Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Distance
Detroit, Michigan - January 2040
The apartment was cold again.
Richard Stern pulled his threadbare sweater tighter around his shoulders, fingers trembling as he tried to grip the fabric. The heating had been cut off three days ago- or was it four? Time had a way of blurring together when every day was the same struggle. He sat at his easel in the corner of the studio apartment, the only space he could afford in Detroit's decaying industrial district, and stared at the half finished canvas before him.
A commission. Just finish the commission.
The painting was supposed to be a portrait; some corporate executive's wife, her features soft and forgettable. The kind of work that paid. The kind of work that kept the lights on. Richard had been working on it for two weeks, and it should have been done by now, but his hands...
He flexed his right hand slowly, feeling the familiar ache radiate from his wrist up through his forearm. It had started six months ago, a dull throb after long painting sessions. He'd ignored it. Artists worked through pain; that's what they did. You pushed through because the alternative was not creating at all, and not creating meant not eating.
But it was getting worse.
Richard picked up his brush, the wooden handle feeling foreign in his grip. His fingers didn't want to close properly around it anymore. There was a numbness there, a disconnection between what his brain told his hand to do and what his hand actually did. He pressed the bristles to the canvas, attempting a delicate stroke along the woman's cheekbone.
The line came out jagged. Unsteady.
"Fuck," he whispered, setting the brush down and cradling his hand. The pain was sharper today, a burning sensation that traveled up to his elbow. He should probably see a doctor. He should probably do a lot of things.
But doctors cost money. Money he didn't have.
His phone buzzed on the floor beside him—he'd sold the nightstand months ago—and Richard's heart lifted despite everything. He knew who it was. The only person who ever called.
Gavin Reed - Video Call
Richard quickly ran his good hand through his dark hair, trying to make himself presentable. He couldn't let Gavin see how bad things had gotten. Not yet. Not when Gavin was finally, finally coming to visit. He accepted the call and Gavin's face filled the small screen, those sharp gray eyes and perpetual scowl that somehow always made Richard's chest warm.
"Hey," Gavin said, and even that one word carried the rough Detroit accent that Richard had fallen in love with years ago. "You look like shit."
"Nice to see you too," Richard replied, managing a smile. He angled the phone carefully, making sure Gavin could only see his face and a bit of the canvas behind him, not the rest of the apartment. Not the empty kitchenette or the pile of blankets on the floor that served as his bed after he'd sold the mattress.
"Long night?" Gavin asked, leaning back in what looked like his desk chair. Richard could see the familiar backdrop of Gavin's apartment in Philadelphia; actual furniture, actual warmth. The comparison stung.
"Just focused on this piece," Richard said. "Commission. Due soon."
Gavin's eyes narrowed slightly, that detective's gaze that missed nothing. "You eating?"
"Of course." The lie came easily now. Richard had gotten good at lying. "You worry too much."
"Yeah, well, someone's gotta." Gavin's expression softened, just barely. "Two more weeks, Rich. Two more weeks and I'm there. We're gonna finally do this right."
Two more weeks. Richard's stomach twisted with a complicated mix of longing and dread. He wanted nothing more than to see Gavin in person, to touch him, to prove that this thing between them was real and solid. But he didn't want Gavin to see him like this; broke, struggling, falling apart at the seams.
"I can't wait," Richard said, and that part was true.
They'd met four years ago in an online art community. Gavin had been looking for someone to do a painting of his late mother from an old photograph, and Richard had taken the commission. What started as a professional transaction had turned into late-night conversations, then video calls, then something neither of them had quite expected. Love, maybe, though they'd never said the word out loud. It felt too fragile to speak.
The distance had been the main obstacle. Gavin in Philadelphia, Richard in Detroit. And then there was Gavin's work. Detective Reed worked long hours, brutal cases, the kind that left him exhausted and hollow-eyed on their calls. He'd been trying to transfer to Detroit's DPD for almost two years now, but the bureaucracy moved at a glacial pace. So they'd waited. And waited.
And now Gavin had finally just booked the trip. Fuck the transfer, he was using his saved up vacation time to spend three weeks with Richard. To see if this thing between them could survive reality.
"How's the precinct?" Richard asked, desperate to deflect attention from himself.
Gavin groaned. "Fucking circus. We've got this new android detective that everyone's kissing ass to, and I'm stuck with the shit cases nobody else wants. Par for the course." He paused, studying Richard through the screen. "You sure you're okay? You look pale."
"Just the lighting," Richard said quickly. "The bulb in here is dying."
Another lie. The bulb had died two months ago, and he couldn't afford to replace it. He painted by the gray winter light from the single window now, and when night fell, he just sat in the dark.
Gavin didn't look convinced, but he let it go. He always let it go, and Richard was grateful for that. "So what're you working on? Let me see."
Richard shifted the camera to show the canvas, keeping his hand out of frame. "Corporate commission. Not my best work, but it pays."
"Pays for what? More ramen?" Gavin's tone was teasing, but there was an edge to it.
"Pays the bills," Richard said, turning the camera back to his face. He tried for a smile. "Don't worry about me, Gav. I'm managing."
Managing. Such a generous word for barely surviving.
They talked for another twenty minutes, falling into their familiar rhythm. Gavin complained about his captain, about the android rights protests that were making his job harder, about the coffee at the precinct that tasted like battery acid. Richard listened, offering comments and laughs in the right places, letting Gavin's voice wash over him like something warm and solid.
He didn't mention the eviction notice that had been slipped under his door yesterday. He didn't mention that he'd run out of paint thinner and couldn't afford more. He didn't mention the constant, gnawing hunger that had become his baseline existence.
"Hey, Rich?" Gavin's voice went softer, almost vulnerable. "I'm really fucking excited. To see you. For real this time."
"Me too," Richard whispered. "More than you know."
After they hung up, Richard sat in the darkening apartment and let himself cry. Just for a minute. Just enough to release the pressure building in his chest. Then he wiped his eyes, picked up his brush, and tried again to work on the portrait.
His hand shook. The pain flared. The brush fell from his numb fingers and clattered to the floor.
Richard stared at his right hand. His painting hand, his livelihood, his entire world; and felt something cold settle deep in his stomach. Something that felt like the beginning of the end.
But he couldn't think about that. Not now. He had two weeks to finish this commission, to make enough money to at least pretend everything was fine when Gavin arrived. Two weeks to hold himself together.
He could do that. He had to.
Outside, the first snow of a brutal winter had started to fall, soft and silent against the window. Richard watched it accumulate on the fire escape, each flake another small weight added to an already unbearable burden.
His phone buzzed again. A text from Gavin.
Love you, asshole. Sleep well.
Richard's fingers fumbled across the screen, the numbness making it hard to type. It took three tries to send back:
Love you too.
The words felt like a promise. Or maybe a goodbye.
He wasn't sure which scared him more.