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"Andy." John hisses, into the sweat of the other man's neck. "Do not fucking die on me right now."
To Andy's credit, he's still breathing. It just doesn't sound right - he's going too fast, too shallow, and his eyes are glassy and unfocused. It's as if he's seeing past John completely.
John had never been easy to work with, even before the accident. That's what his partners said, in their case evaluations if they were nice and in screaming arguments if they weren't. He'd lost count of the times he'd been dragged into that glass-walled office, sat sullenly while a man he'd known for six weeks begged Please, I'll work with anyone but Prudhomme.
Regrettably, safeguarding regulations state you can't attend crime scenes alone.
Now, if John wasn't unpopular before, nobody wanted the partner with the dead kid and the overcast expression. He knew he was brooding, incommunicative, rude, and when it came to small talk he had very little to offer. No, I didn't catch the Bulls game, it was my dead son's birthday and I was fighting with my wife - yeah, John may be socially inept, but it's clear to even him that that would go down like a lead balloon. His honesty made people uncomfortable.
Most people, anyway.
Hollinsworth spoke his mind, a real straight shooter, which made him easy to like. The constant jokes could have easily been irritating, John supposed, but for some reason they weren't. Perhaps it was his unerringly dry delivery, or perhaps it was the grin he'd flash after a particularly vulgar punchline, lip lifting to reveal two front teeth. Hollinsworth - Andrew, Andy - thought himself impossibly funny, and the only thing he found more hysterical than his own stupid cracks was John's awkwardness. John would say something blunt, enter a conversation at a bad time, and amidst a cluster of confused expressions he'd find Andy's warm smile, eyes sparkling with amusement.
They quickly learned how to compensate for each-other. Andy's running commentary kept things moving when John would lapse into his thoughtful silences, and he could pop a room's tension with a few choice words. Or this: John's ideas were sometimes esoteric, incommunicable even when he put them into English - yet Andy had this curious ability to translate for him. In return, John would probe the gorier parts of crime scenes, and silently hand Andy his handkerchief if he began to sweat or get sick.
Andy postured when their colleagues were about, but to John his moods were obvious. When he was angry, for example, it took more effort to fight his childhood stutter. Anxiety, conversely, would send him grasping for any available source of levity. The more Andy whined about the grime on a warehouse wall, or a victim's blood ruining his shoes, the less safe he was feeling.
Once, groping their way down a darkened apartment corridor, Andy's hand had made its way into John's. He hadn't let go until they'd reached the suspect's door.
They didn't talk about it.
John remembers, though, and it's on his mind today. He hasn't left Andy's side since the other man crumpled to the ground, confused and shaking as he staggered out of the alley mouth.
When Andy got the flu last December, the extent of his bitching became legend across the precinct; he's squeamish around sickness and pain, unusual and unhelpful for a homicide detective. Right now, curled in foetal position on the slick concrete, John imagines he's probably less freaked than he is fucking terrified.
So, even though nobody's ever accused John of being very comforting, he soothes his partner the only way he knows how: he tears the gun from Andy's grasp, and interlaces their hands.
They wait an age for the ambulance to arrive, and Andy's deteriorating fast, his skin pale and clammy. He trembles and moans in John's arms, is sick onto John's boots, and leaks blood through John's fingers as he tries to cover the wound. His lips are moving, making shapes that John struggles to read in the strobing cop-car lights.
"I'm Jeff, I'm a paramedic." A voice causes John to jump, jostling Andy's body in his arms. "We're here to take care of your friend. What's his name?"
John's mouth is dry. He licks his lips.
"Andrew."
"Great. Andrew, can you hear me?"
Andy whines.
"Try to keep your eyes open, Andrew, and talk to us if you can."
Jeff and another paramedic usher John back. He watches as they ease Andy onto a backboard and tuck a blanket around his shivering body, all the while asking him questions - Do you know what month it is? Can you feel your feet? How's your breathing? The other paramedic gently slides a needle into Andy's arm, and, finished with his interrogation, Jeff adjusts an oxygen mask around Andy's face.
They begin loading Andy into the ambulance, and John shoots to his feet.
"I can come?"
He doesn't mean it as a question. There's no way he isn't coming.
Jeff nods.
"We're leaving."
