Chapter Text
3 Years Ago
In the dark little office, the stuttering fan in the corner was doing nothing for the heat. Mick fidgeted with his loose-fitting tie and tapped his foot in an unrelenting pattern.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, Rory. We like you here. You’ve been an excellent mechanic for, what is it, fifteen years now?”
On the other side of the Fire Captain’s desk, Mick shifted in his seat. “Twelve,” he said.
“Right, right. But you came here on community service long before that, yes? And we certainly value your hard work. But, Rory—” He scrutinized Mick over his glasses. “Firefighting? Even as a volunteer? I don’t know.”
Mick stared at the glossy black desk, an impassable barrier between them.
Captain Banerjee was still talking. “Recommending someone with your, er, history for the firefighter training…” He shook his head. “I’m gonna have to make a really great argument that you’re a safe choice. And even if I can find a way to overlook all that—Rory, you don’t have a high school diploma.”
Mick looked at the box of yellow and red pencils in front of him. He was quiet for a minute, feeling the captain’s eyes taking him in. Eventually, he heard the captain sigh. “How committed are you to this, Rory?”
Hesitantly, Mick raised his eyes. “I wanna be a firefighter, Sir.”
The captain slapped his hand down on the binder in front of him. (Mick tried not to flinch.) “All right,” he said. “If you’re really up to it, prove it to me. Get your GED. Then I’ll consider approving you for training, if you pass the entrance exam. You’ll need to show me that your doctors think it’s not going to be a problem for you. Stay in treatment, all that jazz. And, Rory—“ He looked at him with stern, narrow eyes, pointing a finger. “You’re gonna have to stay out of trouble.” Mick swallowed, but didn’t interrupt. “I know you’ve been doing better on that score. You’re gonna need to keep doing better, okay?”
A spark of hope flickered inside him. “Okay. Yeah, okay.”
“And there’s a psych eval after the training that’s got nothing to do with me. You’ll have to get through that too.” The captain laughed, not unkindly. “Quite a task you’re setting yourself, son.”
Mick nodded, wide-eyed, reaching forward to offer his hand to the captain. “I can do it, Sir.”
The captain leaned forward in his own chair to shake Mick’s hand, smiling. “I don’t doubt it, Mr Rory.”
Now
The new guy next door was loud.
He wasn’t ‘loud music’ loud—which was good, because Mrs DiGrazia had bothered him with enough swoopy-voice shit for one lifetime. Or ‘loud sex’ loud—Mick thanked any saints whose names he could remember for that. But the guy would not keep the fucking noise down.
Mostly, Mick kept hearing stuff breaking. What sounded like tiles falling off the wall, one day. A TV clearly on the blink, another. Some kind of banging in the pipes, ongoing, that he could have sworn hadn’t been there when Mrs DiGrazia had lived on the other side of the wall.
Worse, New Guy clearly wasn’t doing well at fixing any of it. There was a lot of angry snarking—about a stove that wouldn’t light (“What exactly are you for?”), a window that wouldn’t open (“Well, I guess I’ll just sit here and get heatstroke. Fantastic”), a shower that wouldn’t turn on (“What am I supposed to do now, you useless piece of junk—bathe in the sink?”). Apparently the shit in his apartment was deteriorating on a schedule, and soon New Guy had started ranting over something broken almost every day. When he wasn’t doing that, he was making noisy, aborted efforts to fix things. Mick tried not to, but he would end up listening, tapping his feet on the floor or his fingers on the table, until it was quiet again.
A few days after New Guy moved in, Mick got home late from a night shift, staggering in and tripping over a pile of firefighter certification books. Sitting in his tiny, cluttered kitchen, he tried to berate himself into winding down from work, glowering at a beer he barely touched. It was 5 a.m. when he made it to bed, and he was finally dropping off to sleep when he heard something breaking on the other side of the wall. Then his new neighbor started swearing up a storm.
“Great,” Mick grunted. He sat up in bed, listening for more, but the noise died down as quickly as it had started. For the first time in years, Mick found himself wishing he could just set fire to something. He didn’t. He lay awake watching shadows, and it wasn’t until gray light started to seep through the holes in his curtains that he finally passed out again.
The smell started on day seven after New Guy’s arrival. Given the clanging and swearing that came with it, Mick quickly identified it as a blocked sink. Loud grumbling followed. All fucking day long.
