Chapter Text
Chapter 4: No Man's Land
Tom wakes to the sting of the midday sun and the sounds of the Doobie Brothers. He doesn’t remember falling asleep but he remembers taking the Oxy, that must have been…five, six in the morning? He tries to shift to his right side, take a bit of pressure off but that's a mistake; his shoulder's no longer numb, just stiff and raw, like it's been reattached all wrong and his body's rejecting it, or it will, any moment now...sometimes knowing the pain is coming is worse than the actual pain. He grimaces, allows himself a moment of self-loathing and regret and promptly shuts that shit down.
Jake’s driving with his hands at ten and two, tapping gently to the music. He’s wearing Tom’s aviators. They’re too big for his face.
“Those my shades?” he croaks. His mouth is bone dry and his head aches so bad he can feel the blood pumping.
Jake shrugs, shoulders up by his ears. “Bright as hell."
“No kidding," Ice drawls, sinking further into the seat. "Where are we?”
“Texas—still,” Jake laments, scowling like it's his biggest regret in life. Tom looks at him, or tries, the pain’s setting in nice and slow and it's got him feeling swimmy now.
"You alright?"
It's a piece-of-shit question to be asking the kid, the very same one who'd managed to follow Tom’s barely coherent directions back to Lenny’s place in Galveston, the one who watched as some strange man he’d never met dug a bullet out Tom’s shoulder with minor sterilization and no anesthetic, the one who waited for hours, standing guard over a doped up Tom while Lenny got rid of the rental and brought them a new car, cleaned the duffle, helped him into a new shirt and makeshift sling, argued with a man twice his size and steered Tom into the passenger seat of their new car.
This kid who didn’t want to be left behind so badly he’s driving a busted up stranger to California.
“You should take your pills,” Jake says in lieu of an answer. "That guy said you could, every six hours.”
“You've been driving six hours straight?” Tom asks, his eyebrows migrating into his hairline.
“Fort Stockton up ahead,” Jake nods, as if that explains it.
“So…?”
He squeezes the wheel and makes a face, “So...seven.”
“Jesus, kid!” Tom huffs, trying to keep still. The car takes a bump and he groans, causing Jake to grip the wheel even tighter.
“I stopped to pee and get gas," Jake mutters defensively. "And I tried you, know? To wake you you up. But I couldn't, you wouldn't I mean..."
The energy that rolls off of him reeks of anxiety and exhaustion. The Port of Houston doesn’t sit well with either of them but at least Tom’s had the benefit of opiate laced sleep. He tries to imagine the hours spent behind the wheel, looking at the same indistinguishable stretch of road, pushing through the exhaustion and adrenaline of the last twenty four hours, everything turning into a mundane sort of mania, an endless stream of thoughts: Were they being followed? Was Ice going to start bleeding again? Will he ever wake up?
Drive like that...it's a wonder the kid hasn't run them off the road.
“That must have been scary. Me, not waking up. I'm sorry, Jake," he soothes.
The kid is stiff as a brick beside him so Tom keeps his eyes on the road, just like that first time in the car; tries to give him space even when there is none.
"You did good, real good. I’m lucky to be alive. And it’s ‘cause of you, you know that, right?”
It doesn’t get him much in the way of talk, but from the corner of his eye Tom sees his elbows unlock and his grip on the wheel loosen.
Baby steps.
“I know I’ve asked a lot of you. I know you have questions. And I know you want to leave this goddamn state—maybe more than I do—but we have to be smart,” he says, looking over, "we’re going to have to stop, take a rest and have a meal. I’ll take my meds like the good doctor ordered—”
Jake scoffs. “If that guy's a doctor, then I’m a pilot.”
“Fair enough,” Tom smiles, tries to sit up to test his mobility and range. Pain shoots up his arm so intensely that he can’t help the hiss that rips from between his teeth. Motherfucker.
“Pills are in the glove box,” Jake glances over at him, all worry. “Want me to get ‘em?”
“It’s alright,” Tom murmurs, sinking further into the seat. “I’ll take my meds at the next greasy spoon. That stuff’s better with food.” It'll make him less nauseous and he'll be able to stay upright. As it stands, every time he shifts or breathes too deeply the pain shoots out from his left shoulder like fireworks.