Andy becomes a little more lucid as they judder and bump their way to the Emergency Room. He claws at his oxygen mask and then, realising he can't feel his leg, starts to pant like he's just ran a marathon. Jeff fiddles with wires, takes blood pressure, tells Andy to focus on his breathing.
His cries curdle with the wail of sirens in the air.
John lays a hand flat against Andy's chest, wishing he had more to offer than comforting pressure.
After some milky painkiller slinks its way down an IV, Andy stops screaming, instead giving John a curious look like he's only just noticed him. John tries to smile. Andy tears his mask off again, then, but it's to talk this time, sentences that go around and around because he's too confused to finish them. John racks his brains for a joke, and when he tells it, Andy scoffs.
They pull up in the ambulance bay, and Andy's taken away down a long white corridor.
He doesn't have an emergency contact, apparently, so a nurse gives John a bag of his possessions and the clothes they've cut from his body. He isn't sure what to do with this stuff, and he stares at the sack as it hangs limply from his fingers.
"He will want these things." he declares, eventually. "Someone should take them to his room."
"Your friend'll be in surgery for a few hours. I'd hang onto them for now."
The waiting area is under-stimulating, with blank grey walls and those low, scratchy chairs they have in hospitals across the world. John fingers the curled edge of a magazine, bored and agitated. There's no windows, no clock, and with every minute that passes their suspect gets closer to his next kill. He can't think about it, needs to distract himself. John tips the bag of Andy's possessions upside-down on the seat next to him.
Spread out before him, the contents look broadly uninteresting. Andy's jacket, and shirt, but no trousers since his torn, blood-smeared slacks count as medical waste. His smart work shoes, his wallet. House keys. Before John knows what he's doing he's picked the wallet up, and is flicking through it. He inspects the few crumpled bills, the credit card, and notices there's no photo behind the fingerprinted plastic. Does Andy have any family? John isn't sure, and it snags on his mind. Does he even have any friends outside of this place? Is there someone I should call, someone who could come and visit?
He stands up, sweeps the ephemera back into its bag, and heads into the hall.
John's car isn't here, so he hails a cab. He can't remember the address, and he pulls out Andy's license.
The journey is short. It's the early hours of the morning by now, the sun peeking over the horizon and lightening the sky. John keeps his hands folded in his lap, the yellow plastic of the bag twisted inside one palm.
Andy's building is non-descript, a 1920s walk up set back from the street. John realises he isn't sure which floor Andy lives on, and pauses on the stoop to inspect the buzzers - Johnson, Lopez, Kowalski, Hollinsworth. Fourth floor. He steps back against the red brick face to rifle through the plastic bag, and once he's figured out which key is which, turns them in the lock.
The stairs inside are steep and there's no elevator. This is a fact that makes John frown, thinking about Andy coming home, but he knows he's getting ahead of himself. Andy's parents are dead, this John's sure of, but maybe he's got a sibling or a cousin he could stay with while he recovers. And who can say when he'll be getting out of hospital?
If he gets out at all, John's mind helpfully supplies.
At the top of the house, the rooms are cramped and stuffy. Floorboards creak when they come into contact with John's boots, and even in the brightening dawn there's not a lot of light. Andy hasn't made an effort to decorate. There's a TV set, quiet and crouched in the corner, some remarkably bare bookshelves, a low table covered in coffee-rings. John moves through the room like he's casing a scene, putting together a profile for this man he would've said he knows; no photos here, either, no magnets or postcards on the fridge. The phone book only has police-affiliated numbers. John trips past an unwieldy weight set to squeeze into Andy's poky bedroom.
There's a little more personality in here, at least. A checkered comforter, bobbled with lint, an ancient and ginormous wardrobe that looks like a family heirloom. A bottle of cologne and a pill holder on Andy's bedside table. John doesn't recognise the medication from looking at it, but he pockets it to give to a doctor later. The cologne he slides into his bag; it will cover up the surgical smell, he reasons.
He also takes Andy's dirtied clothes out, and sets to work picking some new ones from the closet. Belt, socks, underwear, all folded and coiled into neat little balls. There's a book on the carpeted floor, and John retrieves that too, though it's covered in a layer of dust thick enough to draw in.
