Work Text:
Technically, it’s Isaac’s fault.
Much could be made of Isaac’s supervision at the time of the incident – and there was a high chance much would be said, when Isaac eventually shared some garbled version with a teacher or with Abigail, or more pressingly when Arthur had to ask half the people he knew to toss in a dollar or two to spot the bill – but the strict facts were simple. The facts were these:
(1) Copper had a crayon in his nose.
(2) Isaac had put it there.
(3) It was too far up there for Arthur to get it, even when he forced Isaac to hold the big flashlight and tried with tweezers while Copper whined and snarled and Isaac gave animated commentary.
There’s no saving it. All the people who he’d have to beg for money when the bill came round owed him favors, and Copper was probably the friend who asked the least of him in this life. So, despite the fact that it was his first Saturday off in a month, despite the fact that Isaac had not napped yet, despite the fact that there had been talk of Tilly coming over and making food, Arthur resigned himself to a 45-minute drive to the pet clinic.
Isaac and Copper were equally loathe to get in the truck, which didn’t want to start in the cold (or ever), and even generous infusions of the Rango soundtrack – normally a surefire way to calm Isaac down – did not appease them. By the time Arthur pulled into the clinic’s empty parking lot, he was dreaming idly of a time he might have robbed just such a place. Maybe for ketamine, which Arthur had little interest in, but which he could sell. The money could then go to cigarettes. Like, 300 cigarettes. Arthur, huffed the voice in his head that usually sounded like Tilly. Fine, he thought. 200.
“Daddy,” Isaac babbled, “car stop.” Arthur remembered himself, wished he had coffee, and went to take the recalcitrant Isaac and drooling Copper from the truck.
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It was a murderously slow Saturday. Charles had expressed four cats’ anal glands that morning and had been completing what Sadie derisively termed “admin tasks” ever since.
“But you’re the administrator,” he’d said, gesturing at the massive stack of paper piled on his dilapidated desk. Charles’s office was crammed behind the reception desk, and he was confident it had been a closet in a former life.
“Only when you’re busy,” Sadie had replied, not looking up from her book. Charles wasn’t sure what it was this week, but the cover prominently featured a bloody axe.
He found himself missing the glands.
Trains of thoughts like these were the reason, Charles figured, that Sadie called him a workaholic. And/or sad. And/or Mr. Misery. And she wasn’t entirely wrong, probably because she knows him pretty well. In many respects she’s the closest thing to a friend he has. There wasn’t much in Charles’s life going well – or going at all – and he’d been to six funerals in as many months. He had a tiny apartment in a basement that smelled like charcoal, he had a phone that never rang except for telemarketers, and he had his job. So his job was the closest he had to a good thing going, and he liked it. Even on the sad days, he liked it. The slow days, not so much.
The bell over the door jingles softly and Charles wonders if the universe is about to play a trick on him and grant him his wish, but the man coming through the door now is leading a dog and a toddler. Dogs, too, sometimes require their anal glands expressed, Charles knows, but at least the world might treat him to some variety.
“Hey,” calls Sadie languidly from the front desk. “Y’all got an appointment?”
“Uh. No,” says the man, then he grunts. Charles peers over Sadie’s shoulder to see a broad blond wrestling a toddler, who is doing everything in his power to reach the little desk calendar Sadie keeps balanced on top of her monitor. She spots him instantly, moves the calendar out of reach, and presses a bright blue Up To Date Rabies Vaccinated dog tag into the baby’s hand. He immediately sticks it into his mouth.
“Right,” says his father, experimentally setting the boy down. When no wail of protest follows, he continues. “My son, he uh – he stuck a crayon into the dog’s nose.”
Sadie hums sympathetically.
“…and I can’t get it out,” the man adds, prompting Sadie to hum again and then direct the little family – hapless man, temporarily satisfied toddler, and crayon-nosed dog – into exam room 1.
“In exam room one, Charles!” she hollers over her shoulder, despite being close enough to touch Charles through the half-open office door. They really need more space.
“I heard you,” Charles says, but Sadie is already back in her book.
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Arthur has just convinced Copper to get onto the silvery exam table, and Isaac to get off of it, when the door opens.
“DOG,” Isaac announces. He starts to toddle towards the man before Arthur seizes him by the overall strap.
“Yes,” says the vet.
“Dog-gee,” Isaac adds mournfully as Arthur dragged him backwards and pulled his wriggly little body onto his lap. “Dog-gee, ’Per, ’Per.”
“The dog is Copper,” says Arthur apologetically, finally looking at the vet and then immediately sort of regretting it, because the sight of the vet – his shining hair, his cheeks, his shoulders – sledgehammers his body with desire.
