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Healy notices first. Because of course he does. Because the guy's some kind of jacked bloodhound.
“Pull over.”
“What? No,” March's voice cracks around the dead cigarette hanging from his lips. He's not sure why he hasn't lit it yet. Maybe just the mouth-feel is a comfort.
“March, you're shakin’ like a goddamn chihuahua. Pull the fucking car over before you get us both killed.”
“I'm not a fuckin'–,” March starts to protest the breed he's been assigned– especially after he'd just mentally assigned Healy a much cooler canine– but the air he needs to do so gets punched out of his lungs the moment he catches sight of his hands.
Char.
There's so much char on them. Lining his knuckles, under his nails, staining the palm of his plaster cast. How? All he did was pick up a vase, lean on the remains of a shelf or a case or some fucking thing that one would be compelled to place a fucking vase atop. Why are his hands coated in ash? Why does it spread up his forearms? Why does the drone of the engine sound like the crackle of flames?
March glances up into the rear view mirror and his heart drops into his stomach. Ringlets of strawberry blonde flow like water in the wind, concealing a face March would know if he were to wake up a blind man. Her head slowly starts to turn, and that strawberry blonde he'd loved blackens and crisps, revealing exposed teeth and flesh eaten away by fire. Her one intact emerald eye makes contact with his through the mirror and she opens her lip-less mouth and says his name.
“Holland.”
No, no, no, no–
“March.”
This can't be happening, this isn't real, this–
“March!”
A hand comes down on his arm and he screams, nearly swerving into oncoming traffic.
“March! March! Hey!” Healy repeats, shaking him, other hand braced on the dash. March gapes at him with wild eyes, chest heaving. “This may be news to you, but if I'm dead, you don't get paid. Okay?”
“You paid me in advance,” he counters vacantly, stealing glances back up at the rear view. It's empty now.
“Consider it a survival bonus, just pull the goddamn car over, man.”
“Okay, fine, whatever,” March mutters, and when he places his hand on the stick shift to change gears, he notices that his hand is completely clean. Only the faintest traces of grey linger in the swirls of his fingerprints. He sighs loudly, and hopes it comes across as irritated rather than relieved.
He parks the car just inside the next exit; a lonely section of road, this time of day. Caught between the five o'clock commute home and the seven o'clock nightlife rush. March kills the engine and slumps back against the seat with a withering look at Healy. Unfazed, Healy throws open his door and slams it shut behind him.
“He– Hey! Easy with the–”
“Get out of the car,” Healy demands when he reaches the driver's side.
“Why?”
“Get out of the fuckin’–,” he reaches forward and March isn't entirely sure if he's going for the car door handle or him, so he jerks away and raises his arms in defense.
There is a black smear across the off-white plaster palm of his cast. March swallows hard, swats at Healy who gives him a look like a disappointed teacher, and says, “I'm comin’. Jesus.”
Once he's scrambled out of the car– no thanks to Healy, who did not budge to give him room–, March props against it and crosses his arms. Strategically, he tucks the cast underneath so he doesn't have to think about the soot. “Alright. I'm out. Whad'ya want from me, man?”
“I wanna know what's buggin’ you.”
“What's bugging me?!”
“Yeah, what's buggin’ you, you almost hand delivered us to Saint Peter, March!” Healy gestures behind them at the interstate, still steadily flowing, unperturbed by the slight interruption. The sun is starting to go down, filtering through the thick Los Angeles air in hues of bronze and scarlet. March sneaks a look back down at the char on his cast.
“You Catholic?”
“What?”
“You said Saint Peter, so–”
“I grew up in the Bronx. Pa was Irish. ‘Course I was Catholic,” Healy shakes his head, “Listen to me, March. I don't actually give a shit what's stewin’ up there. But you obviously aren't fit to be behind a wheel right now, so– would you stop lookin’ at your fucking–”
Healy grabs his wrist and jolts him forward by the arm, shooting dull pain through the set fracture. March hisses a yelp and clamps down on his arm just below the cast. He digs his heels in the dirt and prepares to tug-o-war his arm out of Healy's grasp, but he's struck by the carefully focused furrow in the man's brow.
“This? This is what's been fuckin’ you up?” Healy taps the plaster with a hollow thunk-thunk-thunk as he asks what is very likely a rhetorical question.
