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[ricardo]
I hated machine guns.
They were loud, they were dangerous, and they shattered my ability to think clearly – especially when someone squeezed off a few shots in a narrow alley between metal shipping containers. “Damn!” I shouted, swinging my riot gun to point. It torqued in my hands, the slug hitting home. Silence fell. My ears rang, the world playing back to me on a set of broke speakers. The gun smoldered. Blood leaked from the hole I’d put in the machine gun-wielder’s gut. I kicked the rifle aside, just to make sure, although I knew damn well that fella wasn’t getting up.
It got quiet. Too quiet.
“Crockett!” I shouted, drawing my revolver and thumbing back the hammer. Didn’t think I’d need it, but just in case. “Where you at, man?”
Apparently, we weren’t done yet.
The next shot wasn’t a machine gun. It was a handgun, judging by the sharp pop and the sound of the empty casing clanging away. There was a muffled grunt as it found its target. I cussed and slammed back against a shipping container, flattening myself and making my body into as slim a target as I could, revolver at my chest as I skirted around the corner of the musty, smokey dock. Through the haze, I picked out the lithe white shape of my partner’s back as he calmly leveled his silver Bren Ten with his off hand, let off a pair of shots in a machinelike one-two pattern. The shooter, invisible to me, caught both in the center mass and fell, a shadow dropping to the concrete.
“Goddamn,” I snapped, strafing toward Crockett, eyes scanning the haze for another threat. I heard something that told me one of ‘em wasn’t dead yet. Short gasps. “Hey, Crockett! That all of ‘em?”
He didn’t answer. Or maybe I didn’t hear. My ears rang something fierce. “Crockett!” I hollered again, turning just in time to see him sag against the container to his right. His shoulder thudded heavily against the metal. His head tipped forward. The Bren was a lead weight in his hand, muzzle pointing toward the floor.
He coughed and spat.
Blood splattered at his feet.
I lunged into a sprint as my partner went down.
My world became Sonny as he listed to the side, slamming down onto a knee – the bad one, his trick knee, he called it – as his precious Bren scraped the pavement. I closed the gap fast, hooking my arms under his pits just as he pitched forward, lowering him to the ground, gentle but firm against the rusty container. A cough wracked him. It was violent and wet, like he was drowning, bright red flecks staining his lapel as I hauled us both backward, flattening a hand across his chest to keep him semi-upright.
His chest was warm. Wet.
I didn’t have to look to know what with.
“Sonny,” I said, frantic, tucking him against me, finally getting a good look at his face. Pale already. Blood slicked his chin. His breathing was shallow. His blond hair stuck to his forehead, matted already with sweat. I didn’t want to look, but I did anyway. Red blossomed on the right side of his chest. Up close, it was a nightmare. A ragged dime-sized tear just below his collarbone marked his white blazer, edges frayed and singed, and as I stared, frothy pink blood bubbled from the wound with every ragged inhale.
“Shit,” I hissed, yanking his blazer aside. A matching hole ruined his teal undershirt. He hacked again, spraying blood across my sleeve. His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, refusing to lift on the right side. He’d gone pale, and his hand stirred at his side, Bren forgotten. I winced, shoving my shirtsleeve up and out of the way, feeling sick, numb. “Hold on, partner. Don’t move.”
Crockett’s head rolled against my shoulder. His eyes found mine, unfocused but intent. He wheezed, the sound an awful stereo between his throat and his chest, bloody foam leaking from the corner of his mouth as he tried to speak, reaching up to fist a hand in my shirt.
“Rico …”
I bent closer, heart hammering my breastbone. “I’m here, partner. Hold still.” I was all clinical now, talking softly, praying that backup wasn’t far off. Two things I had to do: stem the bleeding, stop his chest from sucking air where it wasn’t supposed to go. The meat of my palm slipped over the wound. It pulsed like a living thing trying to steal his air and drown him in his own chest. Something gave. Crockett groaned, but the sound turned to another wet hack, his breathing going shallower with every thready beat of his heart.
