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After spending the night at the Butte, Sheriff and Doc returned to town in silence. Whatever routine they had in regards to each other before had quickly changed, andneigher could truly tell whether it was for better or for worse. There was an air of awkwardness that followed them whenever they were together and each had grown more unsure of themselves. They were also both sure that the others in town could sense it, too. What was bothering each of them, though, was wildly different.
Sheriff was, more or less, confused as to how Doc was able to move on so easily with no looking back. Everything he had said revealed a different part of him; a part of him that he had been lying about (whether to others or himself was still to be determined) and suppressing for who knows how long. He had broke down and trusted Sheriff with his very sould, and then he just moved on. It was starting to get to him. Did Doc regret it? Did Doc want him to forget the whole thing even happened?
Doc’s head, on the other hand, was in a very different place. He didn’t regret anything. Far from it, actually. It felt nice to tell someone about it, as if an invisible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And he trusted Sheriff. He iddn’t need to tell him not to tell anyone, because he wouldn’t have, regardless. What was bothering Doc was the fact that Sheriff kissed him. It was quick, and he was sure that if he was just the slightest bit focused on something else he would have missed it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It’s far from the most important thing that had happened that evening, but it was burned into the forefront of his mind. That was not something that friends do, and it was eating him up inside. The only problem?
Confronting Sheriff could potentially cost him everything they already have.
And that was not something he was very keen on.
Doc had managed to forget about the issues he had faced with his sexuality, but now, it was almost constantly on his mind. At the Butte, he had confessed things to Sheriff he had never told anyone else. But there was one secret that he hadn’t shared, and every second since that damned kiss (hell, there were times where he found himself reaching up to touch his cheek) just brought Doc one second closer to confessing that, too.
Honestly, it felt as if it had been years since that night. However, ever faithful and consistent, time shown that it had only been one week. But, a pitcher can only be filled so much before it spills.
Doc couldn’t tell you why he started drinking that night. He remembered looking in his cabinet and seeing one of Fillmore’s mystery-concuctions, and he remembered wanting to stop thinking for a while, and he remembered not being able to sleep. Maybe it was an amalgamation of those things, or maybe it was something else entirely. The fact is that he was definitely not sober, and that he was definitely not thinking straight. Before he could stop himself, he was grabbing his keys and was out the door. There is no way in hell he should be driving, but he couldn’t find it himself to care. If he died, he died. Death might even be a better outcome than having to face Sheriff after whatever conversation they ended up having.
Because they were going to have a conversation about it.
Before he could back out of it.
Thankfully, the town was small, so he didn’t have to drive very far. Still, he was thankful that Sheriff wasn’t out tonight, or else would surely pull him over. (It would have been more of a joke than any actual legal trouble, but Sher’s not stupid, so he would have forced him out of the car before he could even get a single sentence out.) He all but jumped out the hornet when he got to Sheriff’s, and with how hard he was knocking on his door, he was almost surprised that his knuckles weren’t bleeding.
Of course, what Doc forgot to think about, was the time. It was half past 12. A.m. And, if a tired Sheriff knew anything, it was that someone banging on your door when you live in the middle of the Arizona desert with barely enough residents in town for it to be called a town at an ungodly hour of the night was not a good thing. So, with half a mind to grab his taser, Sheriff begrudgingly got up and trudged to the door.
What he was absolutely not expecting was Doc to be standing on the other side, looking more awake and lively than ever.
Yeah, something was definitely wrong.
“Doc, what-what the hell are you doing?”
He was too tired to worry about putting it lightly. It was late, and he was just sleeping, and he was only in his pyjamas, and-
“We need to talk.”
Oh.
No.
Sheriff didn’t know how long he was frozen in place for, but it was long enough for Doc to ask him if he was okay. He damn near jumped out of his own skin, but cleared his throat and forced himself to respond.
“Can this wait until tomorrow?”
“If I wait until tomorrow, I’m not going to talk about it at all.”