Last of all, John gathers up Andy's razor, his toothbrush and toothpaste from the en-suite. He takes deodorant, contacts, body wash to supplement the cheap hospital stuff. The bag is bulging now, the handles straining and threatening to break.
Andy pulls through, in the end, and John gets to the hospital just as he wakes up. He's panicked and not making a lot of sense, and no doctor or nurse has the right words to comfort him. I'm scared, is all he'll say. I'm scared. John has never seen Andy sob so unabashedly before, never seen him admit to discomfort or fear, and he feels a little lost as he hovers above his friend.
Andy hangs off the sleeve of John's jacket, leaving nail marks in the leather. The bruises on his face are mottled and dark already. The doctors have said that without another surgery he will die.
John slips his knife beneath the mattress.
At the precinct, there's a somber cast to everyone's faces. Rousch and Scholfield worriedly eye John like he's about to break down. He's got shit to do, a killer to catch, but people he hardly knows keep stopping by with sympathetic words and comforting rubs on the shoulder, as if he's the one that got hurt. It confuses him, but he won't let it distract him. Eventually John stops responding to his name, stops accepting calls from Sara and Father Rousell on behalf of Sara.
She leaves him a voicemail while he's looking over the autopsies for hundredth time, tugging at threads that lead nowhere. In it she's mean, frustrated, pleading for him to come home - and asking how he can stand to spend all this time at the hospital, but still can't bear an honest conversation about Michael.
Who's going to organise the funeral if Andy dies? She says, voice thick with tears. You can't foist it onto me this time, John. You have to deal with these things.
He doesn't call her back.
The phone rings again, and John's trying to ignore it. He bends his head over his work, pressing the nib of his pen hard against the legal pad.
"There's a Dr. Nestler on line 1 for you-" Moltz says, and John snatches the handset from its cradle.
Andy's awake when he arrives, but the doctor indicates that he's still pretty out of it, and struggling to put sentences together. John doesn't mind. He's not a talker, but he'll try. There's already a few cards littering the side-table, a potted plant even, and it reassures him to know that Andy's had other visitors, that John isn't the only one who's been by.
He stumbles through a few sentences, some pathetic apologies, before the other man cuts in.
"Hey, you know, when I was coming out of the alley," Andy starts, softly, not looking at John's face, "I was- I was- I could hear you screaming. I just, I never imagined that you were screaming at me."
John's eyes widen. He wants to interrupt - I wasn't screaming at you, I was screaming FOR you, screaming at someone I thought might have hurt you - but Andy's still working up to something, stuttering syllables tugging at his lips.
"I t- I must have been pr- I must have been pretty out of it, though, y'know, from the stun gun." His face twitches, almost imperceptibly, and he draws in a shaky breath. "I just get, I... I just kept moving towards the sound of your voice."
Andy shakes his head a little against the pillow, like he's said too much. His tone changes, there's a new edge to it, something angrier, more guarded.
"I love being a cop."
Confessional has ended. Andy turns over, asks John to leave, and he does.
They get Demus (that was his name, in the end, Gerald Demus), and for four blessed months, John's life returns to its routine. He's stuck doing desk work until his hand heals up, but the hours are regular, giving him evenings off with Sara. He also drives Andy to physio a few times a week - it turns out he's an only child of only children, the precinct his surrogate family. The cards and flowers were from their colleagues, John gathers. He wonders if it's too late to get something from the hospital gift shop.
It's a warm evening as John drives home from Andy's, and his outlook is unusually sunny. His friend's confidence has grown with every passing day, and he's getting stronger - if all goes according to plan, Andy should receive a prosthesis soon. Squinting against the golden hour, John indicates and pulls onto the offramp, heading into the suburbs. Sara's probably waiting at home, and if she hasn't started cooking, John might call for takeout. They'll curl up on the sofa, watch a movie on TV, sneak off to bed before it's even half-over.
Curiously, the lights are all off when John pulls onto their driveway. Whatever. Maybe Sara's at the store, he'll call her cell once he's inside. As he approaches the house, though, he spots a note taped to the door - John, it says on the folded over paper, written in her precise cursive.
He rips it down, reads it.
Sara's gone to her aunt's. She's not coming back, at least not soon.
Yes, of course she appreciates that John is trying to move on - and the last few months he's been better, no doubt about that - but she can't get past Michael's death if John still won't talk to her about it. And how to even start with mourning her sister, when she feels like she can't interrupt his happiness with her grief?