Tom wills himself to ignore it and keeps talking, “We’ll eat, and we’ll rest, and tomorrow we’ll drive—”
“I’ll drive,” Jake snaps.
“You’ll drive,” Tom amends.
That’s an argument for tomorrow, and the kid is likely to throw one hell of a fit, but they can’t have an unlicensed fifteen-year-old toting them across state lines. In a day's time, the pain will be burning but manageable. He’ll half the Oxy. He’ll drive.
“I want us to stop and get some serious sleep, next chance we get," he pushes. "And no more driving at night."
Jake looks ready to fight him on it but Tom puts that to bed immediately.
“None of that is negotiable.”
“Last time sumthin’ was non-negotiable you got shot,” Jake mutters, the antagonism rolling off of him in waves. He's tired and high strung and Ice can sympathize, but their odd little role reversal was coming to an end.
Tom shifts in his seat, welcoming the pain with a clenched jaw, he allows it to morph into anger, lets it coat the raw edges of his throat and channels his own father; acrimony was a speciality of his.
“Don't be smart and don't make me say it again. You stop at the next exit.”
Jake stews in silence after that, but at the next exit the blinker is on.
Good enough. Tom sighs. He can stand the silent treatment for the rest of the ride if that's what it takes, but he’s made it his job to keep the kid safe, and now he actually has to do the damn thing.
Jake’s stomach growls so loud it nearly drowns out a guitar riff. He flushes, like he's been caught out with hands down his pants.
"Let's get you something to eat," Tom says firmly.
"You too," Jake argues, just because he can, because they're in no man's land and it feels steadier to be in control of something, no matter how small.
Tom's stomach rolls at prospect of food, but food means more Oxy, and that sounds damn good. “Yeah, me too."
— // —
They stop at a La Quinta. Jake falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow; hours behind the wheel and a chicken fried steak doing a number on him.
Tom walks to Walmart and buys a cell phone and family sized bottle of ibuprofen, ignores the looks his purchases and the makeshift sling get him from the lady at the cash register.
Pulling the phone out of its plastic packing one-handed takes some serious patience, but he manages. He calls on his walk back. The ringing’s both a blessing and a curse.
“I’m on a prepaid cell in the middle of nowhere Texas.”
“Tell me you’re alright,” Maverick demands.
“I’m alright.”
“You better fucking mean it.”
The midday sun is scorching hot and Ice can feel the Oxy from lunch flowing through his system. His mouth is dry and his head is full of cotton, in the distance, the motel parking lot sways in his field of vision, but the pain is dull and that’s a godsend of the sublime variety.
“My right side’s a little fucked up,” he admits.
“You think I don’t know that?” Maverick barks. “Lenny called.”
Why didn’t you? rings like an angry howl across the parking lot. Tom grits his teeth and keeps walking.
“I’ll be fine. Did you know Cain’s running in merchandise with a bunch of hotheads and junkies? They tried to renegotiate on the spot, and I think Cain knows. He’s using Houston to skim off the top.”
“Cain’s not going to be running jack once the dust settles,” Maverick seethes, “But right now he’s got his boys claiming you pulled the gun first.”
“You know that’s bullshit.”
“Not hearing from you for twelve hours is bullshit!” Maverick rages. “Getting in a car with some kid and driving off with a hole in your shoulder is bullshit! I didn’t think you were capable of making such dumb fucking decisions!”
‘I was high as a kite and missing a pint of blood, I wasn’t making decisions’, Tom wants to tell him, but bites his tongue. He’s not winning any arguments with gems like that.
“I have the money,” he says instead.
“Small mercies,” Maverick mocks, “want to venture a guess as to who has all twelve shipping containers, on their way to be impounded?”
“Not ours if we didn’t pay for them,” Tom tries.
“Don’t be cute," Maverick jeers. "I’ve got people on my ass for the massive shipment we just lost, I’ve got Cain chomping at the bit, and I’ve got local cops checking the security cameras. One of the guys you shot is in the hospital with whatever's left of his kneecap—”
“It was dark and he was jacked up to his eyeballs. They’ll do a tox screen. He’s not going to be a reliable witness,” Tom insists.
