Chapter Text
“I want to punch that guy’s lights out, Rico.”
“I’m sure you do,” Tubbs sighed, looking around the trashed nightclub. He tried to trace the smoothest path out of the building, one that wouldn’t involve Sonny socking anyone in the nose.
“How can he treat Trudy that way? How can he talk to her like that?”
The exact order of events had been… garbled , but what he did know was that Adonis had hit Sonny in the face with a serving platter of cocaine. Even if there weren’t still a goddamn blizzard on the floor and a minor squall on Sonny’s face, his darting eyes and twitching hands would have made that pretty clear.
“I’m going to go over there and give him a piece of my mind,” Sonny half-muttered, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with the heel of his hand.
“I would recommend against it,” Tubbs warned, but Crockett was off and walking before he could grab his wrist or step in front of him.
Thankfully, Trudy told him off. Gently, but firmly. She was good like that.
And of course, she had seen Crockett slapped with a Wall Street salary’s worth of blow, so she probably knew treading a little cautiously was in everyone’s best interest.
Sonny stood at the door to the club, hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels like a bored kid. He kept sniffing and rubbing at his face. Tubbs sauntered over to join him.
“That guy’s a real piece of work,” he continued complaining, pupils like saucers. “I know she and Gina were saying it’s hard to date as cops, and I get that, it is, but jeez , Rico, why would you let yourself get involved with a schmuck like that?”
“I wouldn’t,” Tubbs answered half-heartedly, still trying to figure out what to do with his partner. He’d be fine soon, theoretically, but in the meantime it seemed like he might drive off a bridge looking for a cigarette.
“Not you ,” Sonny grumbled, rolling his eyes. “A nice girl like Trudy, she just deserves better, y’know?” He fished in his pockets for his lighter. “Is it hot in here?”
Tubbs gritted his teeth. “You want to go take a walk, maybe?”
“Nah. We gotta finish up here— I’m sure they’ll want to take my statement and—” He continued digging through his pockets. “Goddamn it. Where the hell are my smokes?”
“Why don’t you keep looking for a second while I go talk to Castillo, okay?” Tubbs suggested, realizing as soon as the words were out of his mouth that, even high as a kite, Sonny was going to see that as an obvious excuse.
Sonny turned his pants pockets inside out and looked around the building like his Luckies might manifest themselves out of thin air if he just blinked enough. “Hell’s that about? You got something to say to him you can’t say in front of me?”
“Cool it, man.” Tubbs put his hand on Sonny’s shoulder. “Just asking him if we can get going, okay? You can give your damn statement when you aren’t on a sleigh ride, alright, partner?”
Sonny scowled but acquiesced.
Tubbs pulled Castillo aside.
“Lieutenant, would it be alright if we go?”
Castillo glanced ever-so-briefly in his direction, and then looked with great portent at a purple trapezoidal mirror on the far wall. “Why?”
“Well,” Tubbs gestured with the top of his head, “Crockett is… kind of wired. I mean, you heard Trudy. He got dosed during the arrest.”
Nodding slowly, Castillo continued looking at a forty-five degree angle to Tubbs. “He can give his statement in the morning.” He glanced back at Tubbs. “Don’t let him drive.”
“I won’t,” Tubbs agreed, nodding at Castillo before making his way back over to his partner.
Still scanning the room, possibly for his cigarettes, but possibly just on high alert, Crockett’s eyes darted only briefly to Tubbs’ face. “I really don’t know if we should go. I think we should stick around in case Trudy needs us.”
“Gina’s going to stay with her,” Tubbs assured him. He placed his hand flat on Sonny’s back and started steering him out of the club.
“Castillo doesn’t need anything from us?”
“Nope. We’re free as birds.” He smiled, an upward tilt of the corners of his mouth without any feeling behind it.
Sonny flashed him a dirty look and stepped outside. “Can we stop somewhere and buy me a new pack of cigs? I’m really itching for a smoke.”
