose, and smiled so false it made Crockett’s hair stand up on the back of his neck.

“So can Caitlin cook at all, or do both of you just eat takeout and expired eggs?” 

“I didn’t marry her for her culinary skills, Rico,” Sonny joked, raising his eyebrows suggestively. It’s not like they were home together during meal times all that often, and when they were, they usually used up any possible cooking time having sex instead. They had the local Chinese place on speed dial. 

Rico made another unreadable face, a hollow almost-smile. He picked at a noodle and pushed it past his lips, eyes turned down. He was mad about something, but Crockett couldn’t tell what. Probably just disappointed in him— he always seemed to get a little touchy when he made jokes about his and Caitlin’s sex life. The same kind of ribbing had never seemed to irritate him when it was about other girls, but maybe Rico was more of a traditionalist when it came to one’s wife. 

Or maybe he was just regretting having to babysit.

Crockett ate a few bites of his dinner and changed the subject.

“So what were you and Castillo talking about?”

Rico grumbled, mouth full, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. He swallowed. “Well. ATF is probably going to take it.” 

Shop talk was always safe. Crockett pushed a noodle around on his plate, listening more than eating.

"They say the guns supersede the porn, but…" He shook his head. "I dunno. There's drug use on the tapes, and at least one of the… participants matched the description of a missing persons case, and…"

Rico tapped his fork impatiently on the edge of his plate. "Company that made the tapes claims they have nothing to do with the guns, and anyone is free to buy their product, and that the drugs are all props— powdered sugar n’ shit— say a lot of the actors don’t use their real names for payment but that no one’s gone missing on their watch. If I can't find something more concrete they’re gonna make me back off.” The corner of his mouth twitched to the side. “I get that there has to be probable cause, I do. But it kind of feels to me like… everyone knows something isn’t right about all this, but what’s one missing adult video performer versus a warehouse full of firearms, right?”

It wouldn’t be the first time a case was dropped because someone decided the victim wasn’t worth it. Every one of those cases perforated something deep inside Sonny, and he knew Rico felt the same. 

“Anything I can help with, partner?”

“Yeah, actually,” Rico nodded. “If you’re feeling up to it, I might leave you with some files tomorrow. See if anything jumps out to you that I missed.”

“Sure,” Sonny grinned, spearing and eating a forkful of pasta. “I’d love to help.”

“Appreciate it. Castillo thinks I’m right— been stalling, but you know how he is.” Rico shrugged, just a little hitch of the shoulders. “I could use the help.”

The promise of being helpful propelled Sonny straight through dinner, past his next dose of pain medication, and into bed. Rico told him he ‘looked better,’ attributed it to food, and they shared a reasonably cheerful evening together. Sonny’s spirits were only dampened slightly by the incredible awkwardness of Rico hovering over him while he brushed his teeth and washed his face, and he tried very hard not to think about how bathing was going to work going forward.

In the dark, alone on a king sized bed, Sonny’s good mood found itself skidding into a wall. The first month or so they had been married, even if Caitlin had been gone, Sonny had stayed here. Tossing and turning. Drowning in the bizarre quiet of a near-suburban street, his only company the occasional cicada or someone driving too fast down a residential road. Missing Caitlin’s slim form next to him, missing the reassuring nighttime chorus of the harbor. Thinking about the cramped, noisy chaos of his home with Billy and Caroline, of how many nights his sleep was interrupted by his kid crawling in between him and his wife. Thinking about this sprawling house, full of rooms no one used, bereft of the telltale signs of domesticity.

And then at some point he had just started lying— letting Caitlin think of course he was at home, why wouldn’t he be— and sleeping instead on the Dance , in its creaking, sloshing, cocoon-like stern. When she came home, he returned to their house too, pretending like he’d never left. 

Gina (who had found out by accident, startling Sonny one morning on the deck of his own damn ship) had, with a look of nervous disdain, described it as ‘cheating on his wife with a boat.’ Theoretically she had meant it as a joke, but it felt close enough to the truth that he’d tried one more time to stick it out here. He made it a week before he was back on the Dance .

When he did suggest some minor discomfort with being alone in a damn mansion all the time, one night with Caitlin soft and breathless on top of him, she’d giggled and reminded him he was always free to quit and come on tour with her. 

Now the quiet was strange, punctuated with signs of life from across the hall. The water running, a door closing, bedsheets rustling. A half-muffled laugh, immediately squashed, lord knows what about.

And all Sonny could think about was how wrong this all was, with him here and Rico there. 

His brain felt like it was bobbing on the surface of the water— he couldn’t sleep, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open, either. His mouth was dry. He’d chase a thought down, dogged, on the trail of a rabbit, and it’d be gone the moment it was between his fingers. He rolled and it hurt; he laid still and it hurt. 

He wanted Rico. 

Wanted to put his arm around him and fall asleep against his shoulder. Feel the backs of his fingers soft against his forehead, his hair. Hear his breathing. Wanted this to be their bed, their house, their marriage. Hazy with drugs and sleeplessness, damned them both for neither of them having been born a girl, and then damned everybody else in the world for not having been born able to mind their own damn business and just let people live. Damned himself for being the world’s biggest coward. 

What sleep he managed to get was fitful, broken by bad dreams and pain. He was almost relieved when he awoke to light shimmering in through the blinds and a knock on the bedroom door.

“Come in,” he croaked, mouth so dry his tongue felt like a ball of socks.

Rico, fully dressed, peered through the door. 

“Hey partner.” He opened the door the rest of the way. “Sorry I can’t let you sleep, but you’re due for another dose of meds, and I wanted to make sure you were set until I could come back for lunch.” 

Rhetorical position weakened somewhat by being in a t-shirt and socks, tucked into a rumpled bed, Sonny groused a response. “I said I was good on the loopy pills and I meant it.”

Rico raised his hands in supplication. “Hey, I ain’t your doctor, Sonny. Take it up with him, but it says here on the bottle,” he read, “ ‘suddenly stopping this medication could have serious side effects. Speak with your doctor before changing or stopping your dosage.’ ” He raised his eyebrows.

“Fine,” Sonny spat, shuffling himself up to sitting on the bed, only wincing a little bit. “Drug me up, Timothy Leary.”

