Work Text:
You find him, after the first time, more elusive. When he said “the next life”, you thought he meant the future but it isn't always, at least not as far as you can tell. (You rarely can tell.)
You remember him in glimpses, in posture and silhouette and fine lines at the edge of his smile.
You find him in a monastery, high on a mountain, where all the food is brought up by pilgrims and villagers miles below in the steppes. He smiles at you then and says “you don't belong here,” and, much later, “I'm glad you've come.”
Like always, you pull him down from the mountain, down from the height, entering free-fall and quite unaware of whether he has a parachute for you, or for himself, or none at all. The curious thing about him is that he only half seems to mind.
You find him grifting the casinos, wearing a suit more often than he has before, and working with a girl you think you might have seen somewhere but who could as easily be a movie star as an old acquaintance.
He counts cards but always manages to slip out quietly after the girl cashes the winnings for him and he never goes big enough with it that he gets caught.
You're just a regular cop, working long hours trying to take down the bad guys who seem to be everywhere in this rotten desert town; and he doesn't seem so bad to you, talks a good game and doesn't act like he wants to hurt anyone.
You think maybe he could teach you something about how the real bad guys work – because he is not the greatest evil here. You imagine that together you could topple a whole casino and bring it down on top of the no-good guy in charge.
But instead he teaches you a different lesson, leave your hat by the door, sit down and loosen up a bit, you could be one of us but not until you relax and learn to enjoy the ride.
He lives with his brother, with a kid he says is his brother, and who might as well be. He busted the kid out of juvie years ago but no-one's looking for him over that anymore. They're looking for him because he's been hitting the houses of rich politicians all over New York, taking what they have; and because the last one went nasty and they followed a trail of his brother's blood from the crime scene to the getaway car.
You know him another way – because you were broken down, drunk and miserable, and he said some things to you then that made you feel like there was another way to live.
So, when you follow the trail of breadcrumbs seared scarlet into the asphalt, and his name is what you find in the kid's record, you don't do what you're supposed to.
You call his place on a payphone and you don't tell anyone you know where he lives better than system's last known address.
You go there alone and you plead with him to come in easy but it ends with both of you riding away in a stolen car, cash stowed under the seat, and no-one else left to love, nothing left to lose.
You meet him on a beach and he looks at you with eyes that dare you not to look away. It's your last summer break after college and you aren't ready to be the person you're supposed to be yet. He's asking you to be the person you want to be instead. Or, at least, he's asking you to want him back and you do. So you don't look away and you don't look back.
He says he isn't afraid to die and you only believe him because you know you'll see him again.
You'd forgotten but now you're stood on top of a tower block and he's standing on the edge, arms outstretched, and you can see the truth of it like your life flashing before your eyes.
You were supposed to bring him in and you could have, only it's too late now. You should shoot him to make it look right, only you know that isn't what you want.
It's only after you let him jump that you realise how empty you feel but how glad you are, too, that you let him go.
You miss him for a long time before you die – and for a while after, too.
He runs a sort of cult out of New Mexico, all prayer beads and no shoes and you think you'll find it hard to make it in but everyone believes you after he says he does. You're cynical enough about the lifestyle they've got going on that you don't want to acknowledge that his trust means anything but you find yourself wondering whether he believes you for a reason, whether there mightn't be a big damn hole inside you that you just didn't want to plunge your hand inside and sound out.
The cliché is that cops can't do drugs and that, if someone doesn't trust you, they'll make you. It's the sort of thing you see on TV over and over. But the kinds of highs these guys chase aren't generally medicinal and, when they are, no-one expects you to partake until you're ready.
They care a lot about being ready, about being comfortable and one with yourself, and when he takes you to his bed, he asks you over and over to tell him what you need and he talks you through it, lets you explore what you need to, asks only for honesty and for you to be there, wholly, in that moment.
You can't give him honesty though, except by forgetting why you're really there, and that's easy enough, at least with his hands under your skin. And, honestly, there's nothing dishonest about this, except the badge that's hidden underneath a floorboard by the closet. It helps that, in that moment, you have no intention of using it.
You're a football player and he doesn't kiss like you expected him to and he doesn't leave in the morning like you expected him to either. You didn't expect to be this happy on either account.
Still, there are three years and graduation before you see him again.
There isn't a last time. Maybe because there wasn't really a first time. You start and stop and rewind, replay, reverse, but you don't ever really finish. There isn't a definitive ending. You might have hoped for a happy one but maybe that's too much for anyone to expect, especially you. Instead you get this endless refolding of the pleats until you forget who you are and who he is and you drift for a while until he catches up to you again.
He wears his hair shorter or longer, has eyes that are colder or darker somehow. He's more wary and trusting by turns. He wants you or doesn't. He's in the mountains, the sea, the air, the space beneath your skin; and you are lost in the places where he isn't.
You thought you knew where you were until he caught you off-guard but he was always going to, you suppose, in the rare moments when you remember.
His kisses are a challenge or a gentle invitation or something you imagine when he quirks a smile.
If you wanted to give it a bookend, something comfortable to rest against at the close, you'd say that the storm swallows you both, in the end.