Suddenly, something clicked in Sheriff’s mind. How much more up-front (and, quite frankly, loud) Doc was being, the light blush painting his face, his slight swaying, it all added up to one thing:
Doc was drunk.
And while that was concerning in-of-itself, he could very clearly see Doc’s car parked by Stanley’s statue, meaning he drove here.
Any anxiety that Sheriff had before was briefly overcame by concern. Really, if anything, he was pissed.
“Give me your keys.”
Doc didn’t even react. He was anticipating this, really.
“They’re still in the car.”
“Then move, I’m driving you home,” Sheriff ordered, pushing Doc aside.
“Why don’t we just go for a drive, instead? More time to…talk.”
“The only thing we’re going to talk about is whether or not I should give you a D.U.I. or let you off with a warning. Get in.”
Doc did as told, a large smile spreading across his face. He knew that he had won this interaction. Sheriff caved easily when it came to those he loved (huh, loved) and this situation was no different. Doc didn’t bother strapping in, but couldn’t help feeling victorious when they drove past his place.
“You can wipe that grin off your face, because I’m only driving for as long as it takes for me to lecture you.”
Okay, so maybe Sheriff was starting to panic a little bit. He managed to get Doc to not drive again, and he managed to get somewhat of an upper-hand, but the fact that Doc thought they needed to talk was probably one of the scariest things he would ever have to hear.
“I know for a fact that you know how dangerous it is to drink while under the influence. You’re a doctor and you said yourself that you used to be a racer. So would you like to explain to me why, exactly, you thought this was a good idea?”
With each word that came out of his mouth, Sheriff started to panic more. He shouldn’t have brought up the racing thing, but it was too late now. And he already knew the answer to his question, anyway:
Doc wasn’t thinking.
But before Doc could answer, and before he could stop himself, he continued talking.
“Speaking of you racing, is there a reason you’ve just up-and-forgot what happened last week? It’s not like I’m expecting you to talk about it every second of every day, but whatever friendship we had before changed when you decided to tell me that stuff, and I’d like that to at least be acknowledged. And if you want to pretend like it never happened, and that you didn’t breakdown worse than a damned lemon to me, then it would be really nice for you to tell me-”
“Why did you kiss me?”
“...What?”
There goes that upper-hand. That shut Sheriff up quickly, and Doc could barely fight back a laugh. He didn’t entirely succeed, though, and ended up snorting.
“Jesse.”
“You kissed me. On the cheek. What was that for?”
Sheriff was, unfortunately, drawing a blank. He didn't actually remember doing that. Well, he remembered wanting to do that, but that thought wasn’t entirely specific to that exact moment. He remembered the fact that he used Doc’s first name (which he never does), he remembered that he went to hug him after stopping to-
Oh.
He did kiss him.
If Sheriff wasn’t panicking before, he was surely panicking now. He didn’t mean to actually do that. It was on instinct, if anything. Like a reflex. Why was it a reflex? Making it worse was the fact that Doc remembered it. That couldn’t be good. Why would he have remembered it if he wasn’t upset about it?
Sucking in a shaky breath, Sheriff reached to turn his blinker on.
“I’m not talking about this while you’re drunk.”
“Sheridan-”
“Don’t! We’re going home. You can sleep on my couch if you want, but we’re doing this later.”
Doc promptly shut up. The ride back home was spent in a heavy silence.
It was a long rest-of-the-night, to say the least. Tossing and turning without getting a wink of sleep didn’t really help Sheriff's intrusive thoughts about what tomorrow held and the man sleeping on his couch, one room over. Although, then again, he was pretty sure that the reason he couldn’t sleep was the intrusive thoughts.
The moment the clock hit a socially acceptable time to get up, he moved to make himself a cup of coffee. What he was not expecting to see was Doc already up, sitting at the kitching/dining room table, staring into space. Sheriff had half a mind to turn around but continued on, anyway.
“You’re up early.”
“I’m always up this early.”
“How come?”
“I don’t usually sleep.”
The conversation ended there, and Sheriff could feel the air change from awkwardness to tension-filled. The coffee machine was the only noise, and each droplet sounded like the tick of a clock that was counting down to Sheriff’s doom.