Maverick sighs, it’s unclear if he’s relieved or just preparing himself for what comes next. “Did the kid see everything?”
Tom sways in place. He feels like a real piece-of-shit again. Provably because he is.
“He saw enough,” he admits.
“You shouldn’t have brought him last night.”
“I know.”
“You can’t take him to Los Angeles now.”
He sighs, frustrated, “I know that too, Mav.”
“There’s knowing and then there’s doing."
“I can multitask just fine," Tom says, hackles rising.
“Doesn’t look like it from where I’m standing.”
“High fucking horse you’re on, Mav."
“You’d know all about it.”
“Fuck you!” Tom rages.
“Fuck you too!” Maverick yells back. Tom hears him slam down the phone in frustration, he’s seen him do it a million times, there’s a little indent on the desk in the office because of it, but he's rarely been on the receiving end.
Breathing through his nose, he tries to stop his head from spinning, and waits. When he hears Pete's haggard exhale come back down the line he tries again, “We get that out of our system?”
“Depends,” Maverick says, indignant, “You planning on bitching some more while I clean up your mess?”
This time, Tom doesn’t take the bait. He’s well versed in Maverick’s tactics. Ripe with anger, his impulse is to keep goading; hit ‘em till it hurts and then hit ‘em some more till they learn their lesson. Textbook, almost unconscious, a burning urge that lights a mean fire under his ass, and Tom—Tom’s not sure he can hold himself upright much longer and take his punishment, no matter how badly he might deserve it.
So, he swallows his pride and changes tactics.
“I was punishing you.”
The line goes blessedly silent.
“Not with the kid,” he insists. Come what may, he wants to keep Jake out of their crossfire.
“But I hijacked the job to piss you off.”
It was hard to look at your face and I wanted you to suffer and I wish you’d admit it—
“Well,” Maverick exhales, “consider me punished.”
He sounds exhausted, resigned to his fate, like a wet towel that’s been wrung out one too many times. Before Ice can muster any sort of response the door to their room opens and Jake pushes out into the sunlight, sleep addled and worried.
The crease in his forehead only settles when he sees Ice, half slumped against the vending machine down the open hall.
“We're coming home, Mav. 48 hours, max,” he whispers, swaying towards the open door.
“Good. Bring your mascot. I want to hear from you every four. And Ice—I’m not asking.”
— // —
Tom’s driving. Tom. Tom Kazansky.
Jake shifts in the front seat. He can’t seem to get comfortable. It was easier behind the wheel, less new thoughts to think, less information to figure, less disappointment. He slips his shoes off and tucks his socked feet onto the seat, lets his chin dig into his kneecaps and cycles through it all over again.
Tom Kazansky. Tom Kazansky from San Diego, who smokes Parliaments and carries a gun, who ran away from home at seventeen, has a pregnant sister in Pasadena and a godson in San Diego and someone he’s called twice named—
“Whose Mav?” Jake asks, breaking the silence. He’s been looking for the right question for the past twenty minutes. It takes Tom a long time to answer, which makes Jake feel like he’s hit the jackpot.
“A good friend,” Tom finally offers. His aviators have slipped down the bridge of his nose and he uses his good shoulder to nudge the glasses up. “We’re in business together.”
In San Diego, where they’re going now, not Los Angeles like he promised, Jake thinks deflating just like he did the first time Ice had told him. He ought to be angry, or at the very least scared; Ice had promised to take him to LA, told Jake to trust him, and here they were running from men with guns and probably the law and he…wasn’t angry. Or scared, least not of Ice. It’s like his self-preservation instincts had gone haywire. The idea of not trusting Ice, after everything that happened, somehow that was more unbearable.
Tom, not Ice. Tom. Who needs to see a real doctor. His doctor. In San Diego. For the bullet wound in his shoulder. Cause it’s not import-export or whatever bullshit he said it was.
“Are you going to tell me what you actually do now?” he asks.
Tom doesn’t answer him for so long Jake begins to think he hasn’t heard him.
“Why don’t you switch out the tunes?” Tom deflects.
“Really?” Jake huffs, twisting his body to glare at Ice—Tom.
“The less you know, the better off you are, Jake. We can keep playing twenty questions. But you’re not going to like every answer I give you.”
