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Jackson Healy is not a family man, nor is he a relationship man. He learned that one the hard way after the divorce.
The divorce taught him a lot of things, really. Like never to let someone catch you with your pants down, and not in the literal way, no, but in that metaphorical nonsense way that he read in Spinoza and Aquinas. Kids are a bad idea too, because if something goes south, they get all tangled up in the crossfire. They’re little hell raisers too, or at least Healy remembers being one himself, he and his brother always torturing each other. That’s one thing about June that he’ll always appreciate, she never wanted kids either. Or maybe she did, and that’s why she slept with his dad, because she knew he could fill her cup in a way Healy never could. Healy figured that was the joke of it. You spend half your life telling yourself you’re built for one thing, then life shows up and proves you wrong in one of the ugliest ways possible.
So, can someone tell him why he’s standing at the cash register of a dollar store, watching Holland March fiddle with his wallet with a giant poster board under his armpit, while a pile of markers of all colors and stationery sits on the conveyor belt? Though he supposes that’s another one of life’s great mysteries, and something he’ll wake up every morning asking himself. Either way, it’s for some history project Holly is working on at school with her friend Jessica, or at least that’s how March explained it in the driveway of some old gentleman’s home on a case that had been a bust. It’d been a slow day anyway, not much other than March having him record some stupid message for the answering machine and March trying to fish out a case from one of his cop buddies.
Healy is still going to try for that PI license, though, even if March tells him he doesn’t give a shit about Healy being an unlicensed PI. Healy gives a shit, though, and he’s pretty sure the PI exam booklet sitting on top of his TV next to his brass knuckles does too. But March passed it, and if March could pass it that probably means any schmuck can make it through.
March points silently to the small fridge near the checkout with a few Yoo-Hoos inside, and Healy shakes his head, then March shrugs and finally pays. Outside, the sun has set, which means Holly is probably at home waiting up for her dad. Another reason Healy never wanted to have kids, the look on their face when you disappoint them. He’s seen that look on Holly’s face when Healy has dragged March inside, drunk and barely able to stay on his feet, passing out the second his head hits the pillow. That happened right after he got the cast off, and they got a big case after, and March told Healy they needed to ‘celebrate’.
Yeah, they’re not doing much celebrating anymore.
Healy follows March into the parking lot with the bag cutting into his fingers and thinking about how a few months ago, he was punching a guy wearing vans and a shirt that he remembers thinking had too many buttons undone, and now he’s buying colorful markers for a thirteen year old girl and watching as said girl’s father puts a poster board in the trunk of his nice Mercedes convertible he got with the trial money and the money Kuttner had given them. Healy even shuts the trunk when March forgets to, because he always forgets to, and the guy is already halfway to the passenger’s side without even a ‘thank you’ as Healy throws the little plastic bag into the backseat.
Healy slides into the driver’s side and slams the door a little harder than he means to. March begins digging through the console as Healy starts the engine, pulling out pink tinted note cards held together by a purple paperclip.
Healy eyes them as he backs out of the parking spot. “..What the hell is that.”
March doesn’t look up, instead flipping through the cards and mixing them up in his lap like he’s about to start dealing them. “Flashcards. Holly made them.”
Healy shakes his head as he pulls out onto the road. “Jesus, March, I told you—”
“I know, I know, you don’t want help because you’ve got your...tough guy loner shtick or whatever. But Holly made these and I...promised I’d help.” March rubs his face with the hand that isn’t holding the cards together. “I mean I don’t even see the point in you taking the damn thing, so you’re unlicensed you’re unlicensed, who cares?”
“The law, March.”
March snorts. “Fuck the law.”
Healy huffs a laugh at that, the idea of a PI telling him to fuck the law, March almost seems proud that he was able to get that out of him too.
March points at him with one of the cards like he’s just proven a theory. “See? That’s good. That’s progress. That’s—what the fuck do they call it—positive reinforcement.”
“Don’t start.” Healy mutters.
“I’m serious.” March barrels on, already flipping to the top card again. “You laughed, which means you’re in a better mood, which means you’re more receptive to learning—”
“March, I’m driving.”
“—which means now is actually the perfect time—”
Healy exhales, long and slow. “You don’t believe half the crap you say, do you?”
March shrugs, already moving on and tapping the card. “Alright. First question.” Healy doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at him really, but he hears March shift in his seat to look at him. “You’re not gonna make me do that thing where I have to trick you into answering, are you?”
Healy furrows his brows, finally glancing at him. “What thing?”
“Y’know, that reverse psychology thing. ‘Oh, I bet Jackson Healy can’t define probable cause’, and then you get all offended or whatever and—”
“Just ask the damn question, March.”
“Okay, alright, Jesus.” March settles back into the passenger seat. “What is the primary function of a private investigator?”
Healy keeps his eyes forward. “Find things people don’t want found.”
March looks down at the card, then back up at him. “Actually it’s ‘to gather information discreetly on behalf of a client’ but whatever, close enough.” March flicks the card into the floorboard, Healy’s gonna be the one cleaning that up later too. “Define ‘surveillance’.”
Healy answers quicker this time. “Watching someone who doesn’t know that they’re being watched.”
March hums, and Healy notices the slight smile on his face, it almost makes him feel good about himself before March continues on. “Okay, next one, what do you want for your birthday?”
Healy falters, glancing at him. “What?”
March looks up from the stack with an innocent expression that immediately makes Healy suspicious. “What?”
“That’s not on the card.”
March raises his eyebrows in feigned surprise. “Wow, so now you don’t trust the integrity of the educational process.”
Healy shakes his head. “How the hell did you find that out, anyway?”
March sets the cards inbetween his legs, pawing around the inside of his suit jacket for a cigarette. “You got drunk after that thing with the trial and were halfway through a bottle of Old Grand-Dad’s when you started tellin’ me about how your birthday parties always sucked as a kid ‘cause your brother blew out the candles before you could.” He makes a pleased gasp when he finds the box, taking a cigarette out and lighting it with the car lighter, then lets it rest between his lips as he picks up the cards again.
Healy stares at the road ahead of him, jaw tightening, pressing his foot down harder on the gas than he intends to. He remembers the last birthday he celebrated, before the divorce, and he’s almost glad he only told March the shitty childhood ones. Because really, everyone has had at least one shitty birthday as a kid, and sure those stories are sad but they’re a lot more depressing when you’re an adult. And they’re a lot worse when you have to admit that your ex-wife forgot your birthday, so you bought yourself a cake and spent the rest of the night eating it yourself and watching the TV in the dark. He can still taste the cake too, cheap vanilla buttercream from the grocery store down the block from their house. Too sweet, artificial in all those shitty cheap ways. He’d even stood there too long trying to decide if whether buying candles for your own birthday made you pathetic or just prepared.
He bought them anyway.
Thirty-nine candles jammed crooked into a half-melted cake while June sat three rooms over talking on the phone with somebody from work—or maybe somebody else entirely, who the hell knows now—and Healy spent twenty minutes convincing himself it didn’t bother him before blowing them all out in the dark.
Real dignified stuff.
