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Lee’s phone rings, shocking him out of a dreamless stupor. He scowls, bleary-eyed, and rolls out of bed, following the sound of the ringing to the phone mounted to the wall by the kitchen.
It’s late.
No one calls late with good news, and he hesitates to answer because there’s only so much bad news one can take. He feels hollow, standing—a lightning-struck tree burned out on the inside. The shape of something once strong.
The phone rings again, and he gathers enough of himself to lift the receiver to his ear.
“Hello?” he says, and doesn’t try to sound awake. It comes out somewhere between a whisper and a croak.
“Lee,” Billy says, sounding distant on the line. “Are you busy?”
His voice sinks in like a dagger, and Lee feels the pain bloom fresh in his chest. “It’s one a.m.,” he says. “No one’s busy.”
Billy sniffs and breathes audibly, a broken and heavy sound. “Lee…” It’s so fragile, his name, the plea wrapped in the ghosting breath of it.
Lee’s eyes fall shut, that plea resonating in his empty places.
“I’ll be right over,” he says.
“Door’s open.”
And then he hangs up. Lee doesn’t bother with a real shirt as he throws on enough clothes to be decent—a standard issue undershirt and yesterday’s pants will do. It’s just Bill. The drive is short, but he can feel the silence creeping into his bones. The emptiness of the car’s interior that could so comfortably hold four.
It’s only been a few weeks.
If he had to navigate much farther than Bill’s little bungalow, he might not make it. Might just make a few wrong turns and not come back himself.
But he knows this way by heart.
The neighbors’ lights are all off when he pulls up to the curb, and he shuts the heavy car door with a waist-high shove when it’s nearly closed over a slam to keep it that way. Not that his car at Bill’s house is an uncommon sight, but the hour… It feels like the night is watching, moonlight picking out his white undershirt just to draw attention.
He settles on a quick lie about Hiroshi being sick, should there be need of it, as he moves toward the front door like a ghost over glass. It’s open, as Bill said it would be, and he slips inside shutting it like he did the car, easing the locking mechanism into place.
Sheer drapes over the living room window let the moonlight in, the silver coolness contrasting with the warm flicker of candles over the fireplace next to a Buddha statue and a picture of Kei. There’s a candle on the coffee table, too, and by the light of it he can see splotched color on Billy’s face and a hint of gold around the rim of the tiny glass he lifts to his lips.
Billy downs the sake in a single gulp and pours himself another.
Lee slips onto the small couch beside him, tuned and watchful. They broke differently. Billy wears it where people can see—the widower, the single father. Sometimes, he wears it so loudly they resent him for it. But that he doesn’t see—Lee doesn’t let him.
The silence stretches while Billy pours more sake and tosses it back. There’s only one glass, and he doesn’t offer Lee that or the bottle. Their knees don’t quite touch.
Eventually, Billy sets the glass down and nudges it away with a fingertip. He angles his chin the slightest bit in Lee’s direction—the first real acknowledgment of his presence.
“Is it still okay, just not in public?” he asks, his voice rough from the hours before he called.
The tattered rags of Lee’s heart just about rip in half at the asking—that Billy thought he had to ask. That somehow Lee still hasn’t made himself known, after all this time. His expression twists with ache and failure, and his ribs hurt from the lava flow of affection that has had no outlet—that would burn whatever it touched if he set it free.
“Yeah,” he says, over the coal ember in his throat.
Billy cracks. The tears come, and he turns, and then he’s got Lee pressed against the armrest. Kissing. Sobbing. Lee catches him, tastes the salt in his familiar kiss. He hasn’t known if he’d lost both of them that day or not.
Bill’s mouth is hot, desperate. Breathing ragged between sobs. Lee kisses him like sorrow is his oxygen, drawing the poison out.
He would.
I’m sorry.
He would take it all, if he could.
Forgive me.
Bill’s knee digs into the couch as he straddles Lee and pulls at his shirt.
Lee slides lower on the cushions and lifts his arms to help. His shirt drops to the floor, and his hands go easily to Bill’s waist. Missed you…
And then Billy stops—freezes as though he’s suddenly lost his way, his compass gone.
Lee stares up at him, breathing hard, watching the way Billy’s frame heaves with every breath and eyes focus on something distant.
The tightness in Lee’s throat burns. “Billy,” he says, hushed.
Bill startles and meets his eyes, looking confused.