“I’m sure you are,” Tubbs agreed, pushing Sonny away from the club. Itchy was definitely the right word.
Sonny turned back one more time, prevented from going any further by Tubbs’ outstretched arm. “You sure we shouldn’t stay to help out? I feel like a real bastard just bouncing like this—”
“Sonny.” He squared his shoulders to the door of the club, an impenetrable wall of friendly concern. “I think right now Trudy has a lot to process, and you’re not gonna help her any with that. I’m sure she’s going to be looking for friends tomorrow, but let’s give her a little space tonight, okay?”
Turning on his heel and glancing out into the street, Sonny sighed.
“Yeah.”
Tubbs placed his hand on Sonny’s back and steered him towards the convenience store a few blocks down.
“It just sucks,” he spat, jamming his hands in his pockets.
“It does.”
“I liked that guy, y’know? He seemed like a good dude, and he made her happy.” Sonny shook his head. “But having to ask yourself, y’know, with any possible romantic prospects, ‘am I gonna have to compromise my ideals, here?’ It just… really sucks.”
“You talking about Trudy now, or yourself?” Tubbs smirked, elbowing Sonny in the side.
“I’m talking about all of us!” He threw his hands up. “Never fucking get married, Rico, because it’s guaranteed to end in divorce.”
“Reeeally, guaranteed?”
“Guar-an-teed. COD. Money back promise, fully bonded and insured.”
Tubbs snorted at Sonny’s rapid patter.
“No, I’m serious, man.” Sonny put his hand on the front of Tubb’s forearm, like he was going to stop him from walking, but then he continued moving forward anyway. “Name one person in our precinct who’s in a successful long-term relationship.” He suddenly smiled, a little mischievously, and tacked on, “Other than Switek and Zito.”
Crockett’s tendency to make off-hand gay jokes had puzzled Tubbs, initially, after he had come to the conclusion that the man wasn’t entirely straight as an arrow. The whole business with Evan had muddied those waters even further, considering a joke had sparked the chain of events that led to Mike Orgel’s death. At first he had wondered if it was a kind of outpouring of self-loathing, or a verbal shield designed to make him look just homophobic enough that no one would question his own leanings. But recently, Tubbs had started to pick up on the affection behind his voice when he said things like that, and how often they actually seemed like self-deprecating comments— there was a wink, somewhere, behind every joke— a very subtle whisper of ‘I’m in on it, you know.’
“What about Sandy?”
“Doesn’t count, she’s a School Resource Officer.” Sonny’s hand was still on Tubb’s arm, and he swatted him slightly as he spoke. “And she’s married to one of the teachers in the school district. Not the same.” He counted on the fingers of his other hand. “I’m talking vice, major crimes, homicide, you know. Not game wardens and meter maids.”
They turned into the convenience store.
“I mean, we’re all so fucked up that we can’t relate to normal people anymore, y’know,” he sighed, shaking his head. He tapped on the counter and pointed behind the cashier. “Pack of Luckies?”
He paid and immediately lit up before stepping out of the store.
“And it’s not like workplace romance is any better,” he continued, exhaling smoke into the humid night air. “Obviously that worked out great with me and Gina.”
“I can’t help but think that might have gone better if you hadn’t still been married when you two were sleeping together,” Tubbs admonished, trying to keep his smiling to a minimum.
“Oh, you don’t say .” Sonny rolled his eyes.
“Hey man, we all do stupid shit when we’re thinking with our dicks,” Tubbs laughed. He was no stranger to that kind of idiocy.
“I’m just saying— Trudy— Gina too, they both are… they’re both better than the jerkoffs they’ve dated, myself included.”
That hadn’t been his original thesis, but Tubbs just let him ramble as they paced back to the parking lot.
“Sometimes I think, at the academy, there should be a relationships and communication class, and if you don’t pass it, when they give you your badge and gun, you also get fitted with a chastity belt.”
“I… feel like we'd have a lot less academy candidates, then.”