For a minute he tunes back into March laughing at a joke he’s just made, and thinks about if March ever celebrated his wife’s birthday, and if they were the big parties he’d always wanted as a kid. He ends up picturing it despite himself: balloons, streamers, some too-expensive cake with roses made out of frosting. March in a tie he doesn’t know how to straighten, so his wife will, and comment on how handsome he looks in it. His wife carrying in presents wrapped neatly, because she thought of him first, not a friend over the phone. A house full of noise and people and music and love.
A family. The kind Healy used to think belonged to other people.
Then again, March’s wife is dead now, and half of the nice stories are from when he’s been strung out across a bar stool. So maybe the man is just exaggerating, and Healy hates the fact he takes comfort in that thought, that he takes comfort in the thought of a drunk man embellishing in stories about his dead wife.
The road narrows as Healy pulls into March’s neighborhood, and then turns into the cul-de-sac the March home is situated at the very end of. The car jostles as he pulls into the driveway, and the house looks like it could be doing better than it is. There’s still cardboard up in some windows where there should be glass, and a giant trunk in the front lawn where the tree used to be. At least the roof is fixed, though Healy supposes that was the first thing the landlord set out to do. The trash cans out front are overflowing too, though Healy wonders how much of that is laziness on the garbage collectors or on March’s end.
The engine rumbles low as Healy shifts the car into park, then shuts off when he turns the keys. March reaches down and picks up the note cards he threw down per Healy’s request, clipping them back together and throwing them back into the console before getting out, letting his cigarette fall out of his mouth, stomping down and stubbing it out with his foot. Healy grabs the plastic bag from the backseat as March pops the trunk open, grabbing the large poster board.
“You could stay for dinner, y’know, Holly would love it.” March says, sliding the poster board under his armpit and reaching up, slamming the trunk shut.
Healy snorts as he falls into step beside him up the cracked walkway. “Yeah? What’re you making, cigarettes and whiskey?”
March scoffs like he’s been personally offended, though the world’s largest ashtray in his pool would like to say otherwise. “First of all, that’s rude. Second of all, Holly made spaghetti.”
“The kid made spaghetti.” Healy repeats skeptically.
“From a can counts too.”
Healy snorts and shakes his head, following March up the steps to the door. March reaches for the doorknob, then pauses, glancing sideways at Healy with an expression that’s too casual to be natural.
“I’m serious, though.”
Healy falters again, because there’s something annoyingly sincere about the way March says it that makes Healy immediately want to bolt, and he doesn’t understand why. He knows it’s not because he doesn’t want dinner, because he does, and that’s the problem. Holland March has some fucking gravitational pull to him that’s caught Healy, and maybe at first Healy thought it was the murders, then the trial, then all the drinks, but no, it’s all Holland fucking March.
Healy shifts the plastic bag in his hand. “I got stuff at home.”
March eyes him. “You mean canned beans.”
“They’re easy.”
“They’re sad.”
“You’re about to make me eat spaghetti from a fucking can, March. That’s the same thing.” Healy gestures to the door.
March opens his mouth like he’s about to start some big argument about how canned spaghetti and canned beans are different, though the look on his face almost makes Healy thinks he’s going to say something else to get Healy to stay, but before he can get a word out the front door swings open hard enough to rattle against the wall.
Holly stands there in striped socks, jeans, and an oversized sweatershirt that looks like it was worn by her father once upon a time, judging by how old it looks. She peers up at them like she’s a detective arriving at an especially disappointing crime scene. “Did you get the stuff?” She asks, moving out of the way so March and Healy can enter.
March lifts the poster board under his arm like a trophy. “Guess I’m the World’s Best Dad, huh?”
Holly rolls her eyes so hard Healy is surprised they don’t fall out of her head. “Hi, Mr. Healy.” She says as she closes the door.
“Hey, kid.” Healy hangs back in the entryway and ruffles her hair, smiling when she grins and fixes it, running past him to catch up with her dad.
The house smells faintly like tomato sauce and cigarette smoke, which Healy guesses is probably just what the March place smells like now. There’s papers scattered across the table already, a history textbook opened face down, and a pair of safety scissors sitting dangerously close to the edge like somebody had nearly knocked them off three separate times. It’s a lived-in mess, not dirty exactly, just...busy. Like someone left and didn’t have enough time to clean. It’s domestic in a way that makes Healy’s chest tighten.
“Hey.” March whistles at Holly to get her attention, pointing to the mess on the table and pointing away with his thumb.
Holly groans like March has just asked her to move mountains, gathering up the supplies from the table and putting most of them into the bag Healy hands off to her, and sliding the poster board under her armpit just how March had done earlier, stomping off to her room. March watches her go with that same expression he always gets around Holly; exhausted, fond, a big mess of emotions Healy’s not sure he wants to ask about. Fathers always have complicated feelings about their kids, Healy learned that the hard way.
But still, he slides his jacket off, draping it over the back of one of the chairs and watching as March moves around the kitchen like a tranquilized deer. The spaghetti bubbles quietly on the stove, and Healy wonders for a moment how long it’s been sitting there, there’s a cheap loaf of bread on the counter next to it too, with one end mangled like someone had torn pieces off with their hands instead of cutting it.
Healy leans against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms. There’s dishes still in the sink, magnets on the fridge, a crooked calendar that has HOLLY’S DENTIST APPT scribbled across one square in March’s messy handwriting. One cabinet hangs slightly open because March apparently isn’t physically capable of closing something by himself. His gaze ends up drifting back to the fridge, at a photo held up with a little yellow circle magnet. It’s a family photo, that’s the first thing Healy notices, the next thing he notices is that March is younger in it, and so is Holly, and that his arm is wrapped around a blonde holding that much smaller Holly on her hip. She has Holly’s face, even if Holly acts like her father, she has her mother’s face.
Healy looks away before he can think too hard about it, but still, he feels like he’s intruding on something not meant for him. He glances back up at the photo before he can stop himself, and March in it looks...lighter. Not happier exactly, because March still has that vaguely panicked expression he always carries around, but softer around the edges. His wife is laughing at something outside of the frame, head tilted back slightly. Holly’s tiny enough to fit on one hip. It’s domestic, it’s easy.
It’s a life somebody else gets to have, and it’s a life Healy almost feels guilty for intruding on. Which is a funny thing, Healy’s not sure he’s ever felt guilty in his life, not even when his two options were probation or jail. He looks over at March scooping spaghetti into mismatched bowls and feels the urge to bolt again, even though this time he acts on it, because he has an out now.
Healy pushes himself off of the counter before he can talk himself back into staying, grabbing his jacket off of the chair. “Actually,” he begins, sliding his arm into a sleeve, “I should probably get going.”
March pauses, ladle hovering over the pot. “Oh.” March sets the ladle down against the counter with a quiet clink. “Yeah, alright.”
And that should make it easier, that March just accepts it so quickly, but it doesn’t. It’s easier to leave when March is drunk and can’t see three steps in front of him, because he doesn’t look at Healy with disappointment when he moves to leave, because he’s already asleep by then. And Holly doesn’t urge him to stay those nights either, because she knows what it looks like, and she probably doesn’t want an audience for her dad’s self-destructive behavior.
Healy shrugs his other shoulder into the jacket. “Long day.”
The kitchen suddenly feels too small, too warm. Healy can hear Holly moving down the hallway, drawers opening and shutting as she works on her project. Somewhere outside one of March’s neighbor’s dogs starts barking, and the spaghetti bubbles softly on the stove.