He pulled himself together. Or tried to, a thin thread of blood at the corner of his mouth. “Just lemme … say this.” He took another breath that hitched. “You’ve been the only thing -” he broke off, wincing “-that’s ever made sense to me.”
“Don’t,” I said, turning my head at the sound of a siren in the distance, relief mixed with dread cooling my limbs. “You can tell me later. Save it.”
He gave a faint, crooked smile. “Might not get that far.”
The blood in my veins ran cold. I held his head, his chest, dipping my head, praying, praying …
“Rico, I –” He broke himself off as he coughed, staining his collar, staining my forearm, his blood life-bright against my wrist. “I love you. Not just … partners.”
For a moment, I forgot to breathe. My free hand was on his face, gently turning him back toward me as his neck went slack. “You hold on,” I said. “You hold on long enough to say that again, you hear me? Not like this, man. Not like this.”
Eyes flickering, Crockett offered me a ghost of that familiar smirk with bloodstained lips. “You’d … make a lousy romantic lead.”
“And you talk too damn much,” I said through a half-laugh, half-sob. “Stay with me. Hey.” I shook him lightly when he started to go limp, and his eyes fluttered back open, just barely. “Stay with me, man.” But he was fading, and fading fast, so I gently tried to rouse him again, eyes hot, throat thick. “Hey. Sonny. Sonny!” I was surprised at how pissed off I was. I grimaced, holding him tighter to my chest. “You don’t get to say that and check out, man!”
But he did. Shock deepened. Breathing slowed, small mercy that it was. Gasping quieted, but that was worse. He started to whimper instead as his head lolled. That about broke my damn heart. I cradled him the best I could. Kept pressure on that damn wound. The other hand splayed across his neck, pinning his cheek against my chest, thumb stroking his pulse point, willing his heart to keep that rhythm going even as I felt him slipping.
That was how the others found us.
* * *
The surgery took three hours. Three damn hours.
I wore a path in that tile floor waiting for someone to tell me he was still breathing. Castillo sat in the corner, still like he was carved from marble, while I paced back and forth, back and forth. Every time a nurse came through those double doors, I froze mid-step, my heart hammering. But it was never for us. Never for Sonny.
I love you. Crockett’s words kept playing in my mind. Thing is, as I paced the waiting room floor for three hours thinking he was dead, I realized … he’d said it before. Just never with words. It was every time he’d handed me a cup of partway decent coffee before the rest of the team got to it. Every time we locked eyes across the car, lingering for longer than we should have. Every time his palm flattened on my back as we headed into a bust, every time his hand hung heavy on my shoulder when we walked away successful. His laugh, low and quiet, anchored to my side after we’d made it out of something that should’ve sent us both to meet our maker.
I’d known it. I just never wanted to name it.
I sat down hard. My elbows dug into my knees. My hands covered my face. My sleeves were still stiff with his blood, and it had dried in the channels of my skin.
He’d meant it. Of course he had.
When the doors finally opened for real, a man in scrubs stepped out. Older, gray hair plastered to his forehead, mask hanging loose around his neck. He took stock of the badge on my hip. “You’re Detective Tubbs?”
“Yeah,” I said, too quickly. My voice cracked. “Talk to me.”
“Your partner’s alive,” he said first. And then, “We’re lucky he’s a tough son of a gun. This was almost a very different conversation.”
The world spun away from me.
“He flatlined twice,” the doctor went on, voice even. “Once from blood loss, once from cardiac arrest. We got him back both times. Bullet went in high.” He tapped his own chest for emphasis. “Took out part of his right lung and cracked a rib on its way in. He lost a lot of blood. We repaired the tears and drained his chest. He’s stable for now.”
“Stable.” I repeated the word, but it was numb. My head was locked in a loop. I pictured Crockett’s strong heartbeat staggering off the monitor, the bloody mess that was my partner under the surgical drapes, the frantic tone in the operating theater as they rushed to keep him here.