Rico only rolled his eyes a little bit. The barest of smiles and a gentle tilt to the set of his head, however, made it clear Sonny’s joke had landed. 

He gave Sonny two pills and a new glass of water, helped him get to the bathroom, and then set him up on the couch with a box of files and tapes. A folding medical transport wheelchair— the standard chrome and black pleather kind— loomed next to the couch. Sonny hadn’t seen this device make its way into his home.

Prepared for pushback, Rico stood with his back very straight and his arms crossed. “I’m not going to hear a word about it, okay? I’ll be back for lunch, so wait for me if you need something heavy moved or anything, but in the meantime, you gotta pee or get a damn Chocodile or something, you take one step to your right and get the rest of the way there in the chair, understand?” He scowled and kicked Sonny’s toes, more like footsie than a legitimate bonk. “If I come back and find you half dead on the floor I’m gonna finish the job myself.”

Sonny took a deep breath and interlaced his fingers behind his head, feigning ambivalence to hide his embarrassment. He’d obey, but he didn’t have to let Rico or anyone else see him do it. 

“If I feel fine to walk, I’ll walk,” he lied. “Physical therapy and all that.”

“Sonny, you can’t just—” Rico stopped, eyelids fluttering shut in annoyance as he realized Sonny was pulling his leg. “You got everything you need? Coffee, water, remote, phone?”

“I am all set up for a day of couch potatoing, Rico, you got nothin’ to worry about.”

“Alright,” he nodded. “Call if you need anything, and I’ll be back in a few hours.” He added with an exasperated little smile, “Make good choices,” and then spun on his heel to go get his keys.

Sonny decided to be an asshole about it.

“What, no kiss goodbye?”

Rico snorted, and then covered up a whole range of growing facial expressions with a smirk. He opened the door, held it with his foot, and looked Sonny square in the eye. “Your wife has way better lawyers than me, hell no.”

Fighting still to keep his expression neutral, Rico turned to leave.

“Have a good day!” Sonny called after him, grinning saccharine. 

Rico flipped him off, and it felt like a victory. 

His eyes had been sparkling, no matter what else his face was doing.

Feeling bolstered, Sonny took a sip of his coffee and flipped open the phonebook Rico had left on the side table. He called the doctor’s office, ready to tell him just what he could do with his idiot pills. Unfortunately, Rico was right, and the nurse on the other end of the line politely but firmly told him that he would need to stay the course for at least the next few days, and then they could reassess. She added that if there were concerns about a family history of addictive behavior, she could schedule a meeting with his surgeon and they could discuss alternatives. Sonny resisted the temptation to ask her if a drunk father counted— but it wasn’t like the prescription was actually this little girl’s fault.

He hung up the phone and forced himself to nibble the edge of the now cold toast Rico had brought for him, and opened up the box of files. Flipping through the papers, he got the general outline of the case— suspicious warehouse full of guns and porn, porno studio claims no involvement but mysteriously had a recent fire in their records department, at least three people involved in the gun running appear to match the descriptions of the adult entertainers, at least one of those people has gone missing, and, oh, drugs were involved but no one was really sure how. A mess. 

The drug stuff was especially baffling. According to Rico’s notes, almost all the videos produced by this company involved drug use, but there was absolutely not a scrap of evidence found at the sound stage. The company could have been telling the truth, and maybe the actors really were just snorting Pixy Stix and lighting up oregano, but Rico had written that he highly doubted that. 

Sonny glanced at the tapes in the box— blank VHS cartridges, dupes of dupes most likely. He chewed the rest of his toast, swallowed his pride, and transferred to the wheelchair to pop the tape into the VCR. 

He relocated back to the couch, flicked on the tape, and continued nursing his coffee.

There was some kind of nonsense plot, set at what seemed like a yacht club. Cute receptionist girl, a bunch of sailors talking about where to dock— might have been euphemistic, but mostly it was boring. When the receptionist started talking about bay numbers and tying rights, Sonny hit fast forward, waiting for the poor perky counter girl to get docked or tied herself.

He hit play again a few moments later, the static crackling back into an image.

An image of two of the sailors having a rather good time by themselves, without the assistance of the receptionist. 

What the fuck, Rico, Sonny breathed, immediately feeling his face color. Might’ve WARNED me…  

He tried to watch with a detective’s eye, and it dawned on him quite suddenly why no one really wanted to touch the case. He tried to picture anyone at the precinct sitting down to watch hardcore gay pornography and nearly had an anyeurism imagining Castillo’s reaction. Trudy might be able to take an earnestly objective approach, but no one else. Stan might just quit. 

He thought a touch too long about Rico watching, taking notes— did he get anything out of it? Did he find himself getting a little warm behind his ears and through his cheeks? Did he cover his mouth, trying to cover his feelings, and find himself instead thinking about someone else ’s fingers touching his lips?

One of the actors— a white man with a trim, perfect moustache— rolled himself onto his back with his partner still on top of him, and Sonny found himself drowning in memories of similar maneuvers performed on the Dance . He wondered ever-so-briefly if the doctor’s injunction against sex included masturbation, and then the reality of what he was contemplating dawned on him. He might be a sad and desperate man, hopped up on painkillers, but he was not a sad or desperate enough man to jack off to evidence. 

The other actor, a Hispanic man with a killer voice and an impressive… acting ability, reached down to touch his partner’s face in the midst of a lot of enthusiastic grinding. Sonny picked up Rico’s notebook and a pen and tried to watch only the upper right hand corner of the television.

“Captain, I’m having a little trouble relaxing… can you help me feel good?”

“You seem pretty relaxed to me, boatswain. Could you mean you want a little… EXTRA help?”

God this dialogue was embarrassing. Sony fast-forwarded again, this time landing on Moustache doing a line of coke off Pipes’ chest. Sonny contemplated briefly— wasn’t it Pipes who wanted — and then reprimanded himself for trying to make porn about drugs make sense.

He skipped around to the end of the tape, drained his coffee, and cross-referenced the lists of actors, gun runners, and missing persons. How in god’s name did any of this add up? He tapped the pen on the corner of the notepad and sighed. 

Well. 

Next tape.

