Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fucking Curly.

Jimmy watches him, watches the halo form on top of his golden hair. The sun rises behind him, and his eyebags don’t make him any less ethereal.

He takes a drag from his cigarette to avoid looking at him. If their so-called captain hadn’t insisted on not smoking inside the ship, he wouldn’t be grappling with the urge inside him to make him hurt. Not because he hated Curly, but because he needed to take control of him.

There was beauty in breaking things. It was a shame that only Jimmy seemed to realise that.

“Are you still mad at me?” Curly asks, and his voice is light, amused.

Jimmy blows out a stream of smoke instead of responding.

[OBJECTIVE: TAKE WHAT’S YOURS]

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Curly turns a blind eye to a lot of things. But somehow, it’s always because of Jimmy.

That’s what he tells himself, at least. It makes it a lot easier to sleep.

“Aren’t you going to say thank you?” He asks, letting the bitterness seep into his voice.

Jimmy sneers at him. They’re both crammed into the shitty little fire escape of Jimmy’s apartment, and his breath, reeking of smoke, is almost suffocating.

“For what?” His friend snaps. “I didn’t ask for a handout. You just needed to feed your saviour complex.”

“That’s not true.” Curly insists, though he knows, guiltily, that Jimmy’s not entirely wrong.

“Oh yeah? Why else would you have offered me the job? I bet I’m your little fuckin’ pet project you brag about to your friends at corporate— just saying, adopting a recue dog or something would have a lot less paperwork.”

“Jimmy, seriously. That’s not why.”

“Yeah, right.” Jimmy says dryly. He reaches for the Marlboros in Curly’s hand, who gives it to him without question. “You’re almost out.” He says, glancing at the pack.

“Keep it.” Curly shrugs. He’s aching for another smoke, but the small smirk that appears on the other man’s face is worth it.

He would do anything to try and save Jimmy, and that thought scares him.

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The curtains in his loft are always closed. Curly can’t find it in himself to open them anymore.

“Get up.” A familiar voice orders, and Curly stifles a groan, pulling his duvet over his head.

“Give me a second.” He mutters, letting the darkness of the room pull him down. His chest feels hollow, a bone-deep tiredness. It’s nothing new, but it’s not something he wants Jimmy, of all people, to see.

“You were the one who kept hounding me about that training exercise.” Jimmy’s voice drips with frustration, and Curly finally sighs and gives in.

“Yeah, no.” He says, sitting up. “Sorry. I’ll be down in a second.”

Curly scrubs at his eyes, Jimmy being oddly silent as he quickly throws on a coat and shoves necessities into a duffel bag. When he pulls the bag onto his shoulder and turns to leave, he sees the other man staring at the mess on his floor. Shit.

Jimmy’s eyes flicker between the overflowing trash bags and the piles of dishes, tsking at the clothes scattered everywhere.

“What a mess. And here I thought golden boy Curly had it all figured out.” He says, and something in his tone makes Curly’s heart plummet with dread.

“I just haven’t had the time.” He says, evenly. “Don’t overthink it.”

“Whatever you say, captain.” Jimmy snarks, and he finally turns to leave.

Curly exhales in relief, and goes to follow, before his friend suddenly stops in his tracks once they’re outside.

“You know—” Jimmy begins, and the tone in his voice is serious enough that Curly feels a flicker of shame. He doesn’t need to be pitied, especially not by his train wreck of a friend.

“Don’t, Jimmy.” He says, a bit too sharply.

Jimmy raises his hands up half-mockingly.

“Calm down. I’m not trying to pyschoanalyse you or anything,” He says, his tone turning soft in a way Curly’s never heard before. “I just mean- if you ever need help— if you’re ever feeling down about anything, you can talk to me. I guess.”

“Thanks.” Curly says, his brain too foggy to come up with anything else. “Yeah, no, I— I know I’m really glad to have this job, but once in a while it gets really boring, yknow? It’s a good gig, but its not what I wanted to end up…doing.”

“What did you want to do?”

Curly searches for an answer, coming up blank. Just like every other time.

“I don’t know.”

Jimmy stares at him for a second. The look on his face unsettles Curly, makes a shiver run down his spine. It’s the look of a vulture circling its dying prey.