I tried to listen, I did, but most of what the doc said ran together. I was glad Castillo was there. He’d remember. I wouldn’t. All I could think about was that dockyard, Sonny’s blood on my sleeve, his body deadweight in my arms. Twice. He’d crashed twice. I had to see him. I had to make sure he was alive. Breathing. There was so much I had to say to him. So much. How could I be sure he was alive if I couldn’t see him?
Castillo asked something practical, because of course he did. The doctor answered in words I didn’t catch.
Then it was quiet again, and I realized the man was looking at me like he’d been waiting for me to speak.
“How soon can I see him?” I finally managed.
“Soon,” the surgeon said. It wasn’t really an answer, but it was all I was gonna get. “They’re cleaning him up and making sure the bleeding is under control. He’s going to need time.”
We all need time, I thought. I nodded, swallowing hard, slightly deflated. “Yeah. Okay.” My throat burned. “Thanks, Doc.”
He gave a tired smile and disappeared back through the doors.
“Go wash up, Ricardo,” Castillo said quietly after a moment. “He’ll still be here when you get back.”
I looked down at my hands, skin still stained dark with dried blood. “Lieutenant,” I muttered, not looking up, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be here.”
Castillo nodded. He understood.
* * *
Some time after the doctor left, as the clock crawled into the early hours of the morning, the nurse came to find me.
“Detective Tubbs?” she said. Castillo, sitting to my left, head tipped back against the wall, didn’t stir. I looked up, feeling the weight of the day dragging at the skin under my eyes.
“You can see Detective Crockett now,” the nurse said, softly. “He’s heavily sedated. He won’t be lucid.”
I shot to my feet without a word. The walk down the corridor was a blur of polished tile and pastel walls. The world felt too sterile, and I felt like I was walking into battle. I’d gotten so used to the sound of him breathing hard next to me as we stared down a fight. Now I was alone, and the silence hurt.
The ICU door sighed open. The nurse whisked a curtain back and stepped back to let me pass. I stepped in, slowly. And there he was. Half-buried in tubing, a line in his throat, chest wrapped, rising and falling in time with the machines next to him. Something beeped in perfect time. The curtain swished shut behind me, giving us some semblance of privacy, but I couldn’t get myself to move. I just stood there at the foot of the bed, trying to square that living body with the one I’d held bleeding out on the dock.
“Hey, partner,” I managed. My voice didn’t sound like mine, but then again, Crockett didn’t look like Crockett, his blond hair swept back over closed eyes and a slack jaw. I took a step forward, then another. “Can you hear me?”
I didn’t expect a response. All I got was the monitor’s soft pulse and the whisper of air through the ventilator. Sounded foreign, but at least it wasn’t the horrid sucking of air through a hole that wasn’t supposed to be there. Or that terrible, almost childlike whimper he’d made as he faded out for good. Fuck.
Knuckles tight on the metal bedrail, I blinked hard against the heat in my eyes. “Heard you gave ‘em hell in the OR,” I said, trying to find some levity. “Stubborn son of a bitch.”
The heart monitor ticked faster. I probably imagined it.
“You’re gonna pull through this, you hear?” I was frozen until I saw his hand on the sheets. An IV was stuck there. Careful, I took it, closing his limp fist in mine. “You already did it twice.” I laughed sharply. “Fuck you for trying to die on me, man. I’ll drag your sorry ass back a third time if I gotta. Try me.”
The monitor ticked steady in answer, calm and sure. I stayed that way until the nurse came back, hand on his. That grip held all the things I couldn’t say, my thumb brushing his knuckles, over and over, keeping him tethered to the world. Hell, I think it kept me from drifting, too, because when I had to let go and the nurse guided me out, I felt lost.
* * *
Three days, I kept vigil. They kept Crockett under with that tube in his throat. “Smokers take longer to bounce back,” the nurse told me when I asked if he’d ever get off that damn ventilator, and that was as good as it was gonna get.
