Work Text:
Spot is sitting on the couch, eating pizza and waiting for Race to come back from the supermarket when his phone starts buzzing.
It’s an unknown number, but it’s in the area. He answers it.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Sean Conlon-Higgins?”
Spot sits up. “Who’s asking?”
“Sir, this is Emily Arthur from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, I’m afraid your husband was the victim of a hate crime—“
Spot’s hearing cuts.
“Is he okay?” Spot gasps, hands shaking so hard that the phone nearly slips from his palm.
A pause. “He’s in surgery right now, sir.” She says sadly. “He’s expected to make a full recovery if everything goes according to plan.”
“If?” His voice cracks.
Another pause. “It’s a routine procedure, sir—“
“Just...” He takes a deep breath. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay, sir.”
Spot hangs up and dials Jack, bursting into sobs that hurt his chest.
“Hello?”
Spot cries into the speaker, desperate to speak but unable to, and practically feels Jack’s fear across the line.
“Spot? Oh my god, Spot, what’s happened? Are you okay?”
“It-t’s Racer-r.” He cries, standing. “He’s h-hurt, at th-the hospital, a-and I can-n’t driv-ve.”
Rustling, crackling through the phone, and Jack says in a firm voice. “I’ll be over in three minutes, wait outside for me.”
“Okay.” Spot shudders. Schmidt rubs up against his legs, and he breaks into another round of hysterical sobs, clutching his chest and gasping for air. Spot isn’t exactly one to cry, and definitely isn’t one to sob, but Race breaks all sorts of laws in Spot’s rulebook. He is the exception. His husband.
As promised, Jack squeals to a stop in front of the apartment building three minutes later, when Spot has somehow stopped crying and is just numb now, shivering but unable to feel it. Davey is in the passenger seat, looking close to tears.
Spot slides into the car. “Drive.” He pleads, and his voice cracks.
The drive is tense. Spot can’t remember any of it besides passing the supermarket Race had been going to in the first place and having to digs his nails into his palms so he doesn’t scream in the backseat of Jack’s car. Jack and Davey’s hands are twined tightly over the console, and every few minutes, one or the other of them looks at Spot through the mirror, wincing at his harsh red eyes and puffy face. Neither of them have ever seen him look like this before—the only one who has is Race .
Jack drops Spot off at the front of the hospital so he doesn’t have to go through the agony of parking. Spot walks hurriedly into the building, hands in his pockets, heart pounding and eyes blurry with leftover tears. Or are those new? He can’t tell anymore.
“I’m Sean Conlon-Higgins, my husband,” he chokes on the word. “He’s—he’s in surgery?” It comes out as a question, and Spot wishes it wouldn’t.
The receptionist has kind eyes. Blue, like Race’s. She smiles empathetically at Spot, and then hands him a clipboard filled with papers. “He’s in a routine surgery currently, everything should be alright within the hour. He’ll be asleep for several more hours, though. Could you fill these out and bring them back to me?”
Jack and Davey enter. “Yes.” Spot whispers, taking them from her. He half-turns away, and then back, heart clenching. “Do you... um, do you know what’s wrong with him?”
She makes another pitying face; Spot doesn’t have the energy to hate it. “A stranger brought him in, said they found him in an alleyway babbling about spots and husbands. She said she assumed it was a hate crime. He was very injured when he came in—the doctors are patching up some internal bleeding, right now. One of his ribs broke into his lung and caused a collapse, but they’re fixing that, too. He should be perfectly alright very soon.”
Spot nods, holding back more tears. Race had been babbling about spots—about him.
Jack hand grabs his shoulder gently, and he flinches. Davey approaches slowly and takes the clipboard from Spot’s numb hands.
“Thank you.” Davey says quietly, giving the receptionist a weak smile. Spot doesn’t move, and Jack steers him gently towards the waiting room, sitting him in a chair. Spot’s eyes don’t shift from their unseeing stare the entire time.
“Spottie?” Jack whispers. “You heard her, he’ll be alright.”
Spot blinks once, twice. A third time. He and Race used to do it across classrooms in high school. Save me . It had always been sarcastic, joking, silly. Spot doesn’t know how to say it out loud now. It feels like if he opened his mouth, all that would come out is sand and a broken cry.
Jack wraps an arm around his brother’s shoulders and pulls him close. Spot leans blankly into the touch.
—
Forty seven minutes go by. Spot counts the time so he won’t flip a chair, or barge into the surgery room, or burst into more tears. So he won’t rake his fingernails along his forearms just to feel something besides fear, fear, fear.
Jack and Davey murmur to each other about the forms as they fill them out. They ask Spot a few questions, and he replies in the shortest amount of syllables as possible. A cup of coffee appears somehow in his hands, and even though it’s scalding when he takes just one sip from it, it tastes cold. Metallic.
