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She’d never been to this bar before.
Cognito had a list of approved locations for its top agents of course; they’d never want you to go anywhere they couldn’t find you. But that was the point this time, so. To the Rooster she went. She was pretty sure the Rooster was a gay bar, but hell. Alpha-Beta had found some women matches for her in her perfect algorithm, so what did she know? Maybe this was exactly her scene.
The beer she was nursing was a little warm, and the music was pounding in a way that her ears didn’t exactly appreciate, but she could deal with that for a little while longer. She’d ditched the tracking devices on her badge, phone, car, and socks on her way there; she was never going to get more privacy than she had now. She should savor this experience, a few moments truly for herself.
She just couldn’t sit in that lab tinkering away at some inane project for another second. Rand knew exactly what he was doing when he designed her work schedule - a three-week solo mission here, a series of engineering projects there. He was keeping her alone. Isolated. An island in a churning sea, with a thousand cameras pointed on her every move.
She hadn’t seen Brett in weeks.
Rand wasn’t wrong on one count; he really was like her service dog. He was always there to pick up the pieces when she dropped them, to lend a hand when the weight became too much to bear. He was like the brother she’d never had, and they hadn’t spoken since Reagan got back from a two-week mission in Thailand (something about taking out their king and starting a coup? The details were slipping from her beer-warmed mind). He’d given her a big hug, asked her if she was doing okay, kissed her on the forehead, and vanished. Like a UFO in the night.
It was Rand’s fault, of course. What wasn’t his fault? She knew that whatever gulf was growing between them was fed only by Rand’s stream. He’d probably hacked into Brett’s phone and blocked her number, or set up a trap outside her lab that bombarded him with mind control chemicals if he got too close, or simply gone the old-fashioned way and threatened him with a gruesome death at the hands of the Shadow Board.
Rand didn’t like extraneous variables messing with his experiments, after all.
The thunk of her head against the cool wood of the bar brought her back to the present. She’d been drifting off a lot more recently - turns out that being alone for weeks on end with only your piece of shit father for a conversational partner didn’t do wonders for the mind. Who would have guessed?
The bartender shot her a concerned look before sliding her a cool glass of water. She accepted it with some trepidation - water meant no more drinks, which meant going somewhere else, which meant that Rand would eventually find her. Fuck. (If there was one plus to Rand’s presence, it was that he would always have something to drink.)
Further down the bar, she could see a game of poker starting. Cards being shuffled, chips stacking, laughter ringing and rattling between her eyes.
She squeezed them tightly, hoping the sound would stop. Bar stools scraping against the concrete, glass clinking on the wood, the low-level chatter that comes with any public place. On a good day it would set her teeth on edge. Now, with five beers rolling under her skin, it scraped against her already raw nerves, sending her reeling back from the counter and stumbling for the door.
God.
Maybe
the
bartender
was
right.
She sat under the blinking street light outside the Rooster, head between her knees, trying and failing to stave off the waves of nausea beginning to crash into her. She barely even remembered leaving the bar, much less coming to sit on the curb, yet… there she was.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she looked up to see the bartender from earlier, another glass of water in tow. He gently pressed the cup into her hands as he sat down on the curb next to her.
“Is there anyone I can call for you?” he asked, concern creeping into his voice.
Reagan waved him away, more out of instinct than any real desire to be left alone. “‘M fine. Don’t need to call anyone.”
He shook his head. “I’m not legally allowed to leave you here like this, ma’am.”
Goddamn all of these white knights, honestly. “Call Brett.” she slurred, handing him her phone.
The bartender stood with her phone in hand, scrolling through her contact list - and wasn’t that depressing? Just her mother, Rand, Brett, and the rest of the Cognito gang. Well, the gang except Myc. She wasn’t ‘cool’ enough to get his number yet, or so he’d joked. Was it a joke? You could never tell with mushroom people. His orb doesn’t really give away much –
“Hi, is this Brett Hand? Yes, I have a friend of yours outside my bar that needs a hand. I don’t think she should be traveling alone, she’s quite inebriated. She’s at 705 Edgewood Street, you’ll see the flashing neon rooster sign that looks kind of like a dick from the side.” The bartender sighed. “I’ll hand the phone back to her now.”
The bartender handed her her phone back before returning inside, once again leaving her alone on the curb. She could already hear Brett worrying away at a mile a minute on the other side, in that little endearing way of his.
“‘M honestly fine Brett, you don’t need t’ worry about me. I can just call a cab ‘r something.”