Sonny wheeled himself to the TV, exchanged cassettes, and then rolled into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Screw the doctor and screw Vicodin, he was going to force himself to have a functioning frontal lobe. He settled back in and pressed play.

The following tale was set at a ski resort, but the story beats were very similar— a lot of bland patter about room numbers and ski sizes, and then sex, followed by drugs, with a chaser of further sex. The production values were not high, and there was really no artistry involved. Just a cocktail of gay fucking, substance abuse, and inanity. The men involved were attractive, but largely in a boy-next-door kind of way, and the sex itself was fairly vanilla outside of the drug use. Tape three was the same, this time at the gym. Tape four— firehouse, same idea. How any of it possibility related to gun smuggling was an absolute enigma. Sonny understood why the porn company had shrugged its way out of any implication of wrongdoing. 

He had just sat down with the fifth and final tape, a contraindicated fourth cup of coffee, and blue balls, when the door swung open. He started fumbling for the eject button but dropped the remote instead; Rico took one look at what was on the TV and sighed. 

“Tell me you’ve had better luck than me.” 

Sonny tried desperately to play it cool, but the realization that he had been watching gay porn all morning and now Rico knew that hit him like a bat to the temple. Hot through his ears and starting to sweat, he placed Rico’s notebook down on his lap as a shield. On the TV, a couple of sexy air conditioner repair men talked business.

The words that came out of his mouth were unplanned and undesired, drowned in venom.

“You watch all this shit for real?”

Oh good. Be homophobic about it. Great work, Crockett.

Rico nodded with a flutter of his eyelashes and an upward quirk of his eyebrows. He plopped his keys on the table and plopped himself down next to Sonny. Sonny flinched. And then immediately started feeling clammy and nauseated, because he flinched , and the last thing he ever wanted to do was make Rico think he was uncomfortable with him. 

Rico leaned over and picked up the dropped remote, eyeing Sonny vaguely from an oblique angle. 

He gestured at the TV with the remote. “I don’t get why every one of these tapes starts with six or seven minutes of… whatever this is.”

“So this isn’t how it is all the time with queer shit?” Sonny wanted to punch himself in the mouth. This was not a productive line of questioning. This was not a helpful conversation. And goddammit, he sure as hell wasn’t going to convince Rico he was some macho straight guy by badmouthing gay erotica when days before he had met his curent wife he was semi-regularly getting off with Rico’s dick up his ass .

Rico bristled in return. “What, you think I know enough about gay porn—”

Sonny interrupted him, eyes closed, hands up. “Rico, I—” He breathed out through his nose. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge. I…” He flopped back on the couch and crossed his arms. Under his breath he admitted, “I know. I know this isn’t how—” He clammed up again, unable to finish the sentence and state plainly that this wasn’t entirely his first rodeo. “I’m aware this is… a little odd.”

Quietly steadying his own breathing, Rico nodded. “Yeah. Me too.” He bit his lip and forced a smile. “I usually went more for magazines, though.”

Sonny laughed nervously. “I will never, ever tell you the story of the time I snuck into a girlie show as a teenager and it turned out to be, uh, more of a no-girls-at-all kinda flick, but know that I probably shoulda left… and didn’t.” 

Mouth a little tight, like he was still chewing on the inside of his lip, Rico’s nostrils flared slightly before his expression melted into a for-real smile. He looked off to the side. 

It occurred to Sonny that this might only have been the second time either of them had ever actually talked about their mutual attraction to guys, if that. The first or second time they both implied— agreed— it was anything more than oversized heterosexual libidos occasionally spilling out over inappropriate targets. 

Still smiling, Rico licked his lips and asked, “So which is your favorite, ski lodge…?”

Sonny’s stomach dropped before he realized Rico was joking. He smacked him on the arm. 

“They’re all terrible, you gotta fast forward through the first third of every tape.” 

They both laughed, like a screw turning counterclockwise. The tension dissipated even as one of the HVAC technicians on the television touched another handyman’s cheek, and bad dramatic acting gave way to somewhat better physical acting. 

Rico’s hand went to his mouth.

“Sonny.”

Sonny raised his eyebrows as Rico fumbled to rewind.

“Yeah?”

“You gotta fast forward through the first third of every tape. A company can’t stay in business making a product like that, that’s it, that’s what we’ve been missing, I—” He let the tape play.

“ No, what you need is…. a long rod. That’s part number 56. ”

“ I do love working with hot steel. Are you… good with your hands? ”

“God,” Sonny grumbled, “It’s like porn written by—”

“Shh!”

“If we’re gonna get this thing to… blow… we’re going to need a few nice tight washers…” The actor bent over suddenly, dropping all his screws and bolts and other hardware. He stayed folded at the middle, ass towards the camera. “Oh no… they all fell down the grate…”

One of the other actors gave him a solid pat on the posterior. “ It’s okay, Rocky, we all make mistakes. You can get more down the second hallway, in bay thirty .”

Rico paused, the camera still focused on Rocky’s denim-clad behind.

“It’s code.” He threw up his hands and leaned back almost violently. “They talk about all these random numbers in every one of these stupid-ass things, and you’re right, most people would just fast forward past it.”

“...unless you knew what you were looking for.”

“Exactly. “ He stood up with a groan. “I gotta call Castillo. And— then I’ll make lunch, sorry.” He picked the receiver up off the side table, pulling the antenna up as he dialed. After getting connected, he explained what they had figured out, artfully pretending it was an epiphany he had had on the way home. Certainly he wouldn’t have let Sonny get involved, no, that would be stupid, Sonny was asleep anyway from the Vicodin. Castillo agreed to buy a little more time to try to figure out the code, and Rico hung up triumphant. 

“Thank you.” Rico gave Sonny a little nod as he replaced the receiver. 

“For what? You figured it out.”

“Only ‘cause we started talking about it.” He paused briefly and looked Sonny over, just a little too long, a little too much pity in his eyes. “You feeling okay? Need anything? I just blew in here talking shop and didn’t even think to check in on you first.”

Sonny shook his head. “Please, keep it up. The less babying the better.” 

Rico ignored this. “You talk to the doctor?”

“Yeeeahh,” Sonny grumbled. “Nurse, anyway. Said she liked me better with brain rot, but that we could ‘reassess in a few days.’”

