#nevermoral

him and max, who’s busied herself chasing the pigeons congregated by the fountain. he tugs her short leash away from the flock, who quickly flee because of her sudden close proximity. she trots along, happy to follow as easily distracted as she is. she’s unaware their target stands fifty feet away on a phone call with a bluetooth in one ear, dressed head-to-toe in bespoke or whatever the fuck kind of shit bill’s got himself wrapped up in. he’d be proud if thinking about anything about kandahar and his family and bill for more than a few seconds didn’t make him fucking nauseous. 

when bill’s seemingly done with his call, frank finishes his cigarette and takes a moment to approach billy from behind. the piece he’s got up his sleeve presses right against the small of bill’s back and he makes sure to cock it, head swimming at their close proximity. bill smells so good, especially in the thick of central park, its usual stink of urine and rot exacerbated from the city’s current heat wave.

‘ you’re coming with me, ’ frank whispers, voice hoarse from disuse and whatever emotion that wells up within him that he doesn’t bother thinking about - he’s all-business, now. like he expected, no security swarm to stop him - shit doesn’t change and that part of bill doesn’t, either. but he knows that whatever higher power put a DNR on him in the hospital could be watching, especially in the wake of the massacre at o’hanley’s last night, and he’s smart enough not to draw too much attention, even while hiding in plain sight like this.

max sniffs out bill’s shoes as frank continues, tasting the salt of his own sweat in his mouth, ‘ don’t react, don’t try anything, don’t turn around right now, alright? just come with me. ’ 

he thinks it’s frank, for a second—there’s something about the way they both move, trips him up when it’s just a dark blob in his peripheral vision before he turns to look, finds himself met with billy’s long legs and sharp grin, staring at him from the doorway like he’s been there a while.

frank’s too damn paranoid for them to run into each other, which is probably the only reason they haven’t already, but curtis wonders for a moment, as he stacks another couple of chairs, if it would really be that bad if they did. he’s no rat—he’d never go behind frank’s back, not for billy, not for anyone, but all the same. makes him think.

it’s enough having one guy skulking around outside his meetings, is all.

“look what the cat dragged in. you want a cup of coffee?” curtis smiles, gets the last of the chairs squared away. a seniors’ choir has the room after him on saturdays, but he’s got at least twenty minutes to clear out—longer if he decides to stick around and help out, which is always a hit with the nonnas.

he doesn’t wait for an answer before he fills a couple styrofoam cups from the still mostly-hot coffee maker; he buys pretty good stuff, but he’s pretty sure anything percolated like this must be crap to mister billy russo. he still drinks it, though, which is good enough for him.

the relief that he normally feels when bill touches him like he knows every part of him is nearly absent when lithe fingers squeeze his shoulder. since the landing zone, he hasn’t felt the same - he’s felt out of his own skin, like he’s still one with the fight and the violence and most of all, the blood, even after. he still tastes the blood in his mouth and feels it under his nails, even after scrubbing it all away. the worst part is he doesn’t feel anything about it - some part of him knows what they’re doing is wrong but he’s numb to it, numb to anything besides the instinct that drives him and the fight he craves. the only thing he wants is to sleep and never wake up and sometimes he wishes he’d died there instead of coming back like some sort of grotesque fucking revenant. the man his wife knows is long gone in afghanistan’s plains and this is who he has to show for it, now. 

and he’s angry, angry about it, but he has only himself to blame. bill knows that, too, knows the ugliness of all of this better than anyone else ever could. that’s when frank looks from bill’s hand to meet his face. his knuckles ache where he’d broken his hand against agent orange’s eye socket, his shoulder burning in a way he’d never known a bullet could. his head hurts. his insides hurt. everything hurts. 

that’s when he sets his freshly sharpened kabar against his cot and, grateful for the privacy of their tent combined with the privacy the night provides, moves to lie his head against bill’s shoulder. the men could all joke about it all they want but he’s grateful no one’s around tonight to give them shit for it, for how stupid and small he feels. 

“i don’t know, man,” he hears himself say, fingers catching in bill’s dog tags as the bruises on his face sting against the coarse texture of bill’s combat t-shirt, “i don’t know if anything could help me anymore. i should just - fuck, i don’t know, die. it’d be easier than this shit.”