“Oh, no kidding. But at least new cadets would know what they’re in for.” His cigarette dangled in his mouth as he looked up, hands on his hips. “You know, my last partner, he was fucking crazy about his wife. Seein’ the two of them together, it made you want to go dial a fucking priest and marry the nearest sucker you could find, like everything would just be okay if you could have a little bit of what those two had.”
He brought his fingers to his lips, inhaling slowly, and then shook his head as he took the cigarette out of his teeth.
“Y’know, she was pregnant? When Eddie died?”
He glanced at Tubbs like this was news. Maybe it was, from his perspective— Crockett only ever talked about Eddie if he was more than a little buzzed.
Tubbs nodded quietly.
“God, kid’s gotta be… a year old, almost, right?” He looked down at the ground, pulling another drag from his smoke. “Shit, Rico, I need to go visit them some time. I really am a jerkoff.”
“This has been a tough year,” Tubbs assured, trying to prevent twitchy high-energy Crockett from turning into irritable, paranoid Crockett. He reached out to touch his sleeve, but Sonny yanked his arm away.
Well. Too late for that, then.
“Every year’s a tough year,” he snapped. “I’m just fucking… negligent.” He threw his cigarette butt on the ground and stomped it out.
Tubbs bit the inside of his lip and suggested, “Hey, why don’t I bring you home, man?”
“I’m fine,” Sonny sighed. “I can drive myself.”
“Sonny,” Tubbs cautioned, “I’m not saying you can’t , but it’s probably better if you don’t. ”
Sonny pursed his lips at him, head tilted slightly, looking a little like a sullen teenager.
Tubbs couldn’t help but smile, just a tiny bit.
“I’m driving you home,” he insisted, and walked around so he was standing on the Ferrari’s driver side. He put his hand out, and waited for Crockett to toss him the keys.
With a dramatic eye roll, Sonny threw them over the car.
The first fifteen minutes they were driving, he narrated everything Tubbs needed to be doing with the car (Tubbs nodded along patiently, gritting his teeth through a repeat of every driving lecture he had gotten in their first month as partners) and fiddled with the radio dial so much that Tubbs started thinking it might be time to snap the antenna off. Even when he was being quiet, he was smoking with one hand and tapping on the dashboard with the other.
After resetting the radio station for the sixtieth time, he leaned back, actually quiet, and looked out the open window.
He breathed out, watching smoke trail behind them. He blinked slowly, his eyelashes coming together, just barely catching the light of the streetlamps as they drove.
The lizard part of Tubbs’ brain whispered, he really is kind of beautiful, huh?
He swatted the thought away and focused on what he could be doing to help his friend.
“You doing okay?”
Sonny half-nodded, fingers to his lips, cigarette a golden ember against the darkened streets.
He pulled his hand from his mouth, smoke pouring from his nose, and leaned his wrist against the car door. “Just thinking about Eddie.”
Tubbs took his eyes off the road for a moment to watch Sonny’s face in profile.
“How in a more just world, you’d be driving him home right now.” He looked up, into the night sky, his jaw clenching. He took another desperate drag and shook his head. “It just seems like the scales got balanced wrong, y’know? That not only do I get away unscathed when he dies, but that I get you out of the bargain, too.”
Sonny’s eyes darted to Tubbs for a split second, and then he turned to look out the window once again.
Tubbs had no response to this. Crockett had some darkness, unquestionably, but he had never heard it come out so plainly like lethal self-loathing.
He must have been staring, because Sonny glanced at him askew again and added, “Look, I’m not saying I wish I had died instead, Rico, just that if the world were fair, I would have.”
Survivor’s guilt was a killer, and Sonny had it in spades. No way Tubbs was leaving him alone tonight.
He put his hand on Sonny’s shoulder. “If the world were fair, you n’ me wouldn’t have jobs. And besides, I’m glad I got you as a partner, even if you are a pain in the ass.”
“Hands on the wheel, buddy.”
“You never drive with both hands on the wheel.”
“I sure as hell hope not! Real dangerous to drive stick that way!”
