Five Times Our Muses Almost Hold Hands, and the One Time They Do:
I.  HollowHeâs sitting there, head down, ends of his hair spilling over his hands, and for the first time Riley notices they are darker than the rest of him. Years of oil and grease and wrenches have built up callouses but itâs built something else. Shadows of all the things those hands are capable of that no matter how much pumice-soap he scrubs with it doesnât wash away. Only closer inspection shows that thereâs more. Hints of rust under his nailsâŠno. Rust is a different shadow of red. Rust doesnât leave someone scourged and empty. Rust doesnât cause shoulders to shake. Hesitantly, Riley reaches out and Baz pushes him away, shakes his head. Saying with actions he doesnât need this.
Riley nods and grabs whiskey instead.
II.  Two Man TeamThe rain was coming fast, hard and heavy. A storm brewed in the background, lighting striking haphazardly in the distance. But the thunder isnât from crashing clouds. Riley holds up a fist. Holds up a finger. Then two. Makes a fist, and heâs moving. Low crouch, rifle braced shoulder high. Kevlar soundless. They move and breath as one.  Riley doesnât have the luxury of wondering how exactly heâd gotten here, on this Strike Team. Itâs a by product of too many late nights spent worrying. Itâs because Baz is transparent as glass. When the younger walks into a room and looks around before his blue eyes finally fall on him, Riley knows itâs gonna be an issue some day. Rileyâs not stupid. He knows that look well. And he loves the guy, really he does. Itâs justâŠjustâŠ. So this is the best he can do.
Rounding the corner, he scans through the scope. He reaches behind his back. Hand glances off the fuckerâs wrist, just shy of his intended target. Thereâs no sound over the comms, but he feels his head duck forward as the fucker tags his helmet.âGot this. Laying down cover fire. Go.â
It was the turkey sandwich that woke him up.
He stares at the unholy alliance of bread, turkey, lettuce and cheese, thinking Iâm stuck. Stuck in this perpetually shifting span of time, in which the same day is repeated over and over again. Like Groundhog Day which was a stupid movie. Only worse because time was actually continuing to move forward. Mondays became Tuesdays which turned into Wednesdays. Months still passed by synonymously with the changing of seasons. Children grew into adults. Adults still sank in their depression.Yet the events that occurred in each individual day were exactly the same. Every day Riley would wake up and go to work. Heâd be stuck with the same case as the day before and the day before that. Then heâd eat lunch with people who talked in a language he did not understand. Â Then he goes home to a world that chooses not to understand. Sleep.
Rinse and repeat.But that turkey sandwich. Something inside of him had gone missing. The anger rises in response. He was sick of the sandwich. Sick of the watery-crunch sound the lettuce made when he chewed it. Sick of the cheese. Sick of soggy bread that almost dissolves in his mouth. The same thing heâs eaten for years now.
He averted his gaze and looked around. He saw fellow cops sitting at the same tables, wearing the same clothes, conversing with the same people about the same things. Amidst the sea of voices he could make out snippets of conversations heâd heard countless times before. All the meaningless gossip and small talk wrapped around his brain.His head begins to throb furiously, a circuit board overloading with too much data. Squeezes his eyes shut only to see the sickening mirrors reflecting infinity on the back of his eyelids. It was like someone had put the feeling of deja vu in liquid form and shot it through his veins. He gets up and sprints.
In the menâs room, thereâs silence. He looks at himself in the mirror and his reflection stares back, seemingly surprised by direct-eye contact.âAre you done yet?"What?ââAre. You. Done. Yet?ââI donât know what youâre talking-â
The mirror splinters in cobweb fragments.
He only just manages to throw his arm up to shield his face.
â"Fa'fuc'sake s'only a'sandwich, asshole. Don'want it? Don'eat it.â
If Baz only knew. His first instinct to grab the kidâs hand, make sure heâs real. But thatâs a whole lot of crazy he doesnât want to get into, because how do you explain Quiet, a mageâs version of metaphysical time-out for bad behaviour?
âBe there n'sixâThe last thing B says to him. He wonders, after six minutes has passed, if the shithead meant six hours, but somehow that couldnât be right. Â He doesnât remember there being a job out of town.
An hour later and heâs worried. Calls his cell, sends texts, wonders what else he could do. Â The worst part about it, Riley broke his word. Long distance knocking around the castle walls, even though he promised he wouldnât. But the gates are all shut up, the windows bricked up and despite the power he commands, he canât find a way inside.
And that sparks a wildfire of wellâŠnot jealousy exactly. Nor anger.