A little half smile stirred in the corner of Rico’s mouth. “Sounds about right. You hungry?”

“Not particularly.”

“Did you eat anything?”

“I ate the toast.”

Rico turned and walked towards the kitchen, but not quickly enough for Sonny to miss his eye rolling. 

“Don’t give me that look, pal,” Sonny complained, crossing his arms. “One of the side effects of the stupid pain pills is ‘decreased appetite.’”

Once again, Rico ignored him. “Sandwiches okay?”

“Sandwiches are a-OK, chef.”

At this Rico smiled, digging through the kitchen drawers.

After opening a fifth drawer, he asked, “You got a bread knife by any chance?”    

Sonny shrugged. He only ever bought pre-sliced, and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever seen Caitlin eat a sandwich in the house. Eventually Rico found something serrated— said it was a ‘tomato knife,’ which seemed utterly ridiculous to Sonny— and managed to cut some bread. He made Sonny turkey on the rye; for himself he created something suspicious and vegetal that included sliced canned beets. Sonny shuddered at the idea of beet juice dripping through sliced bread, but held his tongue. Rico practically swallowed his sandwich whole, they made brief companionable conversation, and then he was back on the road.

Alone once again, Sonny watched the first few minutes of each of the tapes again, writing down every number that was spoken and the context it was said in. It was abnormally laborious work— he kept forgetting specific digits and having to rewind, and at one point he fell asleep. He managed to eat most of his sandwich before eating grew tiresome, and rolled himself to the glass doors in the back to toss the last bite out for the birds so Rico wouldn’t know he didn’t finish. 

He called— Trudy, specifically— with the data, because if anyone could figure it out it was her, and got reprimanded for not convalescing adequately. Nonetheless, she thanked him, and he felt a little bit more like a human being. When it was time for his next dose of medication, he dutifully took it and promptly fell asleep. Upon rising, he drank a glass of orange juice and ate half an out-of-date Whitney’s Apples and Raisins, and contemplated rolling himself off a pier just to stop feeling like his brains were made of spray foam. He decided to read instead, and fell asleep once again. 

Rico came home— well. Rico came over around dinner, cooked, and they watched half an episode of something-or-other on the tube before having to undertake the mortifying experience of ‘ Bathing with Your Friend, with a Bullet Wound! ’ Rico seemed to take the whole experience in stride, but god, Sonny felt like an invalid child. He kept his eyes mostly closed and spoke as little as possible, willing it to be done, promising himself he would be up on his feet and able to fucking bathe himself in no time. Sleep that night was elusive; his dreams were jagged-edged and nauseous. 

The next few days were more of the same, except with less to do— new case files were slim— and more painful as he set himself to work trying some of the physical therapy he was supposed to be doing with supervision. The sooner he could walk safely from one room to another, the sooner he could convince Rico to leave, and the sooner he could go back to the damn Dance and stop playing house with his best friend in his wife’s home. Around day three he started skipping his midday dose of Vicodin and spent most of his daylight hours feeling like someone was feeling around in his guts for their keys. At least he was able to stay awake.

On what might have been Friday— or was it Thursday?— while he was making a determined attempt to read something through the increasing midday discomfort, the phone rang. He picked it up and squeezed the receiver between his ear and shoulder, book still in his other hand.

“Crockett here, shoot.”

“Uh—” There was a sound like a swallow, a moment’s confusion. “Hi. Is Ricardo there?”

Huh. Who called Rico ‘Ricardo’ and would be calling Sonny’s number?

Sonny put on a customer service voice. “Not currently. May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Lamont— uh, Lamont Carter. Can you just let him know I called?”

“You want me to take a message?”

“Nah,” the man on the other end declined, suddenly casual, “It’s cool, just tell him to call me back.” 

“Alright,” Sonny nodded to no one. “I will tell… Ricardo that when he gets back tonight.”

“Cool, thanks, man.”

Sonny wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but the caller hung up before he had to.

Lamont Carter , huh. 

The name didn’t sound familiar, but that meant very little considering the reduced state of his brain functioning this last week. He hobbled over to the box of case files on the counter, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have skipped the lunch dose today, and thumbed through them, leaning harder on his left than his right. It wasn’t one of the people involved in the porn case, although he recalled there was a Lawrence Carter playing the role of a sexy firefighter, so he hadn’t been too far off. The other two cases in the box were strikes as well. 

The caller could have been one of Rico’s informants— there were a handful of people, especially a couple of gunshy parolees, who would talk to him but not Sonny— but then he probably wouldn’t have called him Ricardo. Sonny assumed from the moniker that this man was a stranger, but if he were a stranger, how’d he get Sonny’s number?

He tapped his fingers against the kitchen counter, thinking, and then made his way back to the couch and dialed the phone.

“Trudy, can I ask you a favor?”

“Hello to you, too, Sonny.”

“I need you to check into someone’s background for me.”

“Oh, I’m doing great, and you?”

Sonny sighed. She wasn’t wrong.

“I’m sorry. I got a weird call and—” He breathed out raggedly. “You havin’ a good day, darlin’?”

“Busy. You?”

“Not busy. Want me to take some of that workload offa you?”

“No. Aren’t you supposed to be relaxing?”

“Who are you, my doctor?”

Trudy sighed audibly on the other end. “Give me the name.”

“Lamont Carter. Got a tip and just want to make sure he’s on the level,” he lied. 

“Okay, Sonny. And I won’t even ask how you got a tip when you’re on bed rest.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” she cautioned, a smile in her voice. 

“Talk to you later.” 

With that taken care of, he checked the time. It would be a few hours still until Rico got back. He decided it was time to make a stupid decision, and grabbed his keys. 

The gnawing pain in his back and his stomach seemed to evaporate right out of him with his foot on the clutch, watching the RPM tick up before letting go and pushing out, away from the development, towards the open road. Around the corner into second, third, feeling the engine strain against his hand on the transmission, pulling for a higher gear as he increased his speed. On the highway he floored it and overshifted into fifth, blowing past waves of commuter cars and people out on errands. 

With the engine and the transmission spinning together in perfect time, gears engaged in a lockstep dance, Sonny felt like his brain was functioning at the right rotational speed for the first time since waking up in the hospital. He darted between cars and barreled around curves so fast he could feel the Testarossa straining to lift up on one side; calm settled like dew around his head and shoulders. The speedometer climbed and Sonny kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor, the Florida sun a strobe light through buildings and bridge struts. 