Lee licks his lower lip, dying at the pain he sees reflected. He swipes a thumb slowly through the tear tracks on Bill’s cheek. “Tell me what you need from me,” he says. It’s all he has to offer, cupped in penitent hands.
Billy blinks down at him and focuses. He bows his head briefly, thinking, sorting through everything for the right answer. He nods to himself and climbs off, offering Lee his hand.
Lee takes it and follows him to the bedroom, the muzzle flash hungry desperation gone as quickly as it had come. Billy’s grip goes slack as they enter the room, and Lee squeezes once before he lets go. He watches while he takes off his shoes. Billy’s movements have gone slow and methodical: shirt in the hamper, shoes by the dresser. He leaves his underwear on, and so Lee does the same.
Billy slides under the covers and lifts a corner up, beckoning. And Lee joins him, strung tight with the tension of his own guilt and the loss that pulls, pulls inexorably down. Billy hasn’t hated him yet, and a part of him wonders when that’s coming.
Probably not now, he thinks, as their heat pools together under the comforter.
They exchange a long look, and Lee can feel the struts that hold open his heart breaking as Bill’s face goes ruddy and twists with the coming anguish. He understands now and pushes himself up against the headboard to make space.
Billy collapses against his chest, and Lee wraps him with everything, his arms, his legs, his love. He presses the pieces in place, smoothing with gentle hands, while Billy bawls. A loud, bereft keening that resonates with Lee’s own grief. He holds on and buries his face in Billy’s hair as his own tears rise and fall, a quiet rain beside a gale.
Eventually, Billy exhausts himself and lifts up, face and eyes red and swollen. The covers slip down his back, and Lee’s skin prickles with the sudden cold. Lee swallows and peers back at him, reeling his own tears in as he brushes his fingers through Bill’s now-damp hair. Billy tips their foreheads together and rests there a moment, breathing in unison before he pulls from Lee’s embrace to lie on a pillow instead. Lee slithers until the blanket reaches his shoulders and Billy’s fingers find his in the warm dark.
He rolls, pulling Bill against his back, fingers interlocked and tucked against his chest. They’ll overheat before long. Billy burns like a furnace, all that energy turning straight to heat while the rest of him lies still. But for now, knees slot against knees in that familiar way, and Lee doesn’t have to see that empty space on the other side.
Billy’s breath tickles at his neck as he adjusts, never quite comfortable when he first lies down. The pillow, his arm, the blanket, usually in that order. Lee smiles a little as Billy rolls his shoulder, inching the covers higher.
He settles with a sigh and squeezes on Lee’s fingers before letting his own go slack. It should be a comfort. Lee wants it to be so hard his bones ache. But he can’t stop dwelling on the empty space.
It’s strange, Lee thinks, staring at the silver gray of the moonlit wall, to feel so close and so alone.
Lee wakes up to Billy’s fingers tracing over his cheekbone and scraping through rough stubble. Two limbs hang out from under the covers, and he pulls them back into the warmth, rolling to greet Bill’s curious attentions.
“Hey,” he murmurs, sleep heavy and pleased by the caress along his jaw.
“Hi.”
There’s a look Billy gets when he’s thinking—slightly distant, mouth compressed—and he has it now, pressed up on one elbow, studying the man in his bed.
Lee lifts a lazy eyebrow at him, and Billy leans in, carefully placing a kiss on his mouth. There’s a hesitancy in it. A pause before he licks his lips and does it again, almost chaste—too quick.
Lee frowns a little, squinting at him. “Why are you kissing me like you’ve never done it before?”
Billy doesn’t meet his eyes, and one pale shoulder rolls in a shrug. “It’s different now.”
The words are a thunderclap. Fear flashes cold through Lee’s body and an icy claw grips around his heart, sharp points piercing with every now-rapid beat. A photo in his mind develops, colors and shapes fading into something he can recognize.
“You don’t love me without her,” he whispers, voice flat, watching Billy’s face.
Billy frowns at him. “I didn’t say that.”
But hasn’t it always been there, in subtle ways? “You didn’t have to.”
Lee’s eyes burn as he tosses off the covers and hurries out of the bed. Maybe he should have guessed. Maybe he should have taken the signs for what they were. Maybe this is what constantly failing earns you.
He pulls his pants on and searches for his socks, face painted with the shame of how wrong he’s been, all this time. He ignores whatever Billy is saying, and with both socks in hand, he starts for the door. Billy steps in his path, pressing a hand against Lee’s chest.
“Will you stop?”