March grabs a roll of plastic wrap from a drawer, wrapping up one of the bowls with a chip in it up in it, handing it to Healy. “Here, take it home and...rate it or whatever. Or don’t, actually, I don’t care. It’s Chef Whatever-The-Fuck-His-Name-Is or some bullshit so I know it’s shit.”
Healy takes the bowl from March and stares down at it in his hand. It crinkles a little when he tries to smooth it out. “Thanks.”
March shrugs. “Don’t mention it.”
Now Healy’s standing there like a fucking idiot in the middle of March’s kitchen, holding a bowl of warm canned spaghetti and feeling like a goddamn idiot. March leans back against the counter beside the stove looking tired in that sort of permanent way he always does, his tie is loosened halfway down his chest, and his sleeves are rolled unevenly to his elbows. There’s sauce splattered near one of the burners.
“I, uh, I got silverware at home so, tell Holly I said bye.” Healy smiles awkwardly, heading back toward the entryway.
“Yeah.” March mutters, nodding. “I will. And uh—drive safe.”
Healy nods. “I will.”
And as he’s leaving he can’t but think God,
Holland fucking March.
---
The next time Healy finds himself at the March household, it’s his birthday. Not that he particularly wants to be there, he’d rather be spending his birthday with a TV dinner and maybe a shitty cake he buys for himself, but March finally wore him down enough that he eventually said yes. That’s the thing about Holland March, he’s filled Healy’s life—and car—with so much talk. Talk about nothing, talk about cases, talk about the news, talk about birthdays, talk about the goddamn PI exam and how he doesn’t think Healy needs to take it because he has so much faith in him.
So, Jackson Healy turns forty-nine on a Friday, and ends up spending it squished between Holland and Holly March, listening to them argue on what movie they should play on their sad looking VHS player. Really, it looks beat up enough that Healy debates just telling them to throw it out, or buying them a new one. For a moment he wishes the teenager bringing the pizza could hurry up just a little bit, because he doesn’t want to end up being the tie breaker between Psycho and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.
Healy glances at the clock on the wall, sighing into the small cup of water Holly got for him. The pizza delivery kids twenty minutes late now.
Lucky bastard.
“Psycho is better.” Holly says, clutching the tape box against her chest while leaning over Healy so she can argue with her dad a little closer. “It changed horror movies forever.”
March scoffs across from her, though he’s also leaning a little closer to Healy. “Yeah, by making every scared of motels and their mothers. Cowboys are cooler.”
“Cowboys are boring.”
“Boring? You think they’re boring.”
“Yeah, westerns are just shitty movies where dirty men stare at each other until somebody dies.”
“Language.” Healy mutters, because a little girl shouldn’t be talking like that, but neither of them listen.
“Yeah, well, horror movies are just women opening doors they shouldn’t.”
“That’s totally sexist.” Holly argues, and March makes a noise like he’s dying.
Healy sighs, sinking deeper into the couch cushions as he realizes this argument might last all night, and they won’t even be able to watch either damn movie. Thankfully, the doorbell rings and finally causes both of them to shut the hell up. March’s head shoots up and he pats the pocket of his pants, before Healy finally gives him his own wallet, and March doesn’t even say thank you, just gets up off the couch and runs to the door. He doesn’t expect a thank you anymore really, at this point Healy’s certain he’s never gonna get one.
“You know he does that on purpose, right?” Holly leans away, crossing her arms.
Healy glances down at her. “What?”
“The wallet thing. He knows you’ll pay for stuff.”
“That’s not better.”
“It kinda is.” Holly shrugs. “If he actually forgot, he’d look totally embarrassed.”
Healy thinks about that, and then wishes he hadn’t, because the kid is probably right. Holland March forgets about things genuinely plenty—appointments, ties, where he parked his car one memorable afternoon—but there’s a difference between forgetful and comfortable. And March has apparently gotten comfortable enough around Healy to assume he’ll be there to catch things before they hit the ground. That thought lingers a little longer than it should, that March is comfortable around him.
“Just—pick the cowboy movie, okay? It’d make your dad happy.” Healy comments, trying to change the subject.
Holly bites her lip, like she’s thinking about something real hard, but she doesn’t know how to say it. “Do you like my dad? Like how my mom liked my dad?”
The question is blunt enough that for a second Healy thinks he’s misheard her. “What kinda question is that?”
Holly shrugs one shoulder, but there’s nothing casual in about the way she’s watching him. Kids pick up on things adults have learned not to, Healy learned that one the hard way too. “You spend a lotta time with him.” She picks absently at the corner of the Psycho tape box. “And you don’t spend time with people you don’t like.”
“That’s not true.”
“It kinda is.”
Healy opens his mouth, then closes it again, because he wants to argue, truly he does. He wants to argue on the principle of the thing, but the problem is Holly’s old enough now to understand a lie, and to say things with that same awful accidental precision her father does sometimes, like she stumbled into the truth without meaning to.
Healy rubs a hand over his jaw. “Your dad’s...your dad’s alright.”
“So you do like him.” She narrows her eyes skeptically.
“He grows on people.”
“Well, he likes you too, y’know.” She tucks her feet underneath her legs, leaning forward and putting the Psycho tape box on the coffee table. “He’d never say it, but he does.”
Healy opens his mouth to argue, to say that March likes everybody, so there isn’t much competition there. But the man reappears before he can say anything, balancing two pizza boxes in his arms, Healy’s wallet sitting on top of it all.
“Who likes who?” March asks, setting the pizza boxes down on the coffee table.
“Jessica’s sister.” Holly jumps in.
March furrows his brows, handing Healy’s wallet back to him. “I thought she liked that Brad kid.”
“Yeah, but now she likes Mike.”
“God, she’s such a slut.” March mutters, settling back down next to Healy, stretching on arm out across the back of the couch and behind Healy.
Holly learns forward, picking up The Good, The Bad & The Ugly tape box, waving it in the air. “We picked the cowboy movie.”
March’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “We did?”
“Yeah, I thought, uhm,” Holly pauses, glancing at Healy, “I thought it’d make you happy.”
March looks startled for a second, before a grin grows on his face like he just won the goddamn lottery. March opens his mouth to say something, probably stupid to embarrass his daughter, but Holly is already getting up off the couch and sliding the tape inside the player before he can. The machine sputters and coughs for a second before the room settles and the movie starts up, all grainy desert shots and dramatic music pouring from the TV speakers. Holly tucks herself back next to Healy, and March stays where he is, leaning forward and flipping open pizza boxes, already talking through the opening credits.
Healy isn’t really aware of the movie as it continues, because he’s never been a big fan of westerns either, but he doesn’t mind watching one for March. He remembers playing Cowboys and Indians as a kid at recess, but that’s about as far as it ever went, never the devotion to Clint Eastwood Holland March seems to have.
The VHS player hums beneath the television, occasionally giving a concerning rattle that makes the picture wobble for half a second before correcting itself. Healy sinks deeper into the couch cushions despite himself, because it’s warm here. Not physically—though it is, a little, between the old heater rattling in the corner and three people crowded onto one couch—but something else. The kind of warmth Healy stopped expecting years ago, the kind that sneaks up on you before you realize you’ve gotten comfortable. That’s a dangerous thing, that comfort, especially for a guy like him.