And he was weightless.

And it didn’t matter that he might have a dull ache around the base of his spine for the rest of his life.

And it didn’t matter that his wife was halfway across the country and had decided she didn’t need to come home when he was hurting. When he had very nearly died.

And it didn’t matter that he probably should never have married her, or that he was still in love with his best friend. 

All that mattered was the tachometer, and the feeling of the tires biting into the road, and the hot, silken-wet breeze through the open windows.

He drove for a long time— up the A1A, past Miami Beach and North Beach, up, up towards Hollywood, until the highway turned westward into Fort Lauderdale. Back out to the ocean on Seabreeze, and then he followed the coast almost to Palm Beach, then made a sharp return west on 98 towards Sixmile Bend and down into the Everglades. He cruised back to Miami with placid black water and snaking trees on either side of him, and pulled back into the driveway no more than twenty minutes before Rico. 

There was a message on the answering machine when he arrived. Briefly, his blood ran cold— if it was Rico, would he believe him if he told him he had slept through the ringer?

His luck held; it was Caroline, just checking in on him.

God, what a fuck up he was. She was such a good girl. 

He called her back and was talking to Billy when Rico’s key turned in the door. They waved to each other quietly, and Rico disappeared down the hall, probably to use the bathroom. Sonny finished his call not long after Rico came back, significantly less dressed with his jacket off and his shirt mostly unbuttoned, and planted himself in front of the fridge. He grabbed a can of soda and turned towards Sonny once the phone was back in its cradle. 

“Was that Caitlin?”

Sonny shook his head. “Caroline.”

Rico’s eyebrows hitched upwards but he didn’t say anything. He opened his soda and took a quiet sip, his back to the fridge. 

“Any chance you thought about what you might want for dinner tonight?”

Sonny made a noise that leaned a bit more towards whine than grumble .

“So, no .” He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand. “Maybe tonight’s a takeout night.”

“Sure.” Sonny shrugged, pretending that didn’t take a weight off his shoulders. “There’s a couple of menus in the little drawer next to the fridge.”

Rico sipped his soda and pulled out a handful of folded pamphlets. He leafed through them, making quiet papery noises and a series of less than enthused facial expressions.

“I could kinda go for Exquisito but we’d have to drive…” He trailed off, listless. “Wanna just split a pizza?”

“Sure, pizza’s good,” Sonny nodded. “Cheese or you want somethin’ weird on it?” 

“Cheese is fine,” Rico mouthed, almost subaudible, shelving the menus once again. 

Sonny picked up the phone to dial, frowning at Rico. “Hey. You okay?”

Rico looked earnestly surprised, and pointed at himself with furrowed brows. “Me? Yeah.” He shrugged. “Just tired, man.” 

Sonny’s stomach sank. Of course he was tired— the man basically had two full time jobs taking care of Sonny. He pictured himself this morning, struggling to complete leg lifts and bends, and promised himself he’d do better tomorrow. That he’d be better soon. The phone rang four or five times before the pizza place picked up— busy on a Friday night— but it was not enough time to think of something worthwhile to say to reassure Rico that this would not be a permanent stay. 

He ordered, thanked the squeaky teenager on the other end of the line, and hung up the phone. 

“All set— said it should be here in about 45.”

“Damn.” Rico half-smiled, clearly faking it. “I’m hungry now.”

“You could have the other half of the grapefruit I ate earlier— Oh!” Sonny snapped his fingers, suddenly remembering what had happened shortly after he had returned the citrus fruit to the fridge. “You got a call. Someone named Lamont, told me to tell you to call him back.” 

Rico made an unreadable face and very briefly covered his mouth with the backs of his fingers, eyebrows ever so slightly furrowed. “Oh, uh, thanks.” He nodded and sipped his drink again, and then his mouth twitched to the side. “I should probably call him back.”

“He part of the DeSoto case? Name didn’t sound familiar.”

Draining the rest of his soda, Rico shook his head. He breathed heavily, not quite a sigh. “You don’t know him. I told a couple of people if they needed me they could call me here, sorry. Should’ve said evenings.”

“New informant?”

“No. Can I use the phone in the studio or is that… direct to Caitlin’s agent or something?”

“Sure,” Sonny acquiesced, suddenly feeling like something was compressing him from all sides. Like a high pressure front had moved in over the couch, like he was about to get an x-ray with an invisible lead blanket. “Is everything okay? You’re not in trouble or anything, are you?” Stomach churning like hurricane season, he shrugged, trying not to broadcast his fear. “I know I’m not much good like this, but if this guy is hassling you or something…” 

Rico rubbed at his bearded chin with his palm, and then jammed his hands in his pockets.

“I’m fine, Sonny, it’s really not…” He sighed again, eyes darting over in the direction of Caitlin’s music studio. 

“Then who the hell is this guy that you gotta talk to him on the other line?”

Mouth half open, Rico’s eyes fluttered shut in obvious and growing annoyance. He closed his mouth, opened his eyes, and looked at Sonny with painful, piercing clarity. 

“He’s someone I’m seeing.”

It took Sonny a beat longer than it should have to understand. His jaw hung open and his head lilted to the side like a confused dog before he managed to cough, “ Seeing seeing? Like, dating?”

“Well,” Rico hemmed, eyes off to the side, “Dating isn’t… really the right word. But… I guess, yeah.”

The hole in Sonny’s guts felt like it was yawning wider, threatening to eat him from the inside out. 

“You’re dating a guy ?”

“This ain’t a letterman jacket situation, Sonny, I—”

Sonny’s heart flopped uselessly against his ribcage, his palms sweaty, his breath shallow.

“Isn’t— isn’t that a little risky?”

Rico ran his fingers through the front of his hair and switched which leg he was putting weight on. His mouth flattened. 

He let one ear drop just a hair lower than the other and looked Sonny dead in the eye. “And what we were doing wasn’t?”  