He wishes everything weren’t so white in hospitals. Colors are up for interpretation, colors can have feeling. White is indecisive and final. White feels too absolute. Like the lights of Heaven—or the scalding abyss of Hell. The very core of a fire.
“Sean Conlon-Higgins?” A nurse with a sweet voice calls his name, and Spot feels everything, each emotion and thought and sense come rushing back to him from where he’d shut them away. “Your husband is okay.”
Spot, Jack and Davey let out a collective breath, and Spot stands.
“Can I see him?” He whispers. His voice is rough.
“He’s just out of surgery, so he’s heavily sedated. He won’t wake up for quite a while, and I’m afraid visiting hours are over.” She glances towards Jack and Davey unfortunately. “Only family allowed in.”
Spot turns. “Go home, get some rest. I’m going to stay here.”
Jack nods. “Okay, little brother.” He says quietly, and then—in a rare show of affection—he pulls Spot into a tight, desperate hug. “We’ll come back in the morning.”
Spot nods into his shoulder. There’s really nothing like an older brother, is there? “Okay.” He whispers.
Jack pulls away. Spot shoots Davey a grateful glance, and Davey gives him a weak, supportive smile. Spot turns away from the two of them at the same moment they turn from him.
The walk to Race’s room is long and still so painfully white. But he’s going to be okay. The nurse said that. Your husband is okay . He has to be. Or else... what? What is there if he isn’t okay? What is there besides Race?
Spot doesn’t have the answer.
The nurse opens the door, and Spot shuts his eyes before he steps in. He knows he’s going to start crying when he sees Race, and there’s absolutely no way he’s going to cry in front of this strange nurse. So he won’t see Race until after she leaves. The door clicks shut.
He was right.
He’s already cried so much that his diaphragm jumps each time he swallows, but he somehow manages more tears when his eyes land on his husband. They’re quiet—no sobs, no shuddering breaths. Just utter heartbreak.
Race seems to be hooked up to a million different machines. The blood had been cleaned off his skin, but it still soaked through bandages over his knuckles and around his arm. A patch covered what Spot assumed to be stitches, right along his collarbone. But his face was the worst. There wasn’t a spot that wasn’t bruised a dark, heart-breaking purple. His lip was split and swelling, small cuts and gashes littering all over his face, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. An unnoticed cut through his eyebrow was bleeding slowly down the side of his cheek.
Spot felt his heart clench. The woman who had brought Race in had assumed it was a hate crime. He had been beaten half to death—for what? Looking gay? Having a husband?
Spot sat in the chair beside Race’s bed. Took one of Race’s bleeding hands in both of his.
He lowered his brow to the mattress, and for the first time since his mother died and seemed to take religion with her, he prayed. Not in one specific religion, not to one specific God. Just a being who controlled things, and if there wasn’t one, to the coincidental forces of the universe that decided what happened.
At some point, shutting his eyes in prayer became falling asleep, and his lips moving to a million different words turned into not moving at all. But his hands stayed holding onto Race’s, firm and secure and unending.
—
Race’s head lolled to one side, and Spot woke with a start and looked to him.
The eye that wasn’t swollen shut blinked open.
“How do I look?” Race rasped.
Spot—to his surprise and the rest of the universe’s—let out a laugh. “You are an utter dork, Higgins.”
Race lifted a hand, winced, but cupped Spot’s cheek all the same. His thumb brushed the leftover redness along Spot’s eyes. “You were crying.”
“Are you actually worried about me?” Spot murmured, leaning into his husband’s touch.
Race shrugged, and then hissed at the movement. Spot practically lunged, desperate to help in some way, but Race waved him off. “Worrying is my reflex, babydoll, don’t you know that?”
Spot snorted. Somehow, a thin layer of tears lined his eyes, but he wasn’t sure if they were of sadness or relief. “How are you? What happened?”
Race looked around the room. He didn’t answer. “Don’t I have visitors?” He laughed weakly, and then hissed again. That would be the collapsed lung, and the broken ribs.
Spot ran a hand through Race’s hair. “It’s four in the morning, bubba.”
“Is it really?”
“Mmhmm.” Spot smiled weakly as Race’s thumb ran over his knuckles. “Everyone will be by first thing in the morning, though.”
Race nodded, blinking.
“Tonio,” Spot started slowly. “You don’t have to right now, but for the sake of the police, can you tell me what happened?”
Race took a breath. His hand tightened on Spot’s, weak but intense, and he nodded shallowly. “I can. But not now.” He mumbled, slurring, and within a moment, he had slipped back into unconsciousness, eyes sliding shut.
Spot stayed awake for the rest of the night and into the morning, watching Race breath and running a hand softly through his blonde curls, as if to remind himself he was actually here. Jack and Davey returned as soon as visiting hours started, followed closely by Albert and Elmer, and then Kath and Sarah. Crutchie, Finch, Blink, and Mush all arrived at the same time, sleep-deprived and fearful. Albert, Race’s oldest friend outside of Spot, looked as if he’d been up all night crying.