Hurt, asshole, the word your looking for isâŠhurt.Normally sleepers have little resistance to his magick, though Baz isnât technically a sleeper. Nor is he awakened. The best way he could put it was the kidâs a kind of sorcerer, and thatâs not right either. It is what it is, but the point wasâŠto get around Riley like heâs doing⊠SOMEONE has to have shown him how. And that someone isnât Beth because she couldnât will her way out of a wet paper bag without him knowing about it.
So that means Baz has been hanging out with someone else.
Someone whoâs deliberately shutting Riley out.He paces his way through a half bottle of Glen Livet before he switches to Vodka.Two hours.Three.At this point Rileyâs grabbing his keys and his jacket, mentally composing a missing persons report for his missing person, because the inner cop wonât let this shit go.Throws the door open and thereâs a strange collision of puffed up chests. Thereâs a spectacular display of juggling as the plastic sack hits the floor, ass over tea-kettle, though Baz manages to retain his grasp on the bottle, because of course he has priorities.
ââY'fuckinâ kiddinâ me? S'fuckinâ dinner, jackass.âThe words donât matter. Riley grabs his hands, and then takes it a step further by dragging the fucker into a hug, arms like vices around his neck and shoulders.Â
âNext time, fucking call.â
This is how Baz discovered Riley doesnât do surprises well.
V. Â HettiquetteRileyâd heard, knew Beth and Jay went to these kinds of things in support of their friends, but itâs goddamn fascinating. Like if someone took Carnival and mated it with Mardi-Gras and somehow incubated the result inside of a Vegas Strip floor show. It was absolutely mesmerizing. Â And thereâs a lot he didnât inspect. Thereâs a man and his wife not far away, a group of teenagers. A couple wearing 'Theirsâ and 'Theirsâ tee-shirts that he makes a mental note to ask about later.
And Riley has to wonder if heâs even got a right to be here, that maybe his attempt to offer B moral support isnât actually having the opposite effect, even if he laughed in his very Baz way over the 'Not Gay but my Boyfriend isâ shirt. Beth had given him one piece of advice before they separated for the day.Â
âNo dare aks wen Straight Pride is. JusââŠno. If ya do⊠no gonna be let out of da hale wi'out woke adult supervision, yeah? Anâ wha'evah ya doâŠno embarrass. If I hear ya make him uncomfortableâŠ.I will make YOU uncomfortable.âThen she vanished into sequins and feathers and flower crowns.She hadnât needed to warn him.
Despite everything that marks him as out of place, the people are welcoming. Theyâre warm and beautiful and the beer flows. Sees a couple people he would never have thought ought to be here. The only awkwardness is when he comes across Wojakovitz. Rileyâs not usually intimidated but the rookie is six foot seven and about as wide across. Apparently, his partnerâŠboyfriend⊠is a school teacher at PS 182. Good on them.At some point, in the bar later, Rileyâs managed to hit his limit, and teeters his way over to Baz whose been strangely quiet most of the night, more so than usual. Arm around the youngerâs shoulder, Riley leans down and lays his cheek atop Bazâs head.âC'mon asshole. Dance with me. This is a good song.âThe look he gets  from both of them would have curdled paint.
He asks twice more in variations.
Twice more heâs rebuked.So he sits down next to B and his hand falls to the otherâs side. Trying not to make an issue of it, one pinkie curls around Bazâs and then Baz is up and muttering something about hitting the head.âDid IâŠsay something wrong?âNo one answers him. Not even his sister.
VI. The Hang of Thursdays
     âPick sumâm else dickhead.  Shitâs kill yer dog depressinâ.â
Thereâs a point where his face is pale and haggard, where lack of sleep has left him looking five days dead on a three day weekend,  and the next line of the song stutters into a choking breath. He doesnât imagine it, Bazâs mouth had moved, had formed the words and itâs stolen all of the oxygen from Rileyâs brain. He doesnât know if he should laugh or cry or âŠthere was a phrase for this, they used to call it 'donât know if he should shit or go blindâ.Â
His hands tighten around the fuckerâs, careful not to dislodge the IV shunt.Itâs a process. Rough palms sliding against each other. Long, blunt fingers seeking the crevices between the otherâs hand. The grasp is as tight as he can make it, a warning that if Baz slips out of consciousness, heâs dragging Rileyâs two hundred and five pounds with him.Bazâs scarred and battered knuckles are brought up, pressed against Rileyâs lips. Theyâre dry and chapped but gentle as Riley bows his head over their joined hands. It takes him long minutes to compose himself enough to actually speak.
âYou EVER scare me like that again, fucker, and I will beat your ass into the fuckinâ ground. You hear me?âHe doesnât mean a word of it.His eyes squeeze shut, lines spiraling around the corners and for the first time since theyâd gone and recovered Baz Barton, he can breathe.What he canât do is let go.