On the fourth day, they took the tube out. I was already halfway to the hospital when Castillo rang me with the news: Sonny was awake. Barely.
I stuck my badge into my pocket, gold side out, and floored the rest of the way, eating up the Miami streets and slinging my Caddy around the corners like a speedboat. I double-parked it and booked it inside. By the time I got up to the ICU, the nurse said my partner had been fighting the sedative, stubborn even in half-consciousness. Typical Crockett.
“Try not to rile him up,” she said, accusatory. “He’s breathing on his own, but don’t overdo it.”
Like I could ever tell Sonny-fucking-Crockett what to do.
He looked better and worse all at once. He was propped up, at least, an oxygen line under his nose, IVs everywhere, his gown tugged aside just enough to show me the edge of the bandages. His complexion almost matched the sheets, and a sandy beard had started to take over the planes of his face. His eyes were closed, and my stomach bottomed out until I saw the shallow movement of his chest under the blankets and the gown, and before I knew it, I’d crossed the distance, stepping up to the bed.
Slowly, his eyes fluttered open.
“Hey, partner,” I said.
Those blue eyes scanned me under half-dropped lids before they drifted shut again. He nestled down into the pillow, tousling his blond hair, and for a second I thought it’d been a false positive, that he’d been dragged back under by whatever shit they kept ramming into his veins, but then his throat worked and he spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
“You look like hell,” he said.
I almost broke down. Hell, maybe I did. I dropped my ass into the shitty metal chair they left for visitors and reached for his hand. Careful of the IVs, I squeezed. This time, he squeezed back, and I smiled through a few rogue tears. “Good to see you, too,” I said as he shifted just enough to look at me through slitted eyelids. I offered him a lopsided grin. “Damn, brother. Thought you were done pullin’ shit like this.”
He coughed and winced, hand tightening around mine. “Easy,” I said, holding him through it until his chest quit spasming, glancing up at the heart monitor like I had to make sure those peaks and valleys still existed.
When he could breathe again, he leaned back against the pillows, eyelids drooping. “Didn’t … plan for after,” he rasped, voice thin from days of intubation.
That hit harder than I expected. I loosened my grip, ‘case he wanted to pull away. He didn’t. “Yeah,” I said, quietly. “Guess I didn’t, either.”
He turned his head just enough to lock those tired blues on me. His eyebrows furrowed. “I’m sorry, Rico, I … I got shitty timing, man. I shouldn’t’ve put that on you—”
“Hey,” I said, cutting him off, closing my fist on his again. “Don’t.”
Crockett stilled.
“You ain’t runnin’ me off that easy,” I said, watching his heartbeat spike on the monitors. “Listen. We don’t gotta do this now. You got one thing to worry about, and that’s gettin’ yourself up and outta that bed so you and I can take the Ferrari out. She’s been pacing her slip, man. Wants to run.”
That got a weak smile outta him. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark against his pale cheeks. “Yeah,” he wheezed.
There was more I coulda said. More I wanted to say. But he looked like he was fading, his breathing slowing, expression going slack. “Hey,” I said, softly, brushing a thumb across his knuckles. “You rest up. We’ll figure the rest out later, all right?”
Something eased in his face, the hard lines around his eyes softening as his brow relaxed. “Later,” he echoed.
A second passed. I told myself to stand up, walk out, let him sleep. That was all I needed to do.
I didn’t do that.
I leaned in before I could talk myself out of it, brushing a stray sun-bleached lock off his forehead. He didn’t flinch when I bent closer, and he didn’t stir when I pressed my lips against his hairline. Before I pulled away, I rested my forehead against his for a heartbeat, eyes shut, breathing him in. My hand found his hair again, tracing proof that he was real – clammy, but warm and alive – under my touch as he drifted back under.
“Rest now, partner,” I whispered. “I’ve got the watch.”
-END-