“’PER,” Isaac intones seriously.
“Hi, Copper,” says the vet, and Arthur tries to get a hold of himself. It has been a while. He’s had Isaac for a while. These days, he shares his bed most nights with Isaac, who likes to wake up around 3 most mornings to pull Arthur’s earlobes and try to demand breakfast. Arthur is pretty sure he’d been wearing the same underwear since Thursday. His toddler, the dog-crayon-attacker, is wriggling noisily in his lap trying to reach a pamphlet about neutering cats. Arthur does not have time to be horny about his dog’s vet.
“I’m Dr. Smith,” the vet adds, and he has a really deep voice, sonorous and warm, and Arthur finds that irrespective of his other commitments he is, in fact, somewhat horny for his dog’s vet.
The man continues, but Arthur misses it because the dog is whimpering piteously and the baby replies with a squeal. Sighing, he calls, “That’s Copper and – stop it, Isaac – he has a crayon in his nose.”
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Pulling a snotty, drippy crayon from a dog’s nose was spectacularly satisfying, but doing so while a curly haired toddler tried to eat his father’s wristwatch right behind you was less so. Doing all this in the presence of a ludicrously attractive, probably heterosexual, freckle faced sexy dad was downright miserable. By the time he’s done, Charles’s gloves and wrist are soaked in Copper’s snot and drool. At least his glands remained unmentioned.
“Dog-gee!” Isaac squeals, when Charles finally helps the old dog down from the exam table. The baby, who had escaped his father’s grasp around the time Charles finally got his forceps firmly around the yellow crayon, toddles to the dog and buries his face in Copper’s side. Copper sneezes explosively.
“Bess you,” says Isaac, very seriously.
Charles laughs, and then the ludicrously attractive, probably heterosexual, freckle faced sexy dad laughs, and then Isaac laughs, and for a minute the room is as warm and bright as any Charles has been in for a long, long time.
Sexy Dad stands, clipps Copper’s leash back on, and stoops to gather Isaac. As he does, Isaac reaches for Charles’s ponytail with a cry of “doggy!” and almost sent his father crashing to the floor. Charles whirls around and steadies him, and their eyes meet for a moment. Charles is confident he’s imagining the guy’s gaze flicking to his lips. He’s unfortunately less confident he’s imagining his own face going violently hot.
“Thanks,” says Sexy Dad.
“You can check out with Sadie, out front,” Charles mumbles, pulling his hand away a second too late. Get, he orders himself, a fucking grip.
“Bess you,” says Isaac.
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No sooner had Arthur negotiated a payment plan with the receptionist - and again the old urge to just rob the damn place surged like a craving - than Isaac decides to try to find the vet again.
“Nice man,” he explains to Arthur, as if it were obvious, as Arthur wrestles him off the door of exam room 1.
“I know,” says Arthur, unfortunately thinking of Dr. Smith’s hand on his waist when he’d almost fallen earlier. And yes, it had been awhile, which might explain the stab of desire that followed Dr. Smith’s hand, but maybe he really was going soft in his old age, because Arthur is daydreaming of kissing the guy. “But we have to take Copper home,” he tells Isaac firmly, and with some effort navigates the dog and the boy out into the snowy parking lot.
Where the truck won’t start.
“Maybe Tilly can come by,” Arthur mumbles to himself. “Or John.”
Isaac claps in glee behind him. “John says BU-BANG,” he tells Arthur gleefully.
“No John,” Arthur counters, without looking up from his phone.
“Buh-BANG,” says Isaac sagely.
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An hour after Sexy Dad departs, Charles exits the clinic with a warm goodbye to Sadie, who waves without looking up from her book. In the damp parking lot, between Charles’s car and him, sits Sexy Dad on the hood of a busted blue pickup truck. The dog appeared to be snoozing in the truck bed, and the baby was balanced on his father’s knee.
The kid, Isaac, is bundled in his coat and his father’s scarf; his father is holding a phone to his ear. In the cold, Sexy Dad’s face is wind-whipped; his cheeks and the tip of his nose are red. It makes Charles’s stomach swoop with affection. You do not know this man, he reminded himself sternly.
“Dog-gee!” squeals Isaac, waving frantically.
“Hi, Isaac,” calls Charles. “Is everything okay?”
“Otay,” replies the baby.
“No, no, Abigail, don’ apologize,” the guy is saying, “stay off your feet. I’ll figure it out.”
He sets the phone back down on his lap, nestles closer to Isaac instinctively, and then smiles at Charles. His smile is small, and he has a little scar on his chin, under his sandy stubble.