“I could help you,” He finally says, and it’s almost reverent. He smiles, a little too widely. “I’ll help you, Curly. We’ll get through whatever…this is together. I’ll save you just this once, instead of you having to save me.”

Curly looks away.

“Thanks.” He mutters. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Chapter Text

When he wakes up that morning in a cold sweat, Curly doesn’t waste a moment before he’s scrambling to leave the room. His movements are methodical, practiced. It’s one of the reasons he keeps a routine- so that he can keep functioning, no matter what. Like a well-oiled machine that goes through the motions.

The coffee machine clicks away as he goes through his easiest paperwork. He scrawls down his signature and skims through their half-assed transcripts from HR.

Behind him, Jimmy stirs with a mumbled groan. Curly can’t help the fond exasperation as he hears his friend slowly get up, complaining all the while.

“I thought you’d stop doing that once you got your own place.” He says, but both of them know its half-hearted. Curly forgives him more than others seem to do.

Jimmy shrugs.

“It’s a shithole compared to this,” He says pointedly. “And here I thought the model captain wouldn’t let his friend freeze to death.”

Curly hums in agreement. Behind him, Jimmy’s standing, watching him write. It’s familiar for the both of them, Curly’s eyes focused ahead while the other trails behind him.

With a muttered curse, Curly grabs for the coffee pot before it starts to overfill.

“Distracted?” Jimmy asks.

Curly lets his touch linger on the pot for a little too long. The pain doesn’t seem to register.

“Something like that.” He answers, the full weight of his constant fog settling in. It’s not as crushing as it was back in school, but it’s still there on the Bad days.

Jimmy looks between the pot and his palm, rolling his eyes. He grabs for it and puts it away, while Curly stares at the darkening red spot on his hand.

“Idiot.” Jimmy mutters, but his gaze seems to notice something, something that Curly himself doesn’t know- and then it softens. “It’s one of those days, isn’t it?” He croons, half-mockingly.

Curly tries to push away the memories of unfilled prescriptions and job applications, turning away.

“Don’t call it that.” He snaps.

“Aw, why not?”

Jimmy reaches for one of the forms still scattered on the counter before Curly can tell him off.

“Mandatory psychiatric evaluations,” He reads aloud. “Pretty topical, I guess.”

“What are you implying, Jim?”

Jimmy looks at him, and there’s a familiar hunger in his expression.

“I think we both know. Why don’t you let me take care of you for once, captain?”

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[FIFTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE CRASH]

It starts like this. It always does.

He’s curled up in the bathroom with his student ID, and trying to squash the emptiness in his chest before his lecture starts.

His phone dings. It could be his professor, commending him for his work as the TA. It could be a friend, asking him to get drinks after class. It could be any number of people that see him as the picture-perfect student that he is.

Curly, somehow, knows it’s not.

grant

grant, dont fuckidg leave me on read

u there?

Curly can’t help it, his numb fingers type out a sentence as the words flash on his screen, and drags himself outside.

Yeah, man.

I’m always there.

When he reaches the grassy knoll outside, Jimmy’s waiting for him in the same spot he always does. His face is pinched, his clothes are stained with motor oil.

“I got fired.” He says, irritably.

On a normal day, Curly would’ve mustered up an angry response, before sighing and checking for another job, another shitty garage for Jimmy to work at because he’s a responsible friend who wants to help him.

“Oh. Again?” It’s all his mouth is able to say.

Jimmy glares at him.

“What? No cliché speech about taking responsibility for myself or some frustrated lecture?”

Curly looks at the floor. Its still there, that weight. Dragging him down. Showering, studying, speaking, its all been so hard to make his body work these days.

“I don’t yell.” He says quietly, in lieu of a response.

Jimmy’s shoulders drop, he’s no longer tensed, expecting a fight. His eyes flick down to Curly’s shoulder, the tightly bandaged spot around his arm. Curly wants to tell him to look away— it was from a training accident at a routine flight simulation, nothing out of the ordinary.

Atleast, that’s what he tells himself.

“…Are you alright, Grant?”

Curly nods on autopilot, but then Jimmy’s reaching forward, and his arm squeezes a little too hard, a little too possessively around him.

His shoulder burns. He doesn’t pull away.

Jimmy practically drags him back to the dorms, and pulls off his coat.

“Is it still bothering you?” He asks, a curious note to his voice.