Sonny felt himself immediately redden, from the top of his skull to his chest, the gnawing feeling inside him threatening to erupt into full blown gnashing. He wanted any excuse not to be having this conversation. His mouth was dry but god, no, the space between his sinuses was not , and he was not going let this be anything but objective and civil and he was not going to blink heavily and he was not going to let his chest shudder when he spoke and god fucking dammit he sure as hell was going to speak without a waver. 

Not for the first time, he wished that he just hadn’t woken up after getting shot.

It would be so much easier for everyone. Caitlin would be free, not tied down to some sad sack local hick who wouldn’t ever be able to get his head around her life. Billy would be sad, sure, for a little while, but a dead father might still manage to cause less damage than a bad one. Rico would never have to babysit him again, never have to push him to open up and talk like a damn person , never have to deal with the fallout of his bad choices again. Could move on. Get a new partner, someone reliable. Someone who didn’t want him so badly it felt like a tear in his soul. 

He swallowed.

And smiled.

“Hey, hey, man, just surprised is all.” He couldn’t have this conversation as himself, but he could play a role. He felt his voice go a little high and a lot slick, and let his smile be genial, poised over wolfish teeth. “I just remember you saying that you’re, y’know, mostly straight. Figured with you an’ me it was half about, I mean, convenience, right?” 

Maybe he was imagining it from behind the blur of salt in his eyes, but for a split second, Rico looked angry— not just angry— disgusted. 

But he sighed and shrugged. “Yeah. That’s what I told myself for a long time, too.” He picked his empty soda can up and tapped it twice on the counter, and then his hands went back in his pockets. “I’m not gonna go join the Lavender Hill Mob, but I can’t keep claiming I’m not a damn queer when…” He shrugged again, looking off into the middle distance. “When I am.” He rolled his eyes as he let his eyelids fall closed, one corner of his mouth pulled to the side. “Least part-time, anyway.”

Before Sonny could respond to any of this, he gestured towards the studio with the top of his head. “I’m gonna go call.”

Sonny bit hard on the inside of his lip, until he tasted blood. 

He calmly stood up and walked to the kitchen, the real pain in his middle throbbing in time with everything else he was feeling. He silently poured himself a few fingers of dark rum, taking a hefty swig from the bottle as a tax. And he sipped, bit by bit, standing at the counter with his stomach clenched and churning.

He wanted to break the glass and feel it bite into his skin.

If Rico was— 

If it hadn’t just been something easy , something locker-room, something that made sense because they were together all the time anyway— 

If they— 

He couldn’t finish any of those thoughts. 

He finished his drink instead, and put the rum away before Rico could see it. 

He sat back down and turned on the TV and saw absolutely nothing on it.

An ad for Actifed had just finished rolling when Rico made his way back to the living room.

“Y’ever wonder,” Sonny muttered, looking straight forward even as Rico sat down on the arm of the couch, “Why an astronaut would agree to be in a runny nose commercial?”

“Money?” Rico half-chuckled. “Belief in the efficacy of the product?”

Sonny snorted. He continued to keep his eyes pointed squarely at the screen.

“Sonny…”

Whatever was coming next— probably a diatribe about not lying to yourself or some bullshit— Sonny did not want to hear it. He focused on some stylish women driving a tiny, boxy red Toyota while everything behind them turned to retro pink and blue neon. 

“Do you think you’d be okay by yourself tonight?” Rico paused and added, “Not all night. But I’d probably be back pretty late.” He quickly tacked on, “It’s fine if the answer is no.”

Apparently the Toyota Tercel EZ was only $5998, but had contemporary up to the minute stylings. 

What if he did say no? 

Told Rico he didn’t like the idea of being alone?

Told him he, frankly, didn’t like the idea of him fucking anyone other than him?

Instead, he whined, “We just ordered pizza.”

Rico laughed. “No one’s gonna force you to eat the whole thing. You got tinfoil.” 

Some unconvincing teenagers in red visors tried to convince Sonny that, apparently, a national chicken chain was ‘home.’ 

Unable to look at Rico, he nodded. 

“Alright, pal, but don’t complain if I don’t let you have any leftovers.”

“Noted,” he laughed, again, and then he stood up. “I’m gonna leave a number for you to call if anything goes sideways, okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

“You sure you’re okay with me being out a little while longer?”

“Of course,” Sonny lied. He pictured Rico, wrists pinned, a bead of sweat running down the middle of his chest, past his necklace, gold on brown peppered with black. “You go have fun.”

After three or four more attempts to reassure himself that all of this was somehow fine, Rico left, locking the door behind him. Sonny could hear the Cadillac drive away, and he hurled one of the throw pillows at the TV. Larry and Balki didn’t seem to care. 

He buried his face in the collar of his shirt and spit obscenities, tossing all the cushions and the TV remote across the living room. He picked up the phone and tossed it at the door, where it smashed hard enough to pop the battery out. He threw the empty glass on the side table limply on the ground, angry enough to throw it but ashamed enough not to break it. He’d have to explain the glass when Rico got back if he did that. 

When his temper tantrum was over, mostly because he was out of things to toss other than the lamp, he went back to the kitchen and swallowed more of the rum in a few long draughts from the bottle. The burn in his throat mirrored the burn behind his eyes, and for a half second he wondered if maybe the doctor had a point and binge drinking on pain meds might not be a stellar idea.

For an even briefer moment, the thought scraped at the edge of his mind— maybe that would be fine, actually. He could take the dose he missed along with tonight’s and— 

He took a deep breath.

He looked at the tall glass bottle in his hand.

With a long exhale, he poured the rest of the rum down the drain, and faster than he’d managed in days, walked to the bathroom and flushed the rest of the Vicodin. 

Fuck the doctor. Withdrawal was better than dead.

He poured himself a glass of water with shaking hands and waited for pizza to arrive, trying desperately not to think about Rico and whoever this asshole he was seeing was. 

Rico had always dated lots of girls. Sonny had been jealous on some level, but in the same way you might be jealous of someone who was naturally very tall or had a fantastic singing voice. Stuff you couldn’t change, not worth beating yourself up about. He knew Rico— knew he would eventually decide one of these girls was the real deal and try to make it work long term. And he knew that kind of relationship was impossible for the two of them. As long as they were both men, both cops , he would never be someone Rico could ‘settle down’ with. The fact that Rico seemed to have absolutely no interest in other men only made that even more certain— Rico wasn’t even into guys, he just wasn’t all that picky about who helped him get his rocks off. He wasn’t like Sonny, forever falling face-first for anyone who tossed him a little bit of warmth and attention. Mooning after all the wrong women and all the wrong men. 