“You know what I mean,” Tubbs scowled, gesturing puffing away on a cigarette.
“Fortunate, then, that you don’t smoke.” He gestured aggressively, somewhere between a point and a wave, at the steering wheel. “Hands on the wheel.”
Tubbs snorted, but did as was asked of him.
When they arrived at the dock, he followed Sonny inside.
Immediately Sonny affected the particular brand of masculine posturing he preferred for making gay jokes and, plopping himself down on the side of his bed, raised an eyebrow and pouted a bit. “You sleeping over?”
Tubbs, standing at the doorway to Sonny’s bedroom, didn’t rise to the bait. “That’s the plan.”
Sonny scratched at the side of his neck, his eyes red and sunken. He sniffed. “I’m okay, Rico. You can go home, seriously.”
“Well, my car’s at the station, and I don’t see you letting me take yours home.” He leaned back against the doorframe that divided the living room and kitchen from the bedroom.
Sonny threw his shoes and his jacket off and tucked one foot up on the bed. “I get what you’re doing, man. But I’m supposed to be a drug dealer. You think I’ve never nursed a coke hangover before?”
He knew, of course, that sometimes that was part of the job. So far, he had never been asked to seriously sample the merchandise, but he might be someday. That Sonny had wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was still upsetting.
“Okay. But how do you feel?”
Sonny sniffed. “Obviously shitty.”
“You think you’d feel a little better if you were distracted?”
“Probably,” Sonny sighed, rolling his eyes a little.
“Then I’ll stay.” He rolled himself off the wall and around the corner into the kitchen. Tubbs’ apartment wasn't exactly luxurious, but the absurdity of Crockett’s living space— three-quarter-size appliances and a sink a foot too low for a grown man— was really not his speed. He grabbed a glass from the tiny overhead cabinet and poured water into it from the tap, careful not to bonk his head or elbows on anything.
“Here,” he handed Sonny the glass of water, “drink this and I’ll make coffee, okay? And you should probably eat something.”
“Thanks, mom.”
“You got anything quick like cheese or nuts or something?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care,” Tubbs shrugged, heading back into the kitchen. He set the coffee pot to percolate and started digging through the cabinets for easy calories. A little sleuthing managed to uncover an Almond Joy, a bag of pistachios, and a slightly sad banana. He popped his head back in the bedroom and held them aloft.
Sonny was lying back on the bed, one foot still on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. His forehead glistened.
“Pantry’s a little bare, but take your pick.”
He glanced up from the bed, hollow-eyed.
“No thank you.”
“Pick something before I stick this candy bar in your mouth with the wrapper on.”
Sonny snorted, and then winced slightly.
“Fine.” He reached up and rubbed his eyes. “Gimme the fucking nuts.” He paused. “No, actually, banana.”
Tubbs returned the pistachios and candy bar to the counter, and sat beside Sonny on the edge of the bed. He handed Sonny the banana.
“What, you’re not going to peel it for me?”
“Good to see you still have a sense of humor,” Tubbs grumbled.
Sonny stared at the banana in his hand, unmoving. “Well, I haven’t started feeling like I’m going to puke yet, so you probably have another half an hour of witty charm left before I’m real bad company.”
Tubbs patted him on the arm and this time he didn’t flinch. Instead he sighed and peeled the banana. He took a tentative bite, still on his back.
“You’re gonna choke,” Tubbs cautioned, mostly joking.
“There’s a dirty joke in here somewhere,” Sonny posited, taking another bite. “But I’m leaving it on the table because I’m even dumber than usual right now.”
“I’m not touching that one.” Either the obvious felatio joke or the implication of crumbling self-worth.
He finished the banana just as the coffee pot started rumbling with escaping steam. Tubbs got up to pour them both a cup; when he stepped back across the threshold into the bedroom, he noticed Sonny was shivering.
“Sit up.”
“I’m fine here,” Sonny rebutted.