“And leave my best business friend alone like that?” She could already hear his car starting in the background. He’s hopeless, he really is. “Just stay on the phone until I get there, Reag, alright? You’re gonna be okay.”
That was all it took.
“Okay,” she said, tears already beginning to clog her throat. “I miss you.”
She could hear the smile in his voice - small, but there. “I miss you too. I’ll be there in a moment, I promise.”
She held herself between her hands, her head spinning, the phone clattering onto the curb as she tried to stave off the nausea and the eventual cry. The world was a blur around her, trees and lights and cars all blending into an abstract tableau.
God, she has got to pull herself together.
The line had been silent for a while, and knowing Brett’s hatred for silence she was desperately grasping for something to say. “Uh, did you catch the latest rerun ‘f The Growing Years?”
He laughed, sucking in a breath between his teeth. “Yeah, it really did not hold up as well as I thought it would. You thought The Goonies was bad –”
“I did. The Fratellis kept Sloth in that basement f’r years, Brett.”
“Not the point!”
“Fine, fine.” she grinned. “You can tell me all ‘bout it later.”
“I’m almost there,” he assured. “You’re honestly not all that far from my place – wow, that sign really does look like a dick from the side. Huh.”
Reagan ended the call as Brett’s car came to a slow stop beside her. It was a beat up old thing, especially after the reptoids had gotten to it, but the man stepping out of the car was the most welcoming sight she’d ever seen. A smile began to crease the corners of her eyes, despite herself.
The streetlight framed his hair in a soft halo as he stuck out a hand to her, hauling her off the concrete and gently throwing her arm across his shoulders.
“Hey Reag,” he asked. “How’re you feeling?”
Oh. Oh no.
That gentle movement was all it took for the nausea to finally spill over, the five beers burning up her throat as they splattered over his shoes and onto the concrete below.
Horror churned in her gut at the sight. “No, no,” she hiccuped. “Your shoes –”
Brett pulled her in for a short hug, his head perching on her shoulder, holding her close. “You’re okay, it’s okay, don’t worry,” he consoled, running a clean hand through her hair. “I can clean these later, no problem.”
“But I don’ wanna make you –”
Brett gripped her shoulder tighter as he guided her back to the car, stabilizing her. “You’re not making me do anything, don’t worry.” Stabilizing her. Hah.
Stabilizing was the word for it. They were equal weights on both sides of the scale, always shifting and swinging, but eventually finding a comfortable place to rest. Without one, the other would fall, but when they were –
She looked down at his feet as they got to the passenger door. “There’s vomit in y’r socks.”
“That’s alright, they needed to get washed anyway.” he said, buckling her into her seat. “I actually haven’t done laundry in a while, so, uh, bonus!” Huh.
She looked at him more critically as he rounded the car. The bags under his eyes were starting to rival her own, and through the heavily tinted glass she could see that his tie was tied wrong. His shirt was missing a button. Her head swam as it came to a rest on the glovebox, the rest of her body curling into itself.
He slid into the driver’s seat next to her, quickly buckling himself in as he shifted the car into drive. His hand threaded through her hair for a flash as he peeled out into the street, cooing under his breath.
“Let’s get you home.”
She didn’t know what to say. She never did, really, and the alcohol twisting her tongue didn’t make it any easier. He was hurting and she didn’t know how to fix it. He’d been hurting for a long time, and she hadn’t looked closely enough to find it. She’d sat alone in her lab, slaving away over Rand’s projects while her best friend bent and snapped under the weight of Cognito.
The street was quiet, lights coming and going in flickering bands as the trees rustled in the breeze. The silence between them hung in the air like a blanket, enveloping them both and soaking into their lungs. She had to do something.
She reached a hand out to him.
He gripped it like a lifeline, and she could see the tension melt away from his body as soon as their fingers intertwined. She knew that Brett hadn’t felt a lot of kind or gentle touches, and while it may not be her thing, she’d do anything to save him from this crushing weight. To make him feel okay, for the first time in a long time.
While some people she knows might not consider that ‘saving’, the truth is that saving someone isn’t a one and done thing. Saving the princess doesn’t just mean rescuing her from the tower. It means giving her a place to live, and people she loves, and a hand to hold every now and then.
She missed him so, so much.
“‘Love you.” she mumbled, looking out onto the road before them.
He turned to look at her with kind eyes. “Love you too, Reag. Get some sleep.”
She nodded as her eyes fell shut, her body deciding that the glovebox made a fine resting place after all. As she drifted off, the pattern of the street lights and the purr of the engine lulling her into sleep, she could only think about the feeling of Brett’s hand in hers, and how their fingers slotted together just right.