Mick sat at his kitchen table and listened to the muted tones of a phone call next door, hearing every word. “I know, but I can’t afford a plumber. Well, no, none of this would be happening if he’d do that, but he seems to bask in the slum landlord stereotype. You should see the place, Lise…” The call faded out as his neighbor moved to another room.
Mick stared at the grimy surface of the table. He thought about going over there. Knocking on the door. Telling his neighbor he knew how to fix a blocked sink. Offering to help.
He did none of that. He stared at his table, and counted his breaths, and tried—and failed—not to listen to New Guy snarking at his sink.
Len stood in his kitchen and glared at the sink. The one that he hadn’t been able to do anything about himself. That he’d had to stand uselessly by and watch the plumber fix. The plumber who had charged him $140.
“You could try getting the landlord to refund it,” Lisa suggested, on the other end of the phone line.
He started moving cups out of the tiny dishwasher and into the cupboard with the door that refused to shut. “And how do we think that’s gonna go for me, hmm?”
“Did you even look at this place before you signed a contract?”
Len rolled his eyes, even though Lisa couldn’t see it. “Yes, Lisa. Best I could afford.”
“Well, you’re still a sucker.”
“Thank you.” He reached down with another cup.
“What are sisters for? I did offer to come and help you fix the sink.”
He grimaced at that one. Sure, she'd be happy to help, but she’d probably hold it over his head forever. It would be even more humiliating than hiring a professional to do his basic household maintenance. “It’s sorted,” he muttered.
“Gotta go. I’m going out.”
Len chuckled. “What’s their name?”
“Who?” she said in a tone of sickly-sweet innocence that he knew well and had never believed—not when she was trying to pretend she had paid for the new Ice Skater Barbie that had suddenly appeared in her bedroom one day, and not now.
“Your date. You’ve been on edge the whole time we’ve been talking.”
He could almost hear her scowling on the other end of the line. “I have not. I’m as confident and charming as ever, thank you. And… her name’s Shawna. She’s a medical student.”
“Fancy,” he drawled, honestly a little impressed.
“Shut up. Engineering students are fancy too.”
“You keep telling yourself that, kid.” He put away the last of the cups and closed the cupboard door—whereupon one hinge fell off and the door slid crookedly out of place. He swore under his breath and said his goodbyes. Then he stood awkwardly gripping the counter, trying to push the creature of torment back into position with his knee. Well, at least the sink was fixed. Guess he could thank whatever shitty entity ran the universe, and apparently had a personal vendetta against him, for that. With a sigh, he sat down—maybe a little heavily—at the kitchen table.
The door fell off the cupboard.
He went to bed.
The hallway was an oasis of dark and quiet. Mick was still curled up in the corner where he had retreated ten minutes before, clutching a can of beer that he didn’t want anymore.
He’d had a few too many—always dangerous. Should have seen it coming, really.
Finally, he stumbled to his feet and reached for the door ahead of him, fumbling for his keys. Which immediately got stuck, refusing to turn. Fuck it. Well, he still remembered how to pick a lock, especially these crappy pin-and-tumbler locks that he’d already complained to the landlord about, the last three times someone broke into his apartment. He cursed under his breath, wishing—for the first time in maybe twenty years—that he still carried a lock-picking set on him. It had been a while since he’d done this without. A while since he’d done it all. But he’d gone out straight from work, and his satchel was over his arm. He dropped it on the ground, pulling out three paperclips and slipping them into position in the lock with a practiced ease that he wished he could forget.
Next you’ll be burning down houses again.
He shifted and twisted the pins inside the lock with an expert dexterity, and—Yes! The lock gave and turned. He shoved the door open.
And walked straight into the barrel of a raised gun.
Len startled out of sleep, gripping the dented headboard behind him. It had been a long time since he’d last heard a lock being picked, but even in his groggy state he could make out pins scraping against tumblers in the next room. Cursing his failure to get round to putting in an alarm, he reached under the bed and groped for his trusty back-up security system—a shotgun.
He cradled it upright against his side as he approached the door. Then he listened, counted, and cocked the gun just as the door swung open, bringing him eye to eye with a guy who, Len was almost willing to admit, was fairly imposing.
“The hell you doing in my apartment?” the big man growled.