Jake rolls his eyes, tries to keep the frustration out of his voice. Fails. “Fine. What happens when we get to San Diego?”
“You’re going to come stay with me for a little while. Heal up and lay low. Give Mav—Maverick—a little time to settle some things for me.”
“He yer boss—Maverick?”
Tom tenses at the question. “Not just my boss…we live together. Mav and I.”
Jake feels the fine hairs on his arms stand up as a flush runs down the back of his neck. He’s not an idiot. He can tell by Ice’s careful tone he doesn’t mean him and Maverick are roommates.
You married?
I have someone.
“Does that bother you, Jake?” Tom asks. There’s no judgment in his voice.
“No!” Jake insists, feels himself flush and looks away. Being…that way. Jake wasn’t—couldn’t—you didn’t talk about it. At least he’d never known how.
Gay.
In school it was a word that got tossed around so often it had begun to mean everything bad under the sun. Jake felt stupid when he tried to use it as a slur and he never let himself think too long about why it made his stomach turn.
Tom, blessedly, doesn’t feel the need to continue the conversation and Jake’s beyond grateful; he doesn’t really know what else to say to him. It’s been like this all morning. An influx of information that’s somehow too much and not enough, and filling in the blanks mostly rankles. Jake glances over at Ice (Tom). He looks better today. Less green and shaky. But there’s no way he should be driving for long stretches of time.
“Want to switch at the next gas station?” Jake asks, probably for the fifth time in the last hour. He’s been itching to drive all morning. It’s soothing.
Ice glances over at him and Jake can feel the dismissal before he hears it. “In a little while…why don’t you get some shut eye?”
Jake sighs and rifles through his pile of CDs. Rinse and repeat.
Truth is, Jake can’t sleep. He used to be great at sleeping in cars—used to sleep most of the way when they drove up north to Pawpaw’s ranch—but now there’s a part of him that’s afraid of falling asleep. He’d woken up twice last night from nightmares. Ones in which he gets run over or shot in the leg—and oddly, it’s always Ice driving the car or pointing the gun.
Everything’s felt off-kilter since the shipping channel. The rush of fear from that night will come out of nowhere hitting him straight in the chest. Every car at their rear, every guy who looks at them too long at a rest stop or gas station feels suspect. Jake knows they’re not being followed, he’s checked, keeps checking, and they’re so far out from Houston it’s probably all textbook paranoia at this point…but there’s nothing to really distract Jake from it. Just Tom and his half answers and the mediocre view out the window. Out here I-10 is just a flat and endless two lane runway, dust and desert shrubbery littering the outskirts.
Least they’re out of Texas.
“Whose taste in music did you inherit?”
The question catches Jake off-guard but it shouldn’t. Ice was bound to ask. Tom. Tom. Tom.
The radio’s been spotty ever since they left Fort Stockton in the early hours of the morning, so Tom has let him DJ all day long without input or complaint. They’ve gone through all of Jake’s CDs. The Doobie Brothers, Led Zeppelin, the new Black Keys album Javy gave him before he left and even Jake’s mixtape—twice.
“I don’t know. Both of them, I guess.” Jake answers. “My ma—she always had music playing.”
He doesn’t remember it ever being quiet when she was around. The radio in the kitchen or her portable cassette tape was always on somewhere in the house. Patsy made an appearance at least once a week, then more often—then eventually not at all.
Least she left you the tape.
“She would always say that music's how you glimpse another person's soul,” Jake says. “I used to find it really corny...” He clenches his jaw and tries to blink away the wetness from his eyes, letting the sharp edge of CD case dig into the flesh of his palm. Hates that he gets like this, talking about his mama.
“I think a lot of things feel corny when our parents say them,” Ice says kindly. “Sometimes, as we get older, we realize they were just giving our future selves something to have ahead of time. Something to hold onto.”
Jake nods, “Yeah…I guess."
“Your mom a big fan of Led Zeppelin?”
Jake snorts and shakes his head, “More Patsy Cline. Dad bought me that CD. He liked playing us his music, especially in the car––he’s got this vintage Eldorado.”
“What year?”
“1973.”
Ice lets out a low whistle of appreciation. “Convertible?”