The movie rolls on, and at some point, both Holly and March fall asleep against him. Holly’s curled up into his side, knees tucked up beneath her, one hand still loosely clutched against a blanket she must’ve grabbed sometime during the movie when Healy wasn’t paying attention. Her head rests against his shoulder at an awkward angle that Healy knows is going to hurt later. On the other side of him, March is slumped sideways enough that his shoulder presses firmly into Healy’s arm, head tipped slightly toward him, his mouth parted just enough to make his breathing audible beneath the movie soundtrack. The bastard actually fell asleep during his favorite movie, and Healy almost feels like waking him up just for that alone. Instead, he stares back at the TV, because he doesn’t want to ruin this. Because nobody’s leaned on him like this in years, not safely, at least. People usually touched Healy because they wanted something from him, or because he was dragging them somewhere, or because he was hitting them. There was always a weight behind it, but this, this is different. And he’s not sure that he likes how different it is.
Eventually, the end credits begin to roll, and Healy decides that it’s probably a good time to put an end to this too. Because his arm has gone numb beneath Holly’s weight, and March’s shoulder is warm where it rests against his. Healy carefully flexes the fingers of his numb hand and immediately regrets it when pins and needles shoot up his arm.
“Fuck.” He mutters under his breath, the TV gives a loud hiss of static in response as the tape runs out, as if chastising him for his language.
He decides to try and wake Holly first because she’s easier, she’s a kid after all, can’t be that hard. Carefully, he shifts his numb arm free from beneath her and nudges her shoulder lightly. “Kid.”
Holly groans in response, burying her face deeper into Healy’s shoulder.
“Holly, c’mon, it’s time for bed.”
Her eyes crack open just enough to glare at him. “Movie’s over?”
“Yeah.”
“Who won?”
Healy pauses. “...The ugly one, I think.”
“Cool.” Holly yawns, dragging herself upright with all the grace of a corpse reanimating, blanket tangled around her shoulders, hair sticking up funny on one side. She squints blearily at him for a second, then without warning leans over and hugs him. “Thanks for coming over, Mr. Healy.” She mumbles against his shoulder, then shambles off toward her room in her socks like a tiny exhausted ghost.
Healy watches her go, waiting until he hears the distant creak of her bedroom door and soft click of it closing before looking back down at March. The static of the TV fills the room with uneven bursts of blue-white light and it, ironically, makes March look older while he sleeps. The lines around his eyes stand out more, his hair flattened crooked where his head is pressed against the couch cushions, the ring around his neck glints in the light and it makes Healy’s stomach churn in an odd way. And for a second, Healy considers just leaving him there. Would serve him right, honestly, for falling asleep during his own favorite movie.
Instead, he reaches over and nudge’s March’s knee. “Hey.”
Nothing.
Healy sighs through his nose and nudges him harder. “March.”
March jerks awake with a sharp inhale, nearly sliding off the couch before catching himself. “Jesus Christ—!” He blinks around the room wildly. “What happened?”
“Movie ended.”
“Oh.” March squints at the TV static for a long moment, then his eyes drift towards the hallway Holly disappeared down, softening immediately. “She go to bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” March yawns, rubbing his face tiredly and getting up off the couch, rounding it and heading towards the kitchen. “Sorry, by the way, didn’t mean to….fall asleep on you or whatever.”
The apology catches Healy off guard more than it should, because March doesn’t apologize necessarily. At most he gets defensive and argues his point until he realizes he’s wrong, and then he doubles down. Either way, Healy shrugs it off, getting up himself and picking up the now cold half-eaten pizzas. “It’s fine.”
March rummages through a cabinet, pulling out two whiskey glasses with his and setting them down on the counter, then opens up the fridge while Healy sets the pizza boxes next to the glasses on the bar counter.
“Drink?” March asks, pulling a bottle of whiskey out of the fridge and popping the cap off.
Healy shakes his head, and March shrugs, pouring two fingers of whiskey into each glass, and Healy has no doubt that he’s going to finish both of them himself. He’s pretty sure March could drink to the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and still ask for another right after, cigarette hanging out of his mouth and all. Part of Healy wonders if March is going to make it to forty-nine himself, the other part is too scared of the idea that he might drink himself to death before he does.
March takes a sip of the first glass, leaning against the counter and watches over the rim as Healy folds the boxes up quietly. And March is quiet too, which is new for him, and that’s how Healy knows he’s tired. Because usually the whiskey disappears quick between sentences, cigarettes, all the noise Holland March makes on a daily basis. But tonight he just leans against the counter holding the glass loose in one hand while the kitchen light buzzes overhead, and the TV static hisses faintly from the living room.
March eventually droops his head against his chest, then turns around halfway to watch Healy. “It’s late.”
Healy glances up from where he’s crushing the pizza boxes flatter against the counter, nods, then looks back down. “That’s usually how nighttime works.”
“No, I mean—” March turns fully around now, sloshing the whiskey around in the glass as he gestures, “you should fuckin’...stay the night or whatever.”
Healy stills, fingers pressing too hard into the cardboard box until grease stains his knuckles as he looks at March. “What?”
March blinks at him slowly, already looking like he regrets opening his mouth at all. “Jesus, don’t make it weird.” He points vaguely in the direction of the hallway Holly disappeared down with his whiskey glass. “Holly’s asleep, you’re tired, it’s late, you can take the fuckin’ couch for all I care, just...just stay.”
Healy looks away quickly, because something about the way March says things sometimes gets under his skin in a way he doesn’t appreciate, because June was never like this. June never begged him to stay, hell, nobody begged him to stay not even when he moved to California because of The Program. He doesn’t remember his mother crying, his brother never called or sent letters, his father maybe sent the rare one but it was never out of appreciation or fondness for his son, more like an obligation. Yeah, his family was one big obligation.
Just stay.
What a stupid thing to get hung up on. Because March probably doesn’t realize he said it like that, Healy doubts the man thinks before speaking most of the time anyway. Words just fall out of Holland March constantly, careless and everywhere, clogging up every silence Healy used to have. And that’s the problem, right there. Because sometimes, beneath all the bullshit and rambling and whiskey breath, March says something meaningful or surprisingly smart without meaning to.
Healy swallows roughly. “You ask people to stay often?” He mutters finally, still not looking at him.
March shifts against the counter. “Not unless they’re of the female persuasion.”
Healy snorts at that, because it’s true, and he’s also seen how it’s ended. Surprisingly, most women aren’t thrilled to go home with March once they learn about the thirteen year old also at home, well, at least the self respecting ones aren’t. “You got a blanket that doesn’t smell like cigarettes?” Healy asks, and watches with mild amusement as March’s eyebrows shoot upward in surprise.
Because for a second, March stares at him like he must’ve misheard him, then jumps into action. “Yeah.” March says quickly, like Healy might change his mind at the last second, pushing himself off of the counter. “Yeah, probably. Somewhere.”
“Probably.” Healy repeats flatly, leaning forward so he can watch the direction March goes.
March ignores the comment completely, shuffling toward somewhere in the hallway. “There’s a linen closet. Holly keeps stealing all the good blankets, though, so if you end up with the shitty yellow one that’s not my fault.”