Len felt his eyes widen for a second. Then he slammed his hand against the number 19 on the door, still open next to him. “You just broke into my apartment. Gonna tell me what you’re playing at, or shall we skip the introductions and get straight to me blowing your brains out?”
The big guy, who was apparently a bit lacking in common sense, was waving vaguely in his direction. “You’re New Guy.”
“What?”
He was stumbling over his words. “You just—just moved in…” Then he blinked a few times and raised a shaky finger at Len—quite a risk, given the gun. He was either drunk, or a complete fool. “It’s you.” He hesitated, lowering his gaze, then his eyes flickered back up. “It is you, right? From juvie? Snart?”
Huh.
Len lowered the gun—at which the big guy visibly relaxed—and nodded slowly. “Leonard. You’re Mick Rory, right?”
A sudden unexpected grin confirmed his guess, the guy slapping his hand on the door frame. “Right! We shared a cell, right? For a few weeks, after that—“ he waved vaguely, “incident.”
Len’s hand ghosted across his right side. “Yeah,” he said, after a second. He stood back, taking Rory in. He hadn’t aged well, although he was probably thinking that about Len, too. Even beyond the simple changes that could be expected after twenty years, there were dark shadows under his eyes and he was clearly underweight.
“Sorry,” he was saying now, red and stuttering. “Had—had a few too many, y’know?”
“Really.” Len had been aiming for a chilly drawl, but he could feel the shadow of a smile playing across his face. “You broke into the wrong apartment thinking it was yours. I wasn’t guessing you were sober.”
“Yeah. I’ll—uh, I’ll get outta your way.”
As Rory turned away, Len’s eyes dropped to his shaking hands—and surely that wasn’t just about the gun. “Hey, Rory,” he said, and put a hand on his shoulder.
He pulled back in a bit of a flinch, and Len filed that away to ponder later. “Mick,” he muttered, wide-eyed and staring at the floor.
“Mick. You sure you’re okay to go back to an empty apartment?”
“I’m good,” he said, but his arms were wrapping around himself in a way that made Len doubt it.
Narrowing his eyes, Len turned into the apartment and moved to the kitchen area, just beyond the door. “So, I was thinking of making pancakes. What do you say—stay for some?” He was already pulling supplies out of the cupboards.
“Uh, you know it’s 5 a.m., right?” Mick offered tentatively from the doorway.
Len didn’t turn around, starting to mix pancake batter. “Were you really going to bed?”
Mick took his time responding. “I guess not right now.”
“Well then. Pass me the milk.” Len pointed at the half-sized fridge on the floor next to the counter. Mick opened it without complaining and passed him a little carton of milk. Then he reached across Len, to where the cupboard door was leaning on the floor, picking up it up and moving the loose hinges back into place. Len stopped mixing and looked over at him. “How d’you do that?”
Mick shrugged. “It’ll come loose again. Screws aren’t tight. You got a screwdriver?”
“Um.” Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he did.
Mick was already reaching into his satchel, though. He rummaged around in it. Then he put his whole head in.
Len felt his eyebrows rising. “Uh….”
“Wait—no, that’s—aha!” He emerged, finally, brandishing a small screwdriver.
He found himself nodding approval, and Mick crouched by the door and turned the screws back into place. Len peered down to admire his skill from his spot by the counter. “Hey, can you do anything else like that?” He pointed at the broken tiles on his washed-out gray kitchen floor, and snorted. “Been having a little trouble.”
Mick grinned. “I been hearing. Yeah, I could fix you those back on. Twenty minutes.”
Len looked askance at him, blinking. “Sure. I’d owe you. And what do you mean, you’ve been hearing?”
Finally relaxing, Mick leaned against the other end of the counter and grinned. “Guess you ain’t figured out how thin these walls are yet.”
“Well. You’re pretty quiet, Mick.”
“You’re not,” Mick said, then laughed at his own joke.
Len turned, fully intending to give him a withering look. But Mick was wearing a self-satisfied smile that was oddly charming, and Len chuckled.
His smile suddenly turned bashful, Mick looked over at him. “What?”
“Never mind.” He shook his head and went back to mixing, glancing over at his new friend now and then.
Mick had moved on to examining the other doors embarrassingly hanging off Len’s cupboards. “Did you even look at this place before you moved in?”
“Don’t you start.”