Chapter Text
October 1979
middle of fucking nowhere
The car shits the bed six miles outside town.
Marc thumps the steering wheel in frustration. A better man would be grateful. A better man would acknowledge he bought the little beater from a stranger in Vegas (for cash; the guy was, let’s say, motivated, and it was that or the bus). An honest man would admit the thing started acting up well before the Nevada state line, and a guy with any integrity at all would get right down on his knees, thankful he’s made it to Wyoming. That he’s made it home, or the closest thing he ever had to one.
To be clear, Marc doesn’t mind getting on his knees, and it rarely requires a miracle, but he’s probably better off getting a move on. It’s well into fall here, and those iron clouds in the west look like snow.
He gets out, stretches, slings his pack on his back. When he shuts the door, the handle falls off. He glares at it for a moment, then leaves it where it lies and points his boots toward town.
At least his pack isn’t heavy. Twelve years in the service teaches a guy to travel light. Hell, half the things in it he bought after his discharge so he wouldn’t look like the straightest arrow in Vegas. The vacation was his treat to himself for getting his ass out alive. Turns out he shouldn’t have worried about standing out. Everything goes in Vegas. At least he knows he got laid on the merits of his own charms and not because of a uniform fetish.
He’s got it back on now. Turns out, wearing Bermuda shorts and flip-flops made him feel antsy after about four days. Aimless. He tried to drown the sensation with the cocktail of the day at the hotel bar, then by joining the bouncing, heaving mass of bodies on the dance floor every night. Moving with the crowd, feeling the music pulsate through him, his shirt unbuttoned but plastered to his back along with his next partner in crime.
Didn’t work, after all that. He felt like he was on leave, due back on base any day. It’s going to take a while, he guesses, to get used to civvies. At least he’ll look respectable when he sees Matty again. Maybe even like a goddamned adult. He’s got more muscle than the skinny kid who gave Matty an awkward hug at the bus stop a dozen years ago.
Won’t keep him from getting an earful for wasting his money on a foreign car. He can hear the old man now. A fuckin’ Fiat, kid? Even Italians don’t drive that garbage. But hey, it had four wheels and no passengers that reeked of pot or puke, so… win. Matty should just be glad he didn’t lose his money at slots. He won’t be, but he should.
When white people started swarming out here like locusts in the 1800s, one not-so-intrepid group reached this spot, took one look at the Tetons up ahead, and put down stakes. It was a dead end then and still a dead end when Marc enlisted. Hell, it was the whole reason he enlisted, didn’t wait to get drafted. Even the prospect of getting shot at seemed better than spending another day here.
He was a colossal dumbass, but most eighteen-year-olds are.
Town’s bigger than he remembers, starts showing up sooner. There’s a strip mall out here, for fuck’s sake. Marc squints at it as he passes, wondering why the denizens of Far Enough would need another liquor store and tax preparer’s office. Of course, the tax prep is currently a burned-out shell, while the liquor store looks like it’s thriving, and now Marc feels a little more like he’s home.
It takes him a few blocks to get reoriented, and then, there, with the same shitty roof he remembers, is Genevieve’s. With any luck — and Marc considers himself a lucky son of a bitch these days, car purchases notwithstanding — Gen’s inside.
She’s behind the bar, in fact, and she clocks him before the door even closes.
“Well, well, would ya look what the cat just drug in.”
He crosses to the bar and drops his pack beside a stool. She looks the same as ever, maybe a little rounder, still not gonna take an ounce of shit. “Hey, Gen,” he says, playing like he’s going to sit down.
“Oh no you don’t, mister. Get over here and give me a hug.”
He hoists himself up and over the bar as she sputters and curses. Gives her his best shit-eating grin. “Hello, Genevieve.”
“Idiot.” She smacks his chest, then pulls him into a tight hug. Breathes deep against him, then somehow cinches her arms even tighter. When she pulls away, she holds him by the shoulders, surveying him from head to foot, as if checking for damage.
It’s there, but nobody’s going to find it like that.
She gives him a hard shake. “Would it have killed you to write?”
“Didn’t kill me not to.”
“Asshole.” She lets him go, shoos him back to his seat. “What do you drink?”