Lee stares at him, the hand, and back up, fighting the emotion tearing its way free, clenching the quivering in his jaw into stillness. He searches Billy’s face for a long, hopeless moment, and the tears he doesn’t want cling to his lashes. “I was never enough for you,” he says, voice hoarse with strain. “You believe every story but mine. I had to prove myself. Always.”
Confusion pinches Billy’s brow. “That’s not—”
“Just last night, you asked me—”
“It’s not you!” Billy shoots back, shoving him.
Lee just stares, waiting, his throat burning with pent grief. He cannot bear more… how can he bear more?
Billy scratches his head in irritation, turning away and back and away. He finds what he’s looking for on a blank expanse of wall, and a red flush washes up his freckled skin. He meets Lee’s eyes with something akin to terror. “This isn’t who I thought I’d be,” he says. “It’s dangerous, Lee, you know that better than me.”
Lee frowns at him, the hurt clawing his chest into dead and bloody meat. But he doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been anyone but himself.
Billy’s eyebrows go up at his silence. “I mean, two homos raising a kid?”
Lee flinches like he’s been hit. “Don’t say it like that.” He tucks his chin and tries for the door again, the world going blurry, and again Billy stops him with a hand to his chest.
“You’re enough,” Billy says. “Too much, sometimes”—Lee cannot decipher what that means—“It’s not you I doubt.”
Billy touches Lee’s face and hair, anguish written in the pull of his features. He looks ready to cry again and tear Lee’s heart out along with him.
“I love you,” Lee says, quiet. The coal in his throat burns.
“I know.” Billy looks heartbroken, but he cups Lee’s face in his palms and kisses him again, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle, lips and tongue and teeth in different combinations. Lee has never been locked, and he gives back as though pleasure is penance owed.
Billy pulls away first, breathless. “It really is that simple for you, isn’t it,” he says, looking at Lee with a bit of wonder.
It does not sound so much like a compliment and the claws in Lee’s heart grip again. He gazes at Billy’s face, trying to understand.
“Why am I so hard to love?” Lee asks.
Bill’s expression shatters. “You’re not!” He takes Lee’s face in his hands again. “God, you’re not.”
But that doesn’t make any sense, because if it were easy then why is this so difficult. Lee frowns, feeling his way toward an answer. Only one thing makes sense: that he’s easy to love but hard to forgive. That you can fail worse than love can make up for, and his debt is too great.
Irrevocable.
And his treasure of care worthless in the equation.
He cannot fix this. And that lightning bolt of clarity cracks his control. His hands go loose, and the tears he’s been fighting escape.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters and turns away.
“What?”
“I tried. I tried, and I couldn’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I—” The words jam in his throat, and a wave of guilt washes his legs from under him. Billy guides him to the edge of the bed as he heaves for air. “I’m s— I’m s—” He’s breathing too hard. He was trained not to panic, but this slices through the military’s best efforts.
Billy pulls him in, and Lee smears tears on his bare shoulder, while Bill’s fingers massage through his hair.
“It’s okay. Shh… shh,” Billy murmurs, rocking. “It’s okay.”
It isn’t.
It isn’t, and Billy needs to know—needs to understand. Lee sucks a deep breath and lifts his head. “You’re not listening,” he says, and Billy’s hands stop.
“I’m listening.”
“I failed,” Lee’s voice cracks on the word. “I failed us. I failed her.”
“Lee.”
“I had one job.” A sob escapes. “And I didn’t—” His chin drops to his chest in defeat. “I couldn’t—”
Billy’s thumbs wipe at the tears. “It’s not your fault,” he says gently, voice thick.
Lee meets his eyes. “It has to be.”
Billy shakes his head.
“It’s my job,” Lee insists. The one true thing he knows in a world rife with war and politics and monsters: Keiko and Billy were his to protect.
Bill looks pained, scanning Lee’s face. “You’re not a bodyguard.”
Lee blinks and looks away. “Exactly what I am.” A failed one, at that.
Billy sighs and caresses his thumbs over Lee’s cheeks. “Now who’s not listening. I am telling you, you are not just some service you provide. It was never like that. Not to us.” Lee looks at him, then. “And you’re right,” Billy goes on, “I do require too much proof. And I never thought about what that was doing to you.” He pulls Lee to his chest, skin to skin. “Kei is not your fault,” he says, and squeezes hard.
Lee sniffs, feeling raw and empty, his guilt unspooled, quivering, for Bill to see. “Feels like it is.”