Except…

Turns out he was.

Sonny half-watched the beginning of Dallas, stewing in self-loathing.

If he had been a little braver, could they… could they have been something? 

Or was that just vanity? Thinking that if Rico had to pick a guy, well of course it’d be him. 

He flipped the channel, choosing to half-watch Quantum Leap instead. Rico had really said it out loud— called himself queer. Sonny could barely admit that he had really only changed the channel because, if he wasn’t paying attention to the plot anyway, Scott Bakula was nicer to look at than Larry Hagman. 

What.

A.

Chump.

Pizza arrived and Sonny ate a single slice, stomach still too unruly for anything else. He wrapped the rest, picked up after his spat with the furniture, and sat back down on the rebuilt couch. 

He dialed Caitlin, hoping he hadn’t broken the phone.

Unsurprisingly, he got her voicemail. She was probably on stage. He closed his eyes and thought about the way she smiled, sparkling and looking down whenever he said something stupid— the soft lilt in her voice— how she looked, sounded, how she felt when they were moving together in the dark— and he willed her home. He would feel better if she were home. It wouldn’t matter that Rico was out on a date with some guy— some guy who called him Ricardo , for god’s sake. 

He couldn’t exactly ask her to come home early, not after he had told her not to. But maybe if he just thought hard enough about it, she’d know he needed her and figure it out herself. 

Of course, Caitlin’s voicemail didn’t solve his current loneliness. Or his mounting fear that he might not be totally safe with only his traitor brain for company. His fingers ghosted over the buttons on the receiver.

He could call Gina.

She would come in an instant, and tell him everything he wanted to hear. And it would be completely, totally unfair, no matter how much her presence might soothe his ego. She had told him off, a long time ago, for using her, and she had been right. And he had kept using her anyway— just less frequently, and without the added benefit of sex. 

No.

Instead, that had become Rico’s job. 

Cold squirmed viscous, like gel spilling from a punctured refrigerant packet, through Sonny’s chest. Sure, he’d felt kind of embarrassed and guilty about Rico doing all this for him. But he had also found the idea very comfortable, because… because he expected it of him. He knew Rico would always pick him up off the floor at the end of the day. Sure, that was what your partner was supposed to do, technically, but Sonny had never had the same kind of relationship with anyone else he’d ever worked with. He relied on Rico to be his boundaries, and his support, and his conscience, and his best friend, and for a long time, his lover. 

And if it was unfair to Gina, god, what the hell was wrong with him? How was it in any way fair that he turned around and expected the same of Rico? 

He had expected all of that this week, and then gotten mad when Rico wasn’t meeting those expectations. And why would he, when Sonny was the one who’d fucked their relationship to begin with?

Sonny’s thoughts kept drifting back to the summer of 1986. It had been rainy that year— sultry and grey, with evenings that beckoned hazy-dark through sea scented drizzle. He remembered so many nights that summer listening to rain hit  the Dance ’s deck, skin to skin with Rico, brows shiny with perspiration, needed laughter in their mouths. They had been doing the friends with benefits thing throughout the spring, but after what happened with Rico’s kid— an event he still refused to talk about— something had shifted. The words ‘partners’ took on a necessarily rounder meaning when almost every morning Sonny was waking up with Rico’s arm around him or his back pressed against him or their legs tangled together. When they were cooking each other breakfast and cracking each other right the hell up over anything and everything all night long.

He had been happier then. And a better friend. 

But it had been too much happy for him to handle. Too close to a relationship . He had backed out, pushed Rico away, dated as many girls as he could to put some distance between them. And now that boat had not only sailed, the shipyard had been dismantled. 

Summer of ‘86. That would have been his chance. 

He thought maybe he dreamt of Rico’s touch on his face, but when he stirred to wakefulness he found that he hadn’t been dreaming after all. Rico, looking handsome and disheveled and tired, had the backs of his fingers on Sonny’s forehead. He blinked, reflexively drawing back slightly out of surprise.

“Sorry,” Rico chuckled, an apologetic trill in his voice. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just got a little nervous when I saw you asleep here and not the bed.” 

“It’s okay,” Sonny croaked, trying to get his bearings. He had fallen asleep on the couch, apparently, with the TV tuned to the test signal. He touched his forehead where Rico had just done the same. “Oh. God. I’m really sweaty.”

“That’s part of why I was kind of nervous. You’re a little pale, too.” He took Sonny’s hand and pressed two fingers to the inside of his wrist, silently counting. “You feel okay?”

Sonny nodded. 

“I’m gonna get you a glass of juice.”

Rico quickly poured some apple juice into a tall glass and brought it over, sitting next to Sonny on the couch. He smelled like cologne. Not his own. 

Sonny ignored this and gulped down half the apple juice. He figured maybe he should wait until morning to tell Rico he had skipped two doses of pain meds in a row, but that was almost certainly why he was feeling a little off. Once his mouth was a little less dry, he managed a thank you.

And an apology.

“Thanks, man. Feel better already.” He paused, very briefly. Not long enough to lose his momentum. “Rico… I’m sorry. That I…” He shrugged. “I’ve been acting kind of like an asshole, and all you’re tryin’ to do is help me, so. I’m sorry.”

Rico shook his head. “It’s fine, Sonny. I think everyone’s a little cranky after getting shot.” 

Sonny didn’t let him continue. “And I’m… I didn’t mean to react the way I did earlier. About you goin’ out. It’s none of my business who you’re getting your jollies with.” He raised his eyebrows high and feigned a smirk. “Unless your new beau’s a drug dealer or the wife of a mob kingpin or something.” 

With a sheepish glance off to the side and a self-deprecating chuckle, Rico nodded. He licked his lips. “I’m… I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have left tonight, that was…” 

“Hey, stop, okay? You’re allowed to have some fun, man.”

“It was irresponsible. You’re less than a week out of the hospital and… besides, it’s kind of a dick move to go out and…” He shrugged, eyes briefly flaring wide, “ party when you’re stuck on the couch, anyway.”