“Not to drink.” He put the cups down on the bedside table and started surveying the room for a blanket. Not finding one, he put his hand out for Sonny to use as leverage.
His exposed shoulders were vibrating as he pulled himself from the bed. “You know,” he croaked, releasing Tubbs’ hand, “Even when it’s an accident…” He reached behind himself to get the coffee, but Tubbs grabbed it and handed it to him before he could, likely, knock it all over the bedspread.
He took his own cup and sat.
“Even when your whole fucking job is trying to prevent people from doin’ this shit,” he paused, taking a shaky sip of his coffee. “There’s still that little voice that says, ‘you know what would make you feel better? More coke.’”
He looked at Tubbs, just for a second, a half-glance from under his brows.
“And I’ll tell ya’, I’m not dumb enough to listen to it, but it gets louder every time.”
Even holding the coffee with two hands, he was shaking enough that the liquid inside kept getting jostled up against the edges.
Tubbs put his arm around him, not sure whether he was trying to steady him or warm him up or what. Sonny gave him another sidelong glance, and then sipped his coffee.
“You really don’t have to do this,” he insisted, one last time. “I’m just going to sleep it off.”
“I know.” Tubbs sipped his own coffee and nodded slightly. “But you also don’t need to tough it out by yourself, either.”
“It’s not like I have typhoid or something.” Sonny’s shivering was just as noticeable by touch; Tubbs’ arm vibrated along with him. “I’ll have the sniffles and a headache tomorrow and then I’ll move on with my life.”
Sonny’s pallor and shaking made this assessment seem like a bit of an understatement. It wasn’t like this was the first time Tubbs had crashed on his couch, and it wasn’t like he was really inconveniencing himself in any way to be here. He watched Sonny blink stickily and pull his shirt away from his chest, soaked with sweat. His insistence that Tubbs go home seemed more like embarrassment than anything else.
Tubbs tightened his grip around his friend’s middle.
Pale and drawn, Sonny smiled weakly.
“I’m not even the one who broke up with his boyfriend tonight,” he shrugged.
Obviously he was talking about Trudy, but his decision not to say ‘her’ made Tubbs have to check a little smile that was developing in the corners of his mouth. He had tried for a while to drop hints that he knew , but either Sonny hadn’t noticed, or Tubbs was wildly off-base about his partner’s sexual leanings and he had probably puzzled immensely over some of Tubbs’ more overtly queer comments.
Even so, he couldn’t help but tease him a little, just to lighten the mood.
“I’ve never met your boyfriend,” he joked, trying not to smirk. “Is he a nice guy?”
Sonny’s eyes snapped to Tubbs’ face, and the corners of his mouth crunched up in irritation. He squinted and jested in return, “Well, you never like any of my girlfriends, so I…” He paused, suddenly looking very grey. He stood up abruptly, handed Tubbs his coffee cup, and made his way over to the bathroom.
Tubbs could hear the water running, but it didn’t seem like he was actually vomiting.
When he came back into the bedroom, his face and hair were wet, but his color was a little better. He settled back in beside Tubbs, still shaking.
“Well, there’s the nausea,” he sighed.
“You okay?”
"I never actually throw up, I just…” He shrugged.
“Sonny, if you don’t mind me asking, how often have you been dosed on the job?”
“Recently, not that often.” He took his coffee cup back from Tubbs.
“You sure you want that back…?”
Sonny nodded, sipping. “But when I was first trying to establish Burnett, y’know? Lotta ‘loyalty tests.’ Part of why some undercover guys end up hooked, I guess.”
Tubbs put his arm back around him.
“Caroline, man…” He shook his head. “The first time it happened, I thought it was over then and there. Same bullshit we’ve been on about all night— she just couldn’t get her head around why anyone would agree to do something that fucking dumb.” He looked up, and lifted the mug to his lips. “And in some ways she was right. They don’t ever make you get jacked up to clean pools or sell hot dogs.”
He took a deep breath in and then, shockingly, let his head flop onto Tubbs’ shoulder. His teeth were chattering.