Healy hears the closet door bang open and shakes his head despite himself, beginning to clean up the rest of the kitchen. He picks up March’s second, untouched glass of whiskey and pours it out into the sink, because March isn’t going to finish this one based on the way he’s still nursing the first one. Plus, Healy doesn’t know how long the guy is gonna stay up and moving before he falls asleep again. He rinses the glass out, and also takes the time while he’s there to wash some of the grease from the pizza boxes off of his hands, drying them off with a dish towel. And it’s peaceful for a second, the only sound being the faucet squeaking as Healy turns it off and the static from the TV filling the rental.
That is until March comes stumbling back in, dragging a floral comforter on the ground behind him, and Healy would almost compare it to a toddler and their baby blanket or favorite stuffed animal if March wasn’t pushing forty himself. Healy eyes the comforter. It’s loud, for one—flowers, bright ones, the kind that looks like it belongs in a different house entirely, and it probably did.
“See?” He says, holding the thing up like it’s some sort of prize. “No cigarette smell. Probably.”
“...You steal that from your grandma?” Healy asks.
March furrows his brows, holding it up to inspect it himself. “My wife bought it.” He shoots back, then pauses, like he’s realized something he’s forgotten, “Or—late wife or whatever the fuck, I don’t know, point is she picked it out and I bought it. Anyways, it’s clean.”
Healy hums, taking it from him and giving it a once-over. It smells faintly like detergent, something cheap, but not unpleasant. It’s something Holly probably washed it with, because Healy doesn’t know if March has even touched the washer or dryer before, and he doesn’t exactly trust him to try to now. But it’s better than cigarettes or whiskey, that’s for sure.
“Thanks.” He mutters, taking it and turning towards the living room.
March lingers behind him, which is new. Usually he’d be talking—filling the space, making some comment about how Healy should be grateful he’s letting him stay, how he’s a fantastic host, or asking a question he doesn’t really want the answer to but will bug Healy about it anyways. No, he doesn’t do any of that, instead he just...stands there.
Healy tosses the comforter over the back of the couch, rounding it and picking up the remote to turn off the TV, and the static cuts with a sharp pop. The room settles into something quieter after that, the kind of quiet that feels awkward because March isn’t talking, and Healy can feel his stare burning into the back of his head.
Healy sighs, turning around. “Go to bed, March.”
March points at the couch with his glass of whiskey. “You sure the couch’s okay?”
“It’s a couch, March, not a torture device.”
March smiles at that, it’s annoyed and tired but it’s real, and it does something annoying to Healy’s stomach. “Alright.” March says, dragging himself towards the hallway. “If you need anything,” he gestures to the hallway, “you know where we are.”
We.
Not I.
Just we, like Healy’s already somehow included in the space of the home without even being asked first. Though he supposes that’s how a lot of things happen with Holland March. Either way, he tries not to think about it too long. “Yeah, I know.”
March retreats down the hallway, throwing a goodnight and happy birthday over his shoulder as he does so, and Healy replies automatically at that too. And when the hallway light finally clicks off, Healy’s left standing in the dim living room, with a floral comforter that looks like it’s glowing even in the dark. It’s a little tacky, really, but then again Healy doesn’t know much about March’s wife other than that she and Holly used to read together. Still, Healy strips off his jacket and throws it over the armrest, kicking his shoes off and laying down, the couch groaning beneath him in complaint as he does so.
He shifts, trying to get comfortable, honestly the comforter is a little heavier than he expected. He ends up with one arm tucked under his head, and the other resting over his stomach as he looks up at the ceiling. The couch is lumpy in places where March himself has clearly passed out on it before, too drunk to even remember his name, and one of the springs is digging into his back. But it’s not the worst place he’s had to sleep before, not even close.
He leaves in the morning before the sun comes up anyway.
---
It’s been a few months since Healy’s birthday, since he stayed for dinner and the night, and March didn’t even complain about him not being there when he woke up, just asked Healy to stay the night again a few days later. But it’s been a few months since then, and Healy still hasn’t spent the night again, he’s stayed for dinner a few times though, made Holly real happy. It was nice, the dinner was nice too. But since then he’s taken the PI exam, watched March have a drink over it, and ate dinner at the March household. It’s nighttime now currently, actually, and March said they’d be having dinner right now after he got some information from one of his cop buddies.
Well, it’s dinner time now, and Healy is resting against the doorway of a bar that he doesn’t know the name of, arms crossed and watching as March and this cop buddy talk over a few drinks.
The bar smells like stale beer and cigarettes soaked so deep into the walls that no amount of cleaning is ever gonna get it out. Some old rock song crackles low through the speakers overhead, nearly drowned out by the clink of glasses and half-drunk conversations scattered across the room. March is in one of those conversations currently, perched sideways on a barstool beside some LAPD cop with tired eyes and a comb-over, both of them talking with the intensity of men who think they’re solving international espionage instead of gossiping about corrupt parking tickets and a stolen boat motor. March laughs loudly enough at something the cop says, throwing his head back in that careless way he does when he’s buzzed enough to forget himself. His tie’s loose, shirt sleeves rolled crookedly to his elbows and one of his suspenders is sliding off his shoulder, and it all gives Healy this pit in his stomach and makes his whole body tense.
He tells himself the feeling is irritation, because it’s better than acknowledging it. It’s better than thinking about how he knows what happens to men who feels the way he does, he saw it happen back home, men with broken noses and beatings that were worse than Healy’s brother ever did to him. He saw a few get arrested, probably get life sentences, and would see the men who beat them walk free a few days later. Healy’s brother told him that was just the way of things once when they saw it happen firsthand, didn’t matter how wrong it felt to a kid who was going through that same kind of hell at home, it was the right thing to do. Wrong kinda queer he had told him, before yanking him along like Healy was something annoying his brother had been tasked with keeping safe, not, y’know, his little brother.
The memory curdles unpleasantly in Healy’s stomach now as he watches March grin stupidly at something the cop says, all loose-limbed and careless and too damn comfortable in his skin for his own good. March laughs again across the bar, the cop has said something that’s left both of them shaking with drunk amusement, though this time March leans forward hard enough that his stool screeches on the hardwood floor, looking down as he laughs. The cop grins wide in amusement, hand landing briefly on March’s arm as he leans forward too so he can look up at March’s face.
Healy’s stomach twists hard enough to make him feel mean.
Jesus Christ.
March had told him not to follow him in when they parked, told him that most people don’t open up to a guy who teaches self defense classes and beats people for a living, and Healy had argued, but now he’s beginning to understand why March said that.
Healy looks down at the floor, because the wooden floor below him is a lot more interesting than watching March now. Not because he’s decent, or mature, or above whatever ugly thing just flared up in his chest watching some washed-up cop put his hand on March’s arm like it belongs there. No, he looks away because he suddenly understands something about himself that he’s spent forty-nine years not understanding, and a few months trying not to think about. And all of that makes him feel a little bit sick when he thinks about it.
He uncrosses his arms and pushes himself off of the doorway before he can think about it, moving toward the bar with the heavy tread of a man heading into a fight he already knows he shouldn’t start. The bartender eyes him briefly as he passes, probably recognizing him as the kind of guy who breaks jaws for a living, but Healy ignores him.