“I’m a married man, Rico, no partying for me even without a hole in my guts.” He slapped his friend on the back and they both laughed, tired and nervous. Out of practice. “Y’have a good time, at least?”

The tiny half-smile and passing crinkle at the corner of Rico’s eyes told Sonny everything he needed to know, and it made his throat and chest tight. He held his tongue and played supportive friend.

After all, he realized, finally, far too late, the weight of it settling on him like a funerary shroud: Rico had done the same for him with Caitlin, hadn’t he?

“Yeah,” Rico mumbled, quiet, still sitting with the ghost of a smile. “Still feel a little guilty, though.”

Sonny summoned all his strength and teased him about it. “What, you do something you wouldn’t want to talk about with your priest?”

Rico smacked him. “Guilty about leaving a guy with a brand new express lane to his organs to fend for himself all night.”

Pinching the flesh of Rico’s arm, Sonny asked, singsong, “You gonna see him again?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Rico laughed. 

“What’s he do for a living? Doctor, lawyer…?” Sonny made a face like a cherub, fanning his eyelashes and smiling beatifically.

Rico rolled his eyes and punched him in the arm. “Alright, mom , I think it’s time to get us both to bed.” He clicked off the TV and stood up, offering out his hand.

Sonny took it, and let it be nothing more than a friend helping a friend get up.

His dreams were still restless, a maelstrom of guilt and longing and regret, but his days began to settle into a comfortable pattern. He admitted to Rico that he’d disposed of the Vicodin, which he grudgingly accepted. He started helping in the kitchen— seated with a cutting board at the table at first, and then standing at the counter when he proved he could do it safely. Caitlin called back, and they talked for a long time, Sonny opening up about some of his guilt and doubts and discomfort about relying on his friends so much. She reassured him that if they didn’t want to, they wouldn’t be doing it, and asked him if he would do the same in the opposite position, which of course he would. She then proceeded to tell him she would not, as previously implied, be home this week, and the whole rest of the conversation soured. Even if early on he had told himself he was better off alone, he had to admit, he missed her. He didn’t understand why she didn’t seem to miss him the same way.

Some nights Rico traded shifts with Gina or Trudy or Swi, and on one truly bizarre evening, Izzy dropped by with a rotisserie chicken and a two liter bottle of Fresca. During the days, he worked case files and did paperwork, made phonecalls, did physical therapy. Drove. In the evenings he and Rico would talk over dinner, the stiffness in their conversation gone along with Sonny’s seething, and they’d play cards or watch a movie or walk, slowly, around the neighborhood. Once or twice they fell asleep together on the couch, waking pressed close, heads on shoulders and hands on thighs, and Sonny bit down on all his worst instincts and just let it be. 

In a strange way, it was like that summer two years ago, but in mimeo. Duller. Blurrier. The passion all drained out, but so with it the fear, too. It wasn’t the same, but of course, it never would be. There had been a time where maybe Rico could have loved him, did, maybe. Sonny set himself the impossible project of making peace with that. 

Another week passed, and Sonny wheedled his way back into desk work, and convinced Rico that he was mobile enough to not need a live-in caretaker. 

Rico had hesitated.

“I had really hoped that…”

“That Caitlin would be back?”

He had scratched at his chin through his beard, looking away.

Sonny had shrugged, and sighed.

“Yeah. Me too.”

But if he were being honest with himself, at some point, he had stopped thinking about it. She had said it herself— the people who cared about him wouldn’t be there, fussing over him if they didn’t want to. She was busy, sure. But so was all of Vice.

Caitlin would come home when she came home. And they would bicker and flirt and have spectacular sex, and then she would leave again. She had her own life to live, and so did Sonny.

Maybe a Room of Our Own kind of marriage was the only kind of marriage someone like Sonny could really manage, when it came down to it.

Too bad that had never felt like the case with Rico.

He was distracted, looking over files, when Caitlin called the station another two weeks down the line. She talked a little about her sold out shows in Miami— weren’t they all— and he continued reading something about a recent home invasion, no clear motive, no real leads. She’d be on a plane this evening, home for about five minutes, and then off to practice before Sonny would even have time to ask her how the flight was. When there was a pause in the lengthy explanation of her itinerary, he absentmindedly looked at his calendar. 

Glancing at today’s schedule, he murmured, “I'll be there at, um…”

“Sonny?” She interrupted.

“8:10, when your plane gets in.” Sonny scratched his stomach, suddenly noticing a sticky note from someone in homicide. 

Caitlin kept talking, clearly not hearing him, clearly not hearing that he needed to get off the phone and do his job. “When I get home, we gotta talk.”

We need to talk .

In Sonny’s experience, that was code for either “we’re breaking up” or “I cheated on you,” or both.

“...You okay, babe?”

Not that it would be the end of the world if that’s what she wanted. 

“You worry about everything.” Her voice was tight— a smile over her own worries. And telling him he was a worrywart was not, in fact, an answer to his question. She headed off any further questions, quickly purring, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He did mean it. 

    But if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely sure he meant it enough to press her any further on whatever it was they needed to talk about. Before he could summon the effort, she hung up.

Sonny sat with the receiver in his hand, twirling the cord with his pinky, one foot up on his desk. He bit the inside of his cheek. 

Rico wandered over, quiet, one hand in his pocket. He looked right through Sonny’s casual posture and asked, “You okay, partner?”

You okay, babe?

He did the same thing he had just heard his wife do and lied, smiling.

“Yeah.” Turning around so Rico couldn’t see his eyes, he reiterated it. Quiet. “Yeah.” 

He could feel Rico’s gaze follow him as he walked around to his own desk, and he changed the subject immediately, brandishing the mysterious sticky note. 

“Who’s this guy… uh, Bob Richardson, from homicide?” 

We need to talk , goddammit, why would you say something like that to someone over the phone. Just wait until you’re face to face and have the balls to rip the bandaid off in one go. He had wanted to see her, have her share a little bit of his pain and his healing for a month now, and now instead it was just one more damn thing to be anxious about. 

He looked to Rico for a response. 

For now, there was the case. And there was Rico, so perfectly attuned to his moods it was like a knife to the heart.

He would see Caitlin soon enough.