“Yeah,” Jake sighs, remembering how cold but soft the leather was the first time he’d climbed in the backseat. “White. Red leather interiors. He’s a mechanic so he reupholstered and detailed the entire thing. He’d take us out all the time when I was a kid. Always’d turn up the volume whenever it was somethin’ he liked, drive a little faster—guess I sorta liked that.”
“That the car you learned to drive in?”
Jake huffs out a solitary laugh. “No one was allowed to touch the Eldorado. My ma taught me—in her Honda Civic.”
“Sensible.” Ice glanced over, smiling. “You ever break your old man’s rules?”
Jake recalls the surreptitious look in his mothers eyes, her crooked smile (the same one he’d inherited), her freshly manicured nails—red nails on the red steering column—tapping along to the radio.
What your daddy don’t know what hurt him none.
“Not that he knows.”
Tom laughs so hard he winces.
— // —
The hours pass just like that—in stretches of silence and volleys of questions. From the personal to the mundane, Tom leaves no stone unturned. Jake's forgotten what it’s like, having all of someone's focus on you. Especially someone like Tom. It’s a heady feeling. And if he steers clear of Houston and avoids asking Tom about what he does for a living the man is a remarkably open book.
‘Born in New York. Raised in Maryland. Mother’s a housewife, father’s ex-military—worked pretty high up in the Reagan administration—wanted me to go into the navy. Always had his sights set on Annapolis. For a while, I did too.’
‘To sail?’
Tom smiled. ‘Fly.’
‘Why didn’t you go?’
‘Too queer for the navy. Too queer for my father. Left when I was seventeen. Haven’t been back since.’
‘What about your mom?’ Jake asks him.
‘She chose my dad,’ Tom says, matter-of-fact.
There’s no anger or sadness in his voice. Or at least, there’s no evidence. Jake hopes he’ll be the same one day. He’s never told anyone, not Javy or Rosa (and definitely not his dad) but he’s tired of feeling abandoned. Aren’t wounds supposed to scab over and heal? It’s been almost two years and every time he thinks about her it’s like acid burning through his chest.
They stop for a late lunch a couple hours out from Tucson. Tom calls Maverick. Jake has no clue how the conversation goes but when he gets back to the car Tom lets him drive.
Not good then.
He puts Stampede on again. They’ve listened to it at least three times now but Tom doesn’t complain. He’s quieter than he’s been all morning, hunched and favoring his uninjured shoulder. Jake didn’t see him take his pain pills at lunch…come to think of it, he hasn’t seen him take them all day.
“Tom?”
“Hmm?”
“You ok?”
“Oh, yeah. Just tired, kiddo.” The warmth in his voice is enough for Jake to take the ‘kiddo’ in stride.
“Let’s stop in Tucson for the night. We’ll be in San Diego by tomorrow.”
Jake nods, chewing his lip. “You said I’ll stay with you.”
“Yeah. Big house. Your own room.”
“With Maverick?”
Tom nods, “And Bradley. My godson. Though I hear he’s on a new independence streak. Been staying at my old apartment in North Park lately. I’ll take you there. Think you might like it. It’s near Balboa Park. Touristy, but nice.”
“For how long? I mean—we’ll still go to Los Angeles, won’t we? Once it’s alright?” Jake asks.
Tom looks over at him and Jake feels his stomach sink in nervous anticipation. You promised.
“We’ll say as long as it takes for things to settle down,” Tom says, evenly, no inflection in his voice. Jake recognizes what he’s begun to call the patent Tom Kazansky nonresponse in the privacy of his own head. It sets his teeth on edge.
“I want you to feel comfortable. Staying with us.”
Jake wants to go to LA, wants to stop looking over his shoulder, wants Tom to heal up good, wants and wants and wants—wanting is par for the course these days.
“I’m sorry, that’s not a good answer, is it?” Tom asks, his head lolling back against the seat, there’s sweat on his brow and his breathing is slow and measured. He doesn’t look so hot.
“Can I call Javy? From San Diego?” Jake asks, glancing worriedly over at Tom.
“Of course you can.” Tom says easily and Jake relaxes. San Diego is a heck of a lot closer to LA then Houston. He just needs to hang on a little longer.