When Race awoke for the second time, Spot knew that he was going to be okay. His blue eyes shimmered, and he grinned when he saw his friends, hand tightening around Spot’s.
“Ain’t I popular.” He chuckled, hand raising to hold his ribs lightly.
The group of them chuckled. “How ya feeling?” Jack chimed in, arms wrapping around Davey, who was seated on his lap.
“Gee, I’m flattered.” Race quirked his eyebrows, and then grinned and responded, “I feel better than I look.”
“Well, you look like shit.” Albert laughed. Elmer smacked his arm, and Spot cast him a mock-glare, but Race smiled.
“Wait, so,” Finch leaned forward, looking over Crutchie’s shoulder—who was, of course, on his lap. “What happened?”
Race went quiet, pressing his lips together. His gaze flashed to Spot, and Spot did all he could to convey that he didn’t have to say anything if he wasn’t ready in a single look. Race shrugged lightly in response.
“A few jackasses heard me talking to the cashier about how my husband was making me get celery.” He shrugged, looked down at his hands. “They didn’t like the husband part of it, I guess. Or they really hate celery.”
Davey shook his head. “That’s such bullshit.” He snarled, furious and uncharacteristic. Jack put a hand on his shoulder soothingly.
Race smiled sadly, mouth pursed to one side. “What can you do?” He said, hopeless and simple. “Ignorance is ignorance.”
Kath leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Did you see their faces?”
“No.” He sighed, shook his head, and Spot’s heart contracted. “It was too dark. One of them had blonde hair, I know that. They had pretty heavy duty boots.” He let out a mirthless laugh, but no one laughed with him. “Lighten up, guys.”
Spot stood and began to pace. He knew he shouldn’t have; knew all eyes were swiveling to him, wide and concerned. Spot wasn’t exactly known for being anything but a loose cannon when it came to dealing with feelings.
“We can check the cameras.” He said suddenly, turning to look at Race. “They heard you talking to the cashier, which means they must’ve been inside the supermarket when you were. How many of them do you think there were?”
“Five?” Race frowned. “Six?”
Spot’s face twisted, just slightly, in sorrow for his husband, and he leaned over to kiss Race’s brow quickly, careful to avoid his injuries. “We can look at the cameras.” He murmured again.
Race grabbed his hand and pulled Spot to him, closer and closer until Spot was sitting beside him on the bed. Race leaned into his husband’s side, wrapping an arm around Spot’s waist.
Spot risked raking a hand through Race’s curls, gently as he could, and felt Race smile into his shoulder.
—
Their friends filtered in and out. Race and Spot found themselves alone, somehow, around dinner time.
“So tell me how you’re actually feeling.” Spot turned to Race and ran a hand softly down the side of his face.
Race made a teasing expression. “I did.”
Spot fixed him with a deadpan. “I love you, bubba, you don’t have to hide from me.”
“Come on.” Race chuckled dryly, rolling his eyes, but his head dipped and the smile fell. “How am I supposed to feel?”
“However you do.” Spot murmured softly. “Don’t worry about the way you’re supposed to feel, just feel.”
Race lifted his head, watery eyes turning to the ceiling, bottom lip shaking. “I’m scared.” He murmured, shrugging. He swallowed. “I’m scared of having to go anywhere by myself. I’m scared for you, and for all of our friends, too. I feel weak, and embarrassed, and sad that the world is still as ignorant as it used to be, even when I thought it was changing.”
Spot blinked away the tears in his eyes and the pain in his chest. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Tonio.”
Race looked at him. “What do I do from here?”
Spot grabbed his hand. “We, okay? We can figure it out together.”
“Yeah.” Race breathed, and pulled Spot into a tight hug. “I love you, babydoll.” His voice was crackling like a fire.
Spot ran a hand up and down his spine. “I love you.”
He sighed into Race’s shoulder, listened to his heart beat, and shut his eyes.
—
The police found the guys, and a judge ruled them guilty on counts of assault and hate crime. The six of them—because they had teamed up on Race, six to one—had been sentenced to a year in prison.
It took a while for Race to recover physically, and longer to do it mentally. There were days when all Race could do was stare into the distance and hold Spot’s hand to remind himself he wasn’t lying in a back alley, calling out and wishing someone would hear him. There were days when Race couldn’t step out of the apartment alone without Spot’s hand in his, days when losing Spot in the aisles of any supermarket made him sit down against the shelves with his knees up to his chest and his head ducked in fear. Days when every random group of guys in the street made his face redden and his fists clench in unnecessary preparation.
All Spot could do was grip onto his hand, keep him close and warm and fed. It was difficult, terrifying, tear-inducing and intense and heart-breaking.
But Race had Spot there by his side, and as long as he knew that, they’d always be okay.