March notices him first, because of course he does, and his whole face brightens in this new way it does whenever Healy is around, and he’s just drunk enough that he doesn’t remember that he should be mad that Healy came inside, because he told him to stay in the car. And that somehow makes everything worse, that March is too drunk to be mad, just happy to see him. March nods at him as a greeting, taking another sip of the scotch in his hand before saying anything. “Thought you finally got bored of me, or fuckin’...ditched me.”
Healy ignores him, and he doesn’t sit down either, just leans against the bar with his arms crossed again. “You got what we came for?”
March nods and points at the officer next to him with his glass, spinning slightly on the stool to look at Healy. “Bukowski got us something.”
Officer Bukowski fishes a folded piece of paper out from inside his jacket and slides it across the bar towards March. “Guy you’re lookin’ for rents a storage unit off Santa Monica Boulevard. Paid cash, comes around Thursdays mostly.”
Healy takes the paper before March can pick it up, sliding it inside the back pocket of his jeans. “Thanks.” He looks back at March, grabbing him by the elbow. “You’ve had enough, March, it’s time to go.”
“Jesus!” March exclaims as Healy drags him off the stool with little time for March to even set his glass back down, and there’s the soft clatter of it falling and spilling over the bar behind them. Bukowski says something about paying for March’s drink, but it goes in one ear and out the other for Healy as he drags the man out of the bar.
The cold air hits them the second the bar door swings shut behind them, carrying the smell of rain-soaked pavement, cigarettes, and car exhaust. The neon sign from above the bar buzzes red against the sidewalk, flickering over March’s face as he stumbles half a step trying to keep up.
“Healy—holy shit, let me go.” March flails out of Healy’s grip, almost tumbling over and catching himself on some stranger’s car.
Healy watches as March straightens himself against the side of the car, and he looks almost offended, though Healy can’t find it in himself to care much about that right now. He motions to his Oldsmobile, because they didn’t bring the Mercedes, because Healy knew somehow this night would end like this. Well, not exactly like this, but something more like helping March inside and either helping him into the bathroom to throw up or into bed without even taking his shoes off.
“Get in the car.” Healy says flatly.
March just starts at him for a second, chest rising unevenly from the stumble, tie still hanging half undone against his neck. Eventually he staggers toward the car, folding himself into the passenger seat with all the awkwardness of a man who’s mostly held together by cheap scotch and bad decisions. He nearly catches his foot in the door before Healy slams it shut for him. The driver’s side groans as Healy gets in a second later, putting the keys into the ignition and turning them, and the engine sounds about as tired as Healy feels. He throws the car into gear, pulling out of the parking spot and squealing away from the bar so fast it makes March lean forward and grab the dashboard.
And for a few seconds, it’s blissful silence. Just them inside the Oldsmobile, the engine rumbling low beneath them and March breathing through his nose like he’s trying to decide whether he’s irritated or amused, or maybe he’s just drunk.
Healy’s the one to break it first, surprisingly. “What the hell was that?”
March blinks at him slowly, like the question itself has to fight through three glasses of scotch before it gets to his brain. “What was what?”
“That.” Healy grips the steering wheel tighter with one hand, gesturing with the other. “The...flirting.”
March lets out a startled bark of laughter that immediately dissolves into a cough. “Bukowski?” He points vaguely behind them toward the bar they just left with his thumb. “Jesus Christ, Healy, if that’s flirting then every cop in Los Angeles is fuckin’ each other.”
“You were practically in his lap.”
“I was sitting at the bar.”
“You were laughing like an idiot.”
“I was questioning him! Where the hell were you?”
“You looked like a queer, March!” Healy finally exclaims, and the car goes silent.
Healy hears the words the second they leave his mouth and immediately wishes he could grab them back out of the air, and shove them down his throat until they rot there instead. But it’s too late now, and now he and March have to sit between them ugly and sharp and wrong. March stills beside him in the passenger seat, and not offended in that way March normally gets offended, just still. And for a horrible second Healy wishes that March would just brush it off and make a joke out of it, make it into something careless and easy like he does with everything else, but he doesn’t, and that’s almost worst. Because Healy knows what he meant, even if he can try to pretend he didn’t mean it, he meant you looked like a queer, not you are one, not even I thought you were flirting with him. Just that ugly frightened thing dragged out of somewhere inside of him, from some alleyway back in the Bronx. Some church basement, some memory of his brother grabbing him too hard by the arm while blood ran from someone else’s lip nearby.
Wrong kinda queer.
Healy swallows hard. “I didn’t…” He exhales sharply through his nose. “Fuck.”
Healy opens his mouth to try and say something again, anything really, then closes it, because what the hell is he supposed to say? That he saw another man touch March’s arm and suddenly felt fifteen years old again standing in some filthy alley behind the grocery store while two men beat the shit out of somebody for holding another guy’s goddamn hand? That jealousy and fear arrived in his chest at the exact same time and his brain couldn’t seperate one from the other before his mouth got involved?
Wrong kinda queer. His brother’s voice still sounds clear in his mind after all these years, like cigarette smoke trapped in the curtains.
Healy grips the steering wheel tighter again. “I’m not….I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. Just—”
He doesn’t realize that in the silence they’ve made it back to the March household before March opens the door before Healy has pulled into the driveway, or even stopped the car, stumbling out and catching himself on the edge of the door with a rough exhale. Healy hears him mutter a “Jesus!” under his breath as he does so. The lights are on in the house again tonight, and for a minute Healy wonders if Holly thinks he’s gonna come in with her dad, and he’s gonna help her with her homework like he does sometimes when she waits up for him. But he supposes tonight isn’t a good night to invite himself in like he always does.
“Tell Holly I said hi.” Healy says, and March just slams the door closed in response.
Healy exhales hard through his nose and leans back against the seat, scrubbing both hands down his face.
“Fuck.”
---
It’s been a week or two since March last spoke to Healy. Healy called, of course. He called and called and called and every time he would get the message they recorded on the answering machine together repeated back to him. It reminded him of his divorce with June, almost, how he wanted to make it work with her but couldn’t. Maybe that’s what’s going to happen here, he wants to make it work with March but can’t.
In other news, he passed the PI exam. Feels less exciting when March isn’t bugging him to go drink about it, though, to celebrate, he even talked about Holly making a banner and Healy had rolled his eyes at the idea. Because at the time it was easier than admitting the idea of somebody being proud of him made his chest ache. Now there’s no banner, and there’s no March trying to force Healy to drink a whiskey he has no interest, just the silence of Healy’s apartment, the hum of the refrigerator, and the muffled laughter of the Comedy Shop below him.
He still picks up Holly from school, because it’s better than her walking home or taking the bus, and she asks him questions each time.
“What happened?”
“Did you guys have a fight?”
“Did dad say something stupid?”
And every time she asks, Healy dodges it.
“Grown up stuff.”
“Your dad’s busy.”
“Nothin’ you gotta worry about.”
They’re bad answers every single time, and Holly knows it too. He can tell by the way she narrows her eyes at him from the passenger seat like she’s trying to pry the truth out of him through sheer irritation. And it might work on her dad, actually, Healy doesn’t doubt it doesn’t work on March, it’s just not as effective when directed towards Healy. Holly doesn’t need to be involved in this, really, he and March are two adults and Healy ruined a good thing all on his own.