“I know. But I don’t blame you. God, I’m the one who coudn’t hold the rope! And she wouldn’t blame you, either.”
Lee buries his face in the crook of Billy’s neck, and something inside loosens.
“It’s not your fault,” Billy whispers again.
He stops fighting it, and these tears are different, somehow. A clearing brushfire. Stuck things moving in a way that hadn’t been. Lee clings like he will die if he lets go, and for several moments simply cries, wheezing and hushed.
“The guilt will eat you,” Billy says.
A humorless laugh bubbles from Lee’s chest. “I know.”
“Then don’t let it. We still need you.”
Shaking, Lee lifts his head from Billy’s shoulder, and Billy brushes a hand through his hair.
“Got a son to raise, right?”
Lee sniffs and nods, bringing himself under control. Bill’s soft, soothing touches feel like home and forgiveness. Eventually, Billy leans their foreheads together.
“I’m gonna do better,” he promises.
A call comes from beyond the bedroom door. “Dad?”
They both turn their heads.
“Sugu soko ni iru yo,” Lee calls back and straightens, wiping at his eyes. This is something he can do.
This time Billy lets him leave, and he fetches his shirt from the living room.
“Uncle Lee?” Hiro says from the kitchen.
“Yeah, bud, what’s up?” He strides quickly to him, and Hiro peers up.
“What’s for breakfast?”
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
Hiro’s little face narrows in thought. “Pancakes,” he says with certainty.
“Pancakes,” Lee echoes with a smile. “Well, let’s see what you have.”
He checks the cupboards and fridge and finds milk, eggs, and Bisquick. Hiro sits at the table in the kitchen, watching. Billy hasn’t joined them yet—Lee isn’t sure why—but he doles out small pancakes onto a plate and sets it on the table, alongside butter, syrup, and jam. Coffee percolates, and he makes himself a few pancakes too, leaving batter in the bowl.
He joins Hiro at the little table, grinning at the boy’s ravenous appetite. Lee’s smile fades as he considers his coffee cup and takes a sip.
“Hiro,” he says, setting the cup down. “I need you to do something for me.”
Hiro looks at him and chews more slowly.
Lee’s mouth twists briefly in amusement. “If anyone asks, you were sick last night, and that’s why I came over.”
Hiro swallows and scowls at him. “I wasn’t sick.”
“I know that. But if anyone wants to know why I was here, that’s what I need you to tell them.”
“Why?”
Lee drops his gaze for a second, thinking. “Because I’m not allowed to have sleepovers,” he says. “I’ll get in trouble.”
Hiro’s been to several with friends from school, and he frowns considering. “Why?”
Lee sighs. “It’s just my boss’s rule, bud. If I get in trouble, I won’t be able to see you anymore.”
Hiro’s eyes widen at that.
“Okay?” Lee goes on. “Can you do that for me?”
Hiro nods vigorously.
“Okay. Eat your pancakes.”
Hiroshi’s fork hovers, but he just stares at the plate. “Was Dad sick?” he asks.
Lee’s heart lurches, and he plays with the handle of the coffee mug. “In a way.”
“He was crying.”
“Yeah.”
Hiro’s whole body sags, and he peers at Lee. “About mom,” he whispers.
Lee’s eyes sting, but he nods. “Yeah.”
They are both quiet for a moment, and Lee lifts his mug to take a drink.
“Did you kiss it better?” Hiro asks.
And Lee freezes, hot coffee sloshing to touch his lip, almost spilling. He stares at Hiro and slowly puts the cup down, heart hammering.
“Hiroshi,” he says carefully, “you can’t ask me things like that.” The boy’s face pulls into a frown. “I’m not allowed to do that either. No sleepovers, no kissing. Those are secrets, Hiro-kun. Our secrets.”
Hiro looks away and stabs at a pancake. “You’ll get in trouble.”
“I will get in trouble.”
Adrenaline pumps through Lee’s system, but he holds himself steady and takes a drink from his mug without spilling any.
“Okay,” Hiroshi says to his plate.
Lee exhales. “Thanks, kiddo.” He ruffles Hiro’s hair, then points to his plate. “I’m not gonna make you pancakes if you don’t eat ’em.”
Hiro straightens and attacks what’s left.
A shape in Lee’s periphery becomes Billy leaning against the entryway, dressed for work. His eyes shine with a heartbroken affection that Lee understands to mean he’d overheard. Lee pushes his own plate toward the empty seat.
“Here,” he says, with a nod. “I’ll make more.”