She asks him not to call.
He re-folds the letter, feeling strangely serene, and tucks it in his jacket pocket. After so long preparing for this eventuality, John can't say he's shocked, even with the good period they'd been having. Maybe just a good period he'd been having, upon reflection. Sara had barely even tried to talk to him about Jenny, she'd seemed impatient and distant whenever John regaled her with Andy's treatment updates. If anything, this note has just shifted his perception, given him clarity.
John finds a take-out menu in the kitchen drawer, and switches on TCM. They're showing some singing-dancing technicolour crap, but he lets it play on.
This becomes his routine over the following month: going to work, shuttling Andy back and forth, eating at the diner and watching TV. He's seen the whole rotation of Turner Classics several times, and gained more than a few pounds. His hand is pretty good now, though a gnarly scar rips down the palm, and he dutifully retakes a weapons training course. John supposes that, now he's back in the field, they'll assign him another partner.
That said, Andy's insistent about returning to work, so maybe they won't need to.
On evenings after physio, things often go like this. John, eyes weary from a day of paperwork, searches for a space in the hospital parking deck. From the rear-view mirror dangles his concessions permit and Andy's handicap hanger. He heads up the ramp into the building, navigates the maze of identical corridors until he emerges into a small, white room. It's dotted with gym equipment, parallel bars and foam mats. Doctors stand at people's elbows, helping them walk or climb small sets of stairs.
Andy is somewhere in this room, the specifics depending on the day. Instead of his usual uniform of slacks and a blazer, he wears loose gym shorts and a faded t-shirt to these sessions, with a bandana that he's recently adopted for mysterious reasons. By the end of the hour his tee is usually drenched in sweat, and his arms shake with exertion.
Though still pretty slow on crutches, Andy is stubborn about walking to the car. He'd try to drive the thing too, if he was allowed. They stop at the diner, for donuts and coffee, or at the gas station, for beer and roller grill hot dogs. John parks on the road outside Andy's and sometimes he comes up, sometimes he doesn't. On the occasions he does, he'll nervously spot Andy as he hauls himself up the stairs, cheeks flushing with the effort. Andy's hair, longer and with a kink to it, tumbles out of his bandana. John wants to tuck it away from his face.
He resists the urge to steady Andy as he fishes around for his keys, and they go inside.
Andy sometimes gets peeved when John helps him out. He lapses into dark moods, retiring to bed early and just lying on his side, tears pooling in his eyes. John keeps at it, though, in his unemotional way. If Andy rejects his care, that's that, but John's steady presence seems easier for him to accept than other people's cooing sympathy, or worse, obvious discomfort. When John cooks for Andy, he swears that he was hungry too. His expression doesn't so much as flicker when Andy needs to take off his prosthetic, revealing the still-swollen knot at the end of his leg. When Andy has nightmares he slides into bed beside him, one strong arm bracing Andy's body against his own.
"Are you doing this for me or for you?" Andy mumbles one night, as John's hands snake around his waist. Although he's kidding, John sees the truth in it. The realisation makes him laugh.
"Maybe a bit for me."
John wakes up first. Tension just runs through him, like a buzzing electrical current, and it's always kept him from sleeping in too long. He retrieves his glasses from the windowsill, and walks with socked feet into the open-plan apartment. His laptop lives on Andy's coffee table, so he might review some evidence or make a start on paperwork.
When the sun rises, so does Andy. John starts to hear shuffling and cursing at around half six every morning, the ensuite shower rushing for about ten minutes. Andy will emerge into the concourse some time around 7am, fully dressed. Towel-dried, his curls go everywhere.
Some implicit agreement means John's in charge of coffee, brewing his second or third pot of the day by this point. Once he's poured them both a cup, he gathers his things, ties his tie, laces his shoes. Halfway out the door, Andy might point out he's still wearing his glasses, and in that case John will dash back inside and switch to contacts. It's a comforting routine, one that lasts until November.
Andy's finally back to work on the 8th.