Tonight, he’s eating a microwave dinner instead of a dinner at the March’s too, something he’s been getting used to again. It’s weird, he’s too used to home-cooked meals now, even if half of the dinner Holly and March make come from a can or box. It’s still nice to eat around a table, talk to people, laugh. Now, he just peels the top off of the dinner at the counter and watches the steam rise up, the TV crackles behind him, and atop it are his brass knuckles and the letter saying he passed.
Laughter rises from below him again, surely normal people aren’t this funny. Well, maybe they’re funny to drunks, March would certainly find them funny. He digs his fork into the Salisbury steak on the counter in front of him, and it’s bad, like wet cardboard. But he eats it anyway, and it’s heated unevenly because of the shitty microwave he has, but food is food. Even if it’s the most depressing thing Healy has ever seen packaged in a box.
But the knock at the door has him stopping, fork halfway to his mouth. Healy stares at the door, because nobody knocks on the door this late unless it’s bad news, or some drunk who forgot where the bathroom was. The laughter swells again through the floorboards while the knock comes a second time, then a third time, each impatient and almost frantic. He sets the fork down slowly, wiping his hand on his jeans and crossing the apartment, picking up his brass knuckles from on top the TV and sliding them onto his fist, better safe than sorry. He unlocks the door and opens it slowly, prepared to be met with someone he’s pissed off recently, or someone looking to stash something in his apartment again.
Instead, he’s met with March.
For a second Healy just stares at him, because March’s hair is windswept like he raced over here as fast as he could, but there’s a glass of scotch in his hand, so maybe not fast enough. He flinches when he notices the brass knuckles, stepping away slightly, like Healy might pin him to the ground and break his fucking arm again.
Healy looks down at the brass knuckles on his fist, sliding them off as quickly as he can. “Sorry, habit.”
“Jesus Christ.” March mutters, inviting himself in while Healy retreats to put the brass knuckles back on top of the TV, pausing briefly before closing the door and opening it wider, gesturing to the bullet holes in it. “What the fuck happened to your door?”
“Blueface.” Healy responds without looking at him, and March must deem that a good enough answer, because the sound of the door clicking closed follows after.
March stands in the middle of the apartment after the door shuts, watching as Healy crosses the apartment and throws his microwave dinner away, taking a sip of his scotch. The apartment is quieter without the two of them talking over each other, or maybe it’s because Healy hasn’t come over in weeks and it shows. Healy turns back around as March notices the letter on top of the TV, picking it up and inspecting it while continuing to nurse his scotch.
“You passed?” He turns to Healy, holding up the paper.
“Uh—yeah. I passed.”
“You passed and you didn’t fuckin’ tell me?”
Healy leans against the counter, shaking his head. “It’s not that big of a deal, March, really.”
“Not a big deal’? Fuck ‘not a big deal’, it’s a huge fucking deal!” March points at him with the letter now, crossing the apartment. “You spent five goddamn months studying for this thing, and complained every fucking minute of it.”
“I complained twice.”
“You complained constantly.”
“I did not.”
“You made Holly quiz you like it was the fuckin’ bar exam!”
Healy opens his mouth to argue, then closes it, because March is right, and because he also knows the flashcards are probably still somewhere in March’s car.
March looks vindicated immediately, pointing at him again when he finally makes his way into the kitchen. “See?”
Healy rolls his eyes. “You done?”
March settles leaning on the counter next to him, looking down at the letter while he takes another sip of scotch. “Licensed private investigator. You really did it, holy shit.”
Healy shrugs, uncomfortable with the genuine pride in March’s voice. “Look, March, I’m...I’m sorry, for what I said. I shouldn’t’ve said it in the first place, really.”
“No.” March says quietly. “You shouldn’t have.”
Healy nods once, because he knows March is right and there’s nothing to do with that. He’s just spent the last two weeks replaying it in his head anyway, every single ugly syllable of it, and hearing March say it out loud just makes it real in a different, even more ugly way.
So he doesn’t really know why the words “I missed you.” slip out until they do. And he’s about to take it all back when March looks at him, tell March to forget he ever said anything, completely kick the guy out of his apartment.
And then March says. “I missed you too.” Then he stares over the rim of his glass, eyes bloodshot as he huffs a laugh and hangs his head low. “Christ.” He mutters, looking back up and scrubbing a hand over his face. “This is fuckin’ embarrassing.”
Healy huffs out something that could almost be a laugh itself. “Yeah.”
“I had this whole thing planned in the car, y’know?” March gestures vaguely with his hand holding the scotch. “I was gonna come up here and be real mad at you still.”
“You were real mad.”
“I was.” March points at him. “And then you were having the saddest goddamn dinner I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“It was food.”
“I think you might be the saddest man I’ve ever met, like, actually.”
Healy can’t stop the laugh that escapes out of him, all low and rough around the edges and the only kind of laugh Holland March can get out of him. March smiles at that, stepping a little closer and leaning his hip against the counter so he can face Healy now.
March discards the PI acceptance letter on the counter. “For the record,” he says, “I’m still pissed you passed this thing without telling me.”
“Why? Because you can’t celebrate with a drink anymore?” Healy asks in a taunting manner, and he’s expecting March to laugh it off.
Instead, March shrugs. “We could still celebrate.”
Healy snorts, finally looking at him. “With what?”
And then March kisses him. It’s a quick, chaste thing, like he’s testing the waters and trying to judge if Healy will beat the shit out of him for it. It’s barely even a kiss really, just the brief press of March’s mouth against his, warm and bitter from the scotch and hesitant in a way Healy has never associated with Holland March. Then March is already pulling away like he touched a hot stove, eyes wide and horrified with himself.
“Okay.” March pants, words tripping over each other. “Alright, that was—Jesus Christ, that was a shitty idea, actually, I—”
Healy grabs him before he can back away, his heart hitting hard enough against his ribs to make him feel vaguely sick. And he thinks the worst part is the world didn’t end when March kissed him, there was no God striking him down, no disgust curling in his stomach, no instinct to shove him away. Just this awful, aching want, and need.
March stares at him carefully, like he’s trying to decide if this is the part where Healy breaks his nose. “You don’t gotta—” He starts, as quiet as Holland March has ever been around Jackson Healy, before Healy cuts him off with a kiss of his own.
It’s clumsy at first, mainly because Healy has no idea what he’s doing here anymore, and hell, maybe he never did. But March makes this startled sound against his mouth that goes straight through him, and suddenly Healy’s grip tightens reflexively on March’s shirt. March kisses him like he’s surprised he’s being allowed to, one hand coming up uncertainly to Healy’s wrist like he’s asking permission and apologizing at the same time.
Healy’s the one to pull back first after that, mostly because his brain finally catches up hard enough to panic a little. He’s breathing rougher than he should from something so small, forehead nearly bumping March’s for a second before he straightens abruptly.
“Jesus.” He mutters, watching as March rubs a hand over his mouth.
“Yeah.” March breathes.
“We should...we should get out the kitchen.”
March lets out a short, startled laugh, still looking a little dazed. “What, because this is where you eat your frozen pieces of shit?”
Healy points at him. “Don’t start.”
And he doesn’t know why he’s doing it, but he’s already pulling March toward his bed on the other side of the wall, and God March can’t keep his hands off of him for a second during the whole process either. March nearly walks backward into the bedroom because he’s too busy kissing Healy to pay attention to where he’s going. His scotch gets abandoned somewhere along the way with a careless clink against the counter, and for a minute Healy hopes it didn’t spill all over the letter, that is before March’s hands are back on Healy like he’s making up for lost time.