Doc, now that he was sober, felt almost embarrassed of the stunt he pulled last night. He wasn’t going to back out of what he started, not now, but it was still incredibly stupid, thinking back on it. The longer he thought about it, the more he wanted to go back in time and change it. This past week was filled to the brim with things he never thought he’d do, and, unfortunately, that didn’t look like it was going to change any time soon.
Sheriff hesitantly placed a mug in front of Doc, who hesitantly took it. Doc hadn’t been paying all that much attention to Sheriff, but he figured he had added more milk than actual coffee to his, like he usually did. His own was black, and he silently thanked Sheriff for that. A part of him wondered when they had memorized how they liked each other’s coffee, but he pushed that thought to the back of his mind for a later date.
Deciding to bite the bullet, Doc took a sip of his coffee before placing the mug down with a soft click. “So, about last night-”
“Yea, I’m sorry about that. I overreacted,” Sheriff cut him off, desperately trying to save himself at this point.
Doc rolled his eyes. “No, you didn’t. I woke up you at 12 in the morning while drunk and forced you to talk about….things. I’m the one that should be apologizing.”
“Sure, but,” Sheriff started, shifting his weight between his feet, “I have other things to apologize for.”
It took Doc a few seconds to understand what Sheriff was getting at. When he did, he let out a long sigh before taking another sip of his coffee.
“You don’t need to apologize for that, either,” he responded, simply, finally looking Sheriff in the eye.
That visibly caught Sheriff offguard. Why would Doc not want him to be sorry? That didn't make any sense.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“Sher, I’m not mad at you for it. I should have been more up front about that now that I think about it, but I wasn’t really...sober. All I want to know is why.”
Sheriff didn’t answer, immediately. He was more shocked than anything else. He was up all night, waiting for Doc to be so mad that he would have lost the relationship that they did have, but all Doc wanted to do was figure out why. He bought himself some more time to respond by taking a big gulp of his coffee.
“No judgement?”
“As if I can.”
Sheriff nodded before sitting down across form Doc.
“I don’t know.”
Doc hummed, tilting his head and urging him to continue.
“I don’t know. It’s not like it wasn’t something I had been wanting to do - don’t think too much about that too much - but I don’t know why I did it in that moment. I wanted to comfort you, and I guess… it was just a reflex. I didn’t even remember doing it until you brought it up, if I’m being completely honest.”
When Sheriff looked up from his coffee to see Doc’s reaction, he found him smiling.
That son of a bitch was smiling.
“What? What’s so amusing?”
“You’ve been wanting to kiss me?”
“Didn’t I just say not to focus on that?”
At that, Doc couldn’t help but laugh.
“Y’know, I didn’t laugh at you when you told me your deepest secrets,” he grumbled, going back to staring at his coffee.
When Doc stopped laughing, he settled on studying Sheriff. He thought about what he could say as a response, and settled on:
“Can I kiss you, then? Properly?”
Sheriff almost fell out of his chair at that, and Doc almost started laughing, again.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not saying it again, Sher.”
Sheriff stared at Doc, incredulously, before managing to stammer out a ‘yes’.
Smirking, Doc leaned acrossed the table, gently grabbed Sheriff’s chin, and pulled him in for a kiss. It was hesitant and slow, both of them still unsure of what they were doing. Still, they were both smiling into it. Sheriff’s hadn reached up to rest on Doc’s cheek, and Doc moved his other hand to hold it. Only parting when they had to breath, both broke into large smiles. Honestly, neither was entirely sure that that had actually happened.
“Y’know, if this is going to happen again, then you’re going to need to stop drinking your coffee black,” Sheriff joked, trying his best to remain present.
Doc rolled his eyes, but there wasn't any real hostility in it. “How come?”
“Because your lips tasted disgusting.”
Doc couldn’t help but laugh, again, and this time, Sheriff joined him.
Yeah, their relationship had definitely changed a lot this past week, but now, they were both 100% sure that it was for the better.