Not full field operations, obviously, but he's walking well enough to navigate the office, and on a trial basis visit crime scenes. It's strange seeing him in his work clothes, when he's normally clad in pyjamas, or on a more formal day, sweatpants. He's checking himself over in the mirror, smoothing down creases and worrying at the cuffs of his shirt. He's foregone the firearm holster, and swept his hair back with gel. John can smell cologne and shaving cream from across the room.
"You look smart." He says, unable to stop himself. "Good. You look good."
"I feel good, John, I do." John can see Andy's smile in his reflection, a proper one that shows off his dimples. "And it's been a long time coming, you know?"
"I know."
They arrive at the precinct mid-morning, John holding the door to give Andy more space. They'd thought about coming in separately, but everyone knows they've been staying together, and fuck 'em if they have something to say. In actuality, nobody bothers John as he clears the path to their desks. Andy follows behind, gingerly manoeuvring around office chairs and overflowing trashcans.
People do start to gather once they're both sat down. It's not so bad.
John boots up his computer and resumes the work he was doing on Friday. From here he can observe, and he glances over the monitor, catching Andy's eye as he endures endless claps on the back and earnest congratulations. The other man slips easily into his old role, entertaining the crowd with practised ease.
"Hey guys, what do you call a homicide detective with only one leg?"
John rolls his eyes, but his chest burns with affection and pride. Coming back is hard, but coming back when everyone knows what happened to you? It's damn brave. Yet here Andy is, still putting on a show, trying to make everyone comfortable. He almost wonders if he dreamed it all, all those late nights crying and touching and talking. The vulnerability that Andy holds somewhere inside.
Well, Andy did the talking, mostly. John was a better listener.
He must look glum, or at least distracted, because he feels a plaintive nudging at his ankle. It's the rubber tip of Andy's crutch, now part of their shorthand. The other man is trying to get his attention, leaning slightly into John's peripheral vision with a concerned expression.
"You okay, John?" He asks. His tone is lower, sweeter, not the one he uses for everyone else.
John nods. His cheeks feel hot.
"Yeah. Just thinking."
March comes around before John's ready. It's a hard month for a number of reasons - anniversaries bring introspection, and he has two to contend with.
Andy knows about Michael, of course. He'd pieced together the story from precinct rumour, teased more from John in fits and starts. It's still hard to talk about, but Andy couldn't judge less. He's a third party, a blank slate as far as this situation is concerned. With him, John grieves at his own pace.
Michael died on March 12th, 1998, and today's date is March 12, 2000. John thinks he might finally be ready.
It's a chilly, wet Sunday, and neither of them are working. They spend a quiet morning in the apartment, Andy folding laundry while John cooks breakfast. He's not hungry, and pushes his eggs around the plate with his fork; Andy jokingly offers to finish them off. When John doesn't smile, his eyebrows knit together with concern.
"What's wrong, honey?"
The pet name isn't new, exactly, but it rings in John's ears. It means he's with Andy, that he's safe. It means he can be honest.
"Michael died two years ago. Today."
Andy nods, lays down his silverware.
"Can I - do you want to do something to mark it?"
John knows Andy has more questions, and he knows that he won't ask them. They have to do this before John changes his mind.
"I have an idea. Come with me?"
Michael's grave isn't far from John and Sara's old place. He rests in a secluded cemetery shaded by trees, tucked around the back of Father Rousell's church. The morning service ended a few hours ago, and the air is still and peaceful. The wrought iron gate is tattooed with rust.
Despite having visited only once, John knows exactly where to find Michael's grave. He notes with frustration that the path is uneven, weeds pushing up and cracking the concrete slabs. Andy doesn't complain as they pick their way through the yard, but John steps closer anyway, silently offering his shoulder for balance.
They reach the headstone, an unassuming thing, but newer and shinier than those that surround it. Rays of weak spring sun filter through the canopy, sparkling on the granite.
John doesn't cry, but he knows Andy wouldn't mind if he did. The other man stands back, giving his partner some time.
"Mikey," John says, eventually. "It's been so long. I'm so sorry."
That's all he can say for the moment. Tears threaten to spill over, and he swallows them down, balling his hands into fists by his sides.
At the look on John's face, Andy comes to him.
John takes his free hand, here, and interlaces their fingers, just like he did when he thought Andy was dying. They've changed so much since then. His scar tissue, Andy's hard-won callouses, both transform their touch.
Together, they press Andy's palm against the cool rock.