“Careful.” Healy mutters against his mouth, steering him before he cracks his skull open on the doorframe.
“I’m bein’ careful.” March argues immediately, right before stumbling into the side of the bed hard enough to make the mattress squeak, busying himself with taking off of his tie while still trying to kiss Healy.
The room is dim except for the weak apartment light spilling in from the kitchen through the gaping hole where there used to be a window, enough to catch the flush high on March’s cheeks as he discards his tie somewhere on the floor. March looks unfairly good like this too, all rumpled and smiling a little and visibly startled each time Healy touches him back, like he still can’t believe this is happening, and to give him credit Healy’s pretty sure the feeling goes both ways.
Another wave of laughter rises up from below them as March slides off his jacket and belt, and oh, if the poor schmucks of Los Angeles could see what they were doing right now, Healy’s not sure they’d be laughing as hard as they apparently are. March pulls Healy back in, and the kiss is slower this time, less panicked and more grabbing and learning. March’s hand slides into the hair at the nape of Healy’s neck while Healy’s settle carefully as his waist, both of them still feeling this out piece by piece even though they both know where it’s headed. Healy makes a rough sound into his mouth and stumbles them both backward until the back of March’s knees hit the mattress and he tumbles over down into it, sliding his shoes off and pulling himself upwards onto the bed. Healy follows suit, kicking his own off and goes down with him, practically draping himself over March.
The mattress dips under their combined weight with a squeak, and March laughs breathlessly into the kiss like this is all so unbelievable to him. Healy catches himself with one arm braced beside March’s head, suddenly hyper-aware of everything at once—March beneath him, warm and solid and undoing Healy’s belt and fly for him so that Healy doesn’t have to fumble for it later, discarding the belt somewhere off the side of the bed.
March looks at the window next to them, at how it’s mostly shattered and there’s blue stains where glass used to be. “What the fuck?”
“Blueface.” Healy breathes.
March’s eyebrows raise in realization, before looking back up at Healy as he undoes his own pants. “You think this counts as unnecessary exercise?”
Healy shakes his head. “No.”
Healy kisses him again, and March melts into it instantly, making a pleased noise and sliding his hands up Healy’s back beneath his shirt. He shifts one leg between Healy’s automatically, and Jesus Christ,
Holland fucking March.
---
Healy groans, pushing himself up and resting back on his forearms, looking down at March next to him. He snores just as loud when you’re in bed next to him as he does when you’re sleeping on his couch, Healy’s learned, but he doesn’t mind that entirely. Healy doesn’t know how he long he slept for exactly, he knows he stayed awake long enough to clean himself and March up, but judging by the way March is curled up in the sheets he doubts March stayed up for very long after that. Healy rubs a hand over his face with a quiet groan, blinking himself awake while staring at the ceiling for a second. His back aches where he can tell March has clawed at it like a feral animal, and there’s a few hickeys along his neck and shoulders.
God, he feels like a teenager.
March snores again beside him, loud and uneven. And he looks ridiculous in his sleep this time, not older how he looked last time he fell asleep against Healy. His hair’s flattened on one side from the pillow, his shirt is gone, crumpled somewhere on the floor which means Healy has a clear view of his chest. And considering March’s hairy legs and arms, his chest is surprisingly bare, and there’s a bit of a belly there, not a beer gut just yet. One of his hand’s is curled loosely in the sheets near Healy’s hip like even unconscious he decided to Healy needed to stay within grabbing distance. Despite that, the moment is almost serene, if it weren’t for the sun coming up and the fact that they both have responsibilities they need to tend to, like cases and Holly.
He flicks March’s ear just like he used to do to his brother to wake him up, and March groans, putting a hand over his ear and looking up at Healy like he just betrayed him. March squints up at him with one eye still shut, face creased in the pillow. “What the hell was that for?” He rasps, voice wrecked from sleep.
Healy looks down at him. “Sun’s up.”
March squints at that like Healy’s personally offended him. “You woke me up ‘cause the fuckin’ sun came up?”
“You have a daughter, March.”
March groans, rolling onto his back. “She knows how to take care of herself.”
“Jesus Christ, March, she’s thirteen.”
March makes a noise like he knows Healy’s right, and then sits up with a noise akin to a growl, flopping against the headboard and wincing when his head hits the wall, rubbing the back of it. For a minute, Healy takes him in in the morning light, the bruises along his neck and overall rumpled appearance. That is before March leans over the side of the bed and Healy gets a full face of ass, and even though he’s already become quite acquainted with it he still looks away with a sigh.
“Where’re my pants?” March grumbles.
Healy sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Christ.”
March lets out a pleased gasp, the same kind of gasp he lets out when he finds a pack of cigarettes in his pocket, or the kind of gasp he made when Healy first hit his prostate. He holds up the pair of slacks like he’s found golden treasure, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sliding them on, standing up and hopping a little bit as he pulls them up. Healy watches him hop awkwardly around trying to get his pants on, and hold them up with one hand as he picks up his belt, and feels something deeply unfortunate happen in his chest.
March turns back towards him as he slides the belt through the belt loops. “For the record, I had a good time.”
“Yeah?”
March shrugs one shoulder, but there’s a crooked little grin pulling at his mouth now. “Yeah.” He gestures vaguely to the bed as he picks his shirt up. “Real educational evening for me, personally.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What? I’m being honest.”
“March, you scam old women out of money.”
March doesn’t even get through buttoning his shirt all the way before putting his hands on his hips. “Wow. That is a deeply offensive thing to say after we shared something beautiful together.”
Healy snorts before he can stop himself, watching as March struggles to button up his shirt, cursing under his breath. Healy sighs, leaning over the other side of the bed and picking up his own pants, then dragging himself and the pants to March’s side, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pulling his pants up. Finally, he reaches up and bats March’s hands away from the buttons, undoing them while March watches him quietly. It’s probably the quietest he’s ever been, if Healy’s being honest. And up close, Healy can see the faint shadow of stubble on March’s jaw, the tired lines around his eyes, the ugly bruises near his shoulder where Healy got a little too rough and March apparently enjoyed it far too much judging by the noises he made. Healy finishes the last button and smooths out March’s shirt flat against his chest before he realizes what he’s doing, and before his hands slide down to March’s waist to pull him closer.
“You gonna regret this?” March asks suddenly.
Healy looks up at him properly then, at the crooked hair, the kiss-swollen mouth, the bruises on his neck. At Holland March standing half-dressed in his shitty apartment up above the Comedy Shop where he gets rent for cheap, and he thinks about how he’s spent most of his life regretting things. He regrets some of the men he’s hurt, he regrets June, regrets the years he spent being angry at the world because it was easier than being hurt by this. But he knows one thing, he doesn’t regret Holland March.
Healy shakes his head. “No.” He says honestly, and maybe it’s the first time he’s been honest himself.
March blinks at him like he wasn’t expecting an honest answer, then his mouth curves into something small and warm and he leans down and kisses him. “Good.” He says quietly. “Because I’m pretty sure Holly would kill me if you didn’t come back.”
Healy laughs at that, and he’s beginning to think maybe staying was a good thing.