“Whatever’s on tap.” The bar stool squeaks under him as he settles on it. “How’s Tris?”
“Fine. He’s on a long haul this week. Be glad to see you again, though, when he gets back.”
“Your folks?” They ran the place forever, named it for their first born.
“Retired. Living the RV life, hitting all the national parks, driving each other crazy. Hey there.” She turns, eyes sharp suddenly, toward the end of the bar.
A reflex drilled into him has him turning too, quick, but there’s no threat over there. Just a girl about thirteen years old, maybe. Who knows, he’s not good with kids.
“You finish your homework?” Gen says, and realization dawns.
“Yeah,” the girl says, and approaches them, glancing between Marc and Gen. She’s got red hair that sits on her shoulders in braids. Not a dark red like Gen’s, but the kind that’s too bright in a place like Far Enough. The kind that kids get teased for. By the time she’s closer, he’s already revised his age estimate down. But if he remembers anything from junior high, she’s tall for her age.
“This is Mr. Roman,” Gen says. “I’ve told you about him. We went to high school together. Marc, this is my daughter, Bridget.”
The girl—Bridget—has a solid handshake for a kid. She also has a couple of busted knuckles, but they don’t seem to faze her. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
He almost laughs until he recalls he’s wearing his uniform. “You too, Bridget. Hope your mom hasn’t said too many rude things about me over the years.”
“Define rude,” Bridget says, and grins when Marc does.
He leans down. “She ever tell you the story about the cheeseburger and the blue Corvette—”
“Okay,” Gen breaks in, “that’s enough meet and greet. Bridge, go find your brother, tell him dinner’s in half an hour.”
“But—”
“Go on.”
Gen watches her go, expression stern. She drops it as soon as her daughter is gone.
“Younger brother?” Marc is attempting the math, and she puts him out of his misery.
“Mm-hm, eleven and nine. I was knocked up when you left. Nobody knew.” She rolls her eyes. “Including me.”
He snorts. “Not my fault.”
“No shit.” She eyes him as she wipes down the bar top. “You stopped by the shop yet?”
He lifts his beer. “Stalling. Matty’s probably not talking to me by now.”
Gen stops cleaning. “Definitely not. Matty’s gone, Marc. Died about four years ago.”
Well, shit. His glass thumps down on the bar, and he feels… He doesn’t know what he feels. “I didn’t know.”
“We didn’t know where to reach you. Somebody notified the Red Cross, but…”
But Marc was unofficial, as far as those things went. He sighs. “I gotta go over there anyway. My car broke down, and I might as well get it towed.”
She glances at the clock. “You’ve got about fifteen minutes before he closes up.”
“Before who closes up?”
Gen’s smile is slow and crooked. “Tick, tock.”
The clouds are lowering outside, but it’s only two more blocks to the auto shop. It’s pretty much how he remembers it, right up to the big Matthew & Sons painted above the garage doors. Matty claimed it was good for business, even though he didn’t have sons and everyone knew it. He was never officially Marc’s foster dad either, never bothered with the paperwork, and Oklahoma never came looking. Matty should’ve applied for some kind of money, though; Marc just about ate him out of house and home as a teenager. Him and—
Wait.
He skids to a halt just inside the open garage. Two cars are parked inside, but the one of interest is a green Chevy, a giant pair of steel-toed boots sticking out from under the front.
“Be with you in a moment,” says a deep voice that rings up Marc’s spine like he’s been struck by a hammer.
He can’t stop staring at those boots.
“’S okay,” he manages. “Been twelve years. I can wait another five minutes.”
A socket wrench ratchets two turns, then goes quiet. It clatters to the concrete floor, and then the boots’ owner is rolling out, thighs, chest, shoulders, each bit bigger and broader than the last, until he finally clears the bumper. He sits up, smooths a grease-stained hand across his coveralls. His hair’s still blond, long now, tied back, his beard a shade darker and bushy. He blinks at Marc with eyes so blue he can’t think how he ever forgot them.
“Marcus?”
Jesus, that voice. “Wolf.”
Next thing he knows, he’s wrapped up in two hundred and fifty pounds of sweaty, engine oil-scented mechanic as the first flakes of snow whirl into the shop around them.