Curly shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say, anymore. Jimmy’s seen him through everything, his weakness and languishing, the only one who knows that he doesn’t have any real aspirations.

His friend stands closer to him now, warm breath grazing his skin. He looks up, the height difference isn't as funny when there's so much hunger in his gaze.

His fingers wrap around Curly’s chest, and he lets himself be manoeuvred onto the couch. Jimmy settles his hand on his hair, and if Curly closes his eyes, it feels like they’re back in high school, sitting in the empty bleachers after class. He can still hear Jimmy’s mutterings about his shitty dad or his 1.3 GPA, smell the polluted mess in the air.

His breath lingers over him again, and Curly holds back a shudder.

“You want to do it again, don’t you?” Jimmy asks. It’s not really a question.

Curly tries to steady his words, hide the crack in his voice.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Jimmy laughs, light and smug.

“Yeah, well, I do.” He tugs harder at the blond locks in his hand. “I’m the only one who does.”

When Curly doesn’t respond, Jimmy roughly guides his hand to the tender patch on his shoulder.

“Jim—”

“C’mon. It’s the only thing that seems to help you.” His voice softens, a tone reserved only for Grant, for Curly. “And I do want to help you.”

He doesn’t. Curly knows this, even as he lets Jimmy tug off the dressings.

(Or maybe he does, maybe the only way to fix him is through the sting of pain.)

A cold, thin finger prods at the wound. Curly resists the urge to flinch.

“Well?”

There’s already a glint of steel. Curly can’t remember when it was pressed into the palm of his hand. He reaches towards his shoulder, hesitating. Even this seems like too much effort.

Jimmy watches him intently, a fond smirk on his face.

“Do you want me to do it?” He asks, but he’s not expecting an answer. The straight-razor is already in his grip. Curly distantly wonders if it’s the one he’d lent to him for shaving.

White-hot pain flashes across his arm, and he sucks in a breath at the burn. His shoulder feels like its being flayed open, all the while his friend looking at him like a butcher gazing down at a cut of meat.

Crimson drips down in a steady flow, the flesh already peeling open for layers of yellow bubbles to peek out. Jimmy watches in fascination. Maybe he’s also thinking about the way it looks like the oranges they’d shared as kids, Curly ripping the fruit in two for the both of them.

“Easy now, goldie.” Jimmy teases. He’s already staunching the flow of blood, holding it closed.

Curly closes his eyes, exhausted.

“Do you have to do that?” He mutters.

“Unless you want to bleed out. It might hurt, but I’m saving you.” He pauses, then, and his hand traces over Curly’s face. “Do you feel any better?”

Curly exhales shakily. He hates that he needs this. “Yeah.”

Jimmy lays down with him, his hands still slick with blood. Curly feels him smile against his forehead.

“Good.” He says, oddly quiet. “Maybe it’s a little fucked up, but if it makes you feel better…” He trails off with a bitter laugh.

“It makes me feel really good— that someone everyone looks down on is the only one who can ever fucking help a kiss-ass like you, you know?” He continues. “And anyways, it’s not all bad. Pain is how we know we’re alive, after all.”

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[PRESENT DAY]

“Grant?”

“Don’t.”

Curly doesn’t know what to say after that. Don’t call me that, I’m not that man anymore. Don’t offer me your help, I’m not weak like you.

Instead, he moves away the files on his desk.

“Maybe I’ll get started on the inventory first. I’ll send the evals in later.” He says, firmly ending the conversation and brushing past Jimmy. His co-pilot watches him knowingly.

 “I wish you’d let me help you.” He mutters, irritated.

“Pot calling the kettle.” Curly shoots back. “Unless you’d like to do your evaluation first?”

Jimmy chuckles sardonically.

“Asshole.” He says, and then he’s reaching closer, his shadow lingering at the counter. “But alright, I’ll let it go for now.” His head rests on Curly’s shoulders, too close for comfort. “You want me to stay?”

“Will you listen if I say no?” Curly retorts, and by the tight grip on his hand, he already knows the answer.

He sighs, and lets himself melt into the touch. It’s a little unsettling, how close his friend seems to be with him, how freely he touches him. How comfortable he seems to be with hurting him to make him feel better.

But it’s fine. Curly will turn a blind eye to it, like he’s always done.

Like he’s always done.