March half-nods anyway, his haughty posture deflating under Healy's intensity. He's not afraid of Healy. Even if he should be, even if he is the reason he's wearing the cast in the first place. The fear had faded pretty quickly after the bowling alley. There's just something about him, the contrast of jaded, hardened edges and soft, round features. And Holly likes him, which he cannot fathom but immediately earns Healy a point in March's book. It all makes it a little easier to just….let go, around him.
“Fuckin’ ridiculous,” Healy mutters, twisting to tug a handkerchief out of his pocket. He drops March's wrist only to pat him down like a handsy cop.
“Woah, hey, what're doin’?” March throws up his hands and squeezes closer to the car, his skin jumping under Healy's touch.
“You don't gotta flask on you?” Healy asks, incredulous.
“No, I don't gotta flask on me! I try not to drink and drive unless I have to, I gotta daughter, for Christ's sake! It's in the backseat,” he frowns down at the dirt and recrosses his arms.
Healy scoffs and pats March's hip, then side-steps to lean over the door of the car. March does not succeed in keeping his eyes on the ground. Healy's ass looks fantastic in those stupid dark jeans, sue him. There's nothing wrong with admiring form. Healy grunts victoriously and March quickly pretends to be extremely interested in a patch of brittle grass at his feet.
“Gimme your arm.”
“Last time you said that you broke it.”
“Well now it's in a cast, so I can't break it again, can I? Give it,” Healy takes a break from opening the flask to make a grabby hand at said cast. Sensing March's reluctance, he adds, “You know I'm just gonna take it from you either way.”
March groans and begrudgingly unfolds his arms, presenting his cast to Healy.
“Thank you,” Healy actually sounds pleased and something in March's chest lights up. Healy soaks the handkerchief in the cheap liquor from the flask and gingerly cradles March's arm.
Instinctively, March curls his fingers into a fist. Also instinctively, he takes a half-step closer to Healy, who mirrors him. Healy presses the cloth to the edge of the char streak darkening the plaster and very gently swipes at it, using the pad of his thumb to apply even pressure. It's warm in the dusk of the city, but now it seems the sun is pooling its heat into a laser beam pointed directly under the cast, in the center of March's palm. The heat crawls in spiders’ legs up his forearm, flutters in his chest, scratches up his throat, and seems to settle in across his face like a sunburn.
Soon, the soot is gone, replaced by a slightly damp section of plaster that will dry in no time at all. March leans in close to inspect it, his mouth dry. Healy is still holding his arm in his broad hands, so gently, with so much care it shouldn't be possible.
“Better?” Healy prompts quietly.
March looks up at him, blinks, and shakes himself out of his stupor. He retracts his arm, nodding, “Y-Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. Thanks.”
“Sure. I'm still drivin’. Get your ass in the passenger seat,” Healy claps a hand on his shoulder and steps around him to open the driver's side door.
March lingers, staring down at his palm, feeling the ghost of Healy's caress, but recovers before he's called out for it. He hops the door into the passenger seat, takes one last look into the rear view just to be absolutely certain, then asks, “Since I'm not drivin’....still got that flask on you?”
Healy laughs, rich and hearty, and tosses the metal container into March's lap with an affectionately exasperated, “Unbelievable.”
Sometime After Glendale
A breeze doesn't usually mean much to L.A., but when night falls, the wind takes the upper hand. In any case, it's enough to slither beneath the panels of March's open blazer and raise the hair on his arms into chill bumps. He shivers, flicks the ash off his cigarette, and brings it to his lips to take a drag. The chain link fence beside him rattles. A ghost.
“Since when are you the broodin’ detective archetype?” Healy's voice no longer makes him jump, but it does pull him from his thoughts.
“C'mon, can't a man branch out a little?” March quips, turning from the vacant lot to lean back against the fence post.
“Sure they can,” Healy shrugs, taking the step that puts him comfortably in March's space. March sways around the fence post and blinks dreamily up at his partner. “Just not mine.”
“Hey,” he drawls, feigning offense.
Healy's face warms into that jovial softness he gets when he smiles and he lifts a hand to cradle the side of March's face. March closes his eyes and nuzzles into the familiar warm comfort of his palm. He hears the rumble of his giggle and grins.
“You know it fuckin’ tickles when you do that.”