“Are you okay?” Charles asks again.
“Well, uh. The truck ain’t starting,” Sexy Dad allows.
“Do you. Do you need a ride?” He can hear Sadie snickering at him in his head, and yeah, this is certainly more small talk, if he can call it that, than he normally makes with humans, but. Well. Sexy Dad is looking right at him with that little smile.
“I couldn’ ask you that,” Sexy Dad replies, adjusting Isaac on his knee, just before the baby whines, “Daddy, cold.”
“It’s really okay,” says Charles. You never gave me a ride any time, Sadie chided in his head. Yo-o-u l-i-i-i-ke him. “I live out in Argent, so if you’re going that way – ?”
Sexy Dad’s face relaxes into a kind of warm surprise. “We do too,” he says, after a second, like he’s surprised. Then he smiles again. “Thank you, Dr. Smith.”
“Charles,” Charles says, and sticks his hand out.
For the second time, their hands are touching.
“Arthur.”
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Dr. Smith the very hot veterinarian – Charles – has a white Plymouth Voyager that’s dappled in rust spots. The seats are plush and the car smells like cedar inside while Arthur breaks a sweat wrestling Isaac’s carseat into it. Once everyone’s finally bundled inside – Charles, Arthur, Isaac, and Copper, the latter two sharing an almost identical expression of good-natured confusion at the grown-ups’ decision to switch cars – it’s started to snow lightly.
“I’m glad you’re not still out in that,” Charles says quietly, as the car roars to life and he turns the height up. The radio is playing a cowboy ballad. Arthur feels his heart in his throat. Maybe it’s growing three sizes.
Isaac is asleep before Charles has even got them onto the highway, and they drive in warm, companionable silence as the snow falls. Arthur should be grumpier – the damn car’s busted again, and he’s going to have to come get it and pay to fix it in addition to paying the damn vet bill, and figure out what to do with Isaac while all of that happens, and the snow will not do the car any good, and he stills needs to find time today to go the pharmacy for Hosea, and he has 12 unanswered text messages from Dutch, and if Tilly still wanted to come by he won’t be home on time, and, and, and – but finds his head instead full of the woody smell of the car, tinged with the dusky smell of animals. The rear-view mirror has a little flag dangling from it, about the size of an index card: a black circle with a red and black four-pointed star inside, surrounded by more red and black triangles in a sun-like array. The music is fuzzy as they drive closer to the mountains, and Charles is humming along very quietly, tapping one finger on the steering wheel as he goes. Arthur feels oddly as though he has known Charles for a very long time.
“You lived around here long?” Charles asks, as they near Argent.
“Few years now,” Arthur says, hoping Charles won’t ask what brought him here. He doesn’t want to explain what kind of person he used to be.
But Charles only hums appreciatively, and a few minutes later, he’s following Arthur’s directions towards his and Isaac’s squat little house on Colter Street. Soon they’re in the driveway, listening to Isaac’s and Copper’s twin snores, and Arthur doesn’t want to get out of the car.
“Can I – ” What? Call you sometime? Invite you in? Arthur’s never been a lady’s man (or whatever), but this didn’t used to be so hard.
“You’ll need a ride back, to get your car, right?” Charles says, and maybe Arthur’s delusional, but he sounds a little excited. Like maybe he, too, was trying to conspire to make this warmth last.
Arthur says, “If you wouldn’t mind,” sheepishly, because the enthusiasm he’s feeling wouldn’t be appropriate verbally. “Whenever – works for you. You can text me?” He pulls out his phone and passes it to Charles. A strand of Charles’s shining hair falls across his face as he types his number into Arthur’s half-shattered phone screen. Arthur wonders if he’s out of his mind.
Isaac is stirring in the back, letting out a little groan that Arthur knows, from long experience, signals an imminent meltdown if he is not released from his carseat. He unbuckles his seatbelt and heads to the back, letting Copper bound over Isaac’s lap first before unsticking the kid. Isaac lets out a little sigh and burrows against Arthur’s chest. Oh, Arthur thinks, he is worth all of it.
Arthur makes his way to the door with Copper behind him, eager to get out of the snow, and as he’s unlocking the door Charles appears behind him, holding Isaac’s carseat under one arm and Arthur’s phone in his other hand.
“Thank you,” Arthur whispers, finally bumping the door open with his hip and holding it open so Charles can set everything down on the floor in the doorway. Copper is already leaping onto the couch.
Charles stands in the doorway for a moment and catches Arthur’s eye. “I guess I’ll see you soon, then?” he says.
Arthur says, “Yeah,” and hopes Charles knows how much he means it.