“You love it,” March counters, proving his point with a kiss to the meat of Healy's palm.
“I tolerate it, there's a very important distinction there,” Healy clarifies, despite the fact that he's tilting March's head up, guiding him closer, drawing him in with every word.
“Yeah, well,” March whispers against Healy's mouth, his stubble prickling his skin, “I tolerate you too, you fuckin’ prick.”
“Oh, that's rich,” Healy laughs, then finally seals the deal.
Healy kisses March like he needs his mouth to survive; definitive, hungry, breathless. He always lightly scratches March's scalp, always thumbs over his cheekbone. Tonight, he tastes like the Cuban cigar he'd been smoking on the way home. And tonight, he breaks the kiss with a parting one to the corner of his mouth. The hand cradling his face slides around his shoulders to pull March to his chest, and he goes happily.
“Listen, March….I've been meanin’ to talk to you.”
“You can't leave, Holly's already attached,” March deadpans. Healy doesn't laugh.
“Holly told me about the furnace, March.”
March tenses, and his eyes find the exact spot in the empty space that Holly has mapped out to be the location of the old furnace. “Oh.”
“I'm a dick about alotta things. But I shouldn't've been a dick about your nose. Or the shit on your cast back at Amelia's boyfriend's place. I guess what I'm tryin’ to say here is….I'm sorry.”
The wind picks up again, but this time it seems to wipe at the tears rolling down his cheeks. His fingers drift up to the frigid band of gold hanging on a chain around his neck. A soft, grief-tinted smile plays on his lips.
“Y’know that was the longest goddamn apology I've ever heard in my fuckin’ life, Healy. Seriously, man, you should consider writing speeches, like, professionally.”
“March.”
“Just as a side gig, of course. Just bring a notepad or somethin’ with you while we're out workin’ cases.”
“Holland.”
“Jackson,” March mocks his tone and slips out from under his arm to face him, “Wha– Whatdya want from me? I can't change what happened. Nobody can. People die every fuckin’ day, Healy. It's what we do. The sun comes up, we die. The sun goes down, we die. So I could stand here and– and say I forgive you, because I do. I have. I did a while ago, for the record. But I'm not. Because I'd much rather go inside and put a movie on, and get drunk while you and our daughter drink every goddamn YooHoo in L.A.”
By the time he finishes his tirade, he's out of breath, heart pounding with emotion. There are tears in Healy's eyes, and for a moment, March is terrified that he's pushed him away again. But then he sees the warmth in his smile, and Healy scoops him into a crushing hug, and his voice wavers when he quips back, “That's the longest goddamn ‘I forgive you' I've ever fuckin’ heard, March.”
March wheezes a sound caught between a sob and a laugh and clutches at Healy's back. They rock together, Healy carding fingers through his hair. Healy all but engulfs him in his bulk; solid and warm with just the perfect amount of give. He never wants to let go, never wants to leave this embrace of utter calm and safety. But there'd be a piece of him missing if he did that. A third of his heart. So he sniffles, pulls back, nods confidently, and offers, “How ‘bout that movie, huh?”
“Movie sounds great. C'mon,” Healy slings an arm back around his shoulders and guides him downhill to the house.
“Holly!” March calls as he enters their home, “Come help Healy pick a movie!”
“Why?” she calls back, “He has better taste than you!”
Healy laughs, March rolls his eyes and flops down on the couch, and Holly eventually does emerge from her room. He watches her flip through the TV guide with lethal seriousness, and can't help but giggle when she accepts a YooHoo from Healy with the same detached gratitude as a detective consumed by a case. Healy settles on the couch beside him, lacing their fingers together.
“Oh! This one sounds interesting,” Holly announces, refuses to elaborate, and jumps onto the couch as well. She turns on the television and clicks through the channels until she finds the one she decided on, then snuggles into Healy's other side.
Heart swelling with adoration, March lets his head fall to Healy's shoulder. He never rewrote that condescending note-to-self on his hand after Fate altered its message. But sometimes Holly will take his hand and doodle a smiley face in roughly the same spot when she's bored. And that is an excellent reminder that he'd proved himself wrong. Happiness may have found him with a sucker-punch and a broken arm, but it had found him all the same. He has a partner he loves, his daughter, a decent house and a job.
A family.
March is happy.