“Lucky for me,” he mumbled, mouth squished up against Tubbs’ jacket, “Coke and I don’t really seem to get along, so I’ve never been real tempted to take it up as a hobby.” He looked up at Tubbs. “Know what I do miss, though?”
Tubbs had no idea where he could possibly be going with this. He shrugged, very slightly, trying not to knock Sonny’s teeth.
“Weed.”
A choke of laughter spilled from Tubbs’ mouth.
“I’m sure we could get you some, man,” he cackled.
“Oh, you think Izzy hasn’t offered every time he thinks I look ‘edgy?’” He smirked. “I mean… I guess I don’t want to be a hypocrite. But sometimes…”
“How many months ‘til your birthday—”
Crockett snorted. “My birthday was three months ago.”
“Shit. You’re right.” He grinned at Sonny. “How many months ‘til my birthday?”
“Seven, Rico, which of us is on drugs right now?”
“Well, fine. Thanksgiving, then,” he joked, unconsciously rubbing Sonny’s side, “You and I can go out in international waters and get a little hypocritical, alright?”
The way Sonny raised his eyebrows, just briefly, made Tubbs realize how much that had sounded like a come-on.
But Sonny didn’t move his head, and his response was merely, “Thanksgiving, really?”
“Would you prefer Arbor Day? Mardi Gras?”
Sonny closed his eyes, smiling very weakly. He breathed out very slowly, just on the border of a groan.
“Fuck my head hurts.”
Tubbs reached up to touch Sonny’s forehead, as if he was taking his temperature. Almost imperceptibly, a muscle in his eye twitched with surprise. Sometimes, he still wondered if maybe he should be a little less free with his hands, when it came to Sonny. He didn’t care that Crockett was probably into dudes, and he didn't care if Crockett figured out that he was a little flexible on that front, himself. And just because he was a little bit into him— that was no reason to put the brakes on their friendship. But he didn’t want Sonny to think he was propositioning him, or that he was dumb enough to proposition his partner, period.
And sometimes— never in the light of day— Sonny flinched.
And when that happened, Tubbs found himself wanting to wrap his arms around him and try to get him to understand he had no intention of hurting him.
And that was its own sort of issue.
He turned it into a joke, even though the backs of his fingers were still resting against Sonny’s forehead. “You think it’s from the coke, or getting hit in the face with the plate?”
Sonny squinted laughter, pained. “Please don’t make me laugh,” he wheezed.
“I’m just a funny guy, Sonny, can’t help it.”
Eyebrows knit together, still half-smiling, Sonny shivered against him.
“You think taking a shower might help you?”
“You tryin’ to tell me I smell bad?”
“No,” Tubbs laughed, “Despite the forty-nine gallons of sweat. I mean to try to get a little warmed up.”
Sonny opened his eyes and nodded, blearily. “That’s probably a good idea.” He extricated himself from Sonny’s arm and stood up, still shaking. “If I fall asleep in there, just leave me, okay?”
“You don’t want me to call search and rescue?”
“Nah. Just feed me to Elvis when I drown.”
“Like a burial at sea,” Tubbs nodded. “A burial at swamp.”
Eyes half lidded, Sonny pointed one finger at Tubbs and cocked it like a gun. He winked, a bit like he had never successfully managed the expression before, and then he was gone.
Tubbs got up from the bed and started looking for blankets in earnest. There wasn’t a lot of use for nana’s quilts on a sailboat in Miami, but Crockett would probably sleep better if he had the option to stay warm. He eventually located something in the closet that looked like it had been crocheted out of doilies, but it was better than nothing. He tossed it on the bed and threw his jacket off, out the bedroom door and onto the kitchen counter. He kicked off his shoes, knocking them into the living room as well, and then loosened his tie and left it on the doorknob. He grabbed a magazine and flopped down on Sonny’s bed, figuring he’d wait for him to finish showering before he settled in on the couch.
The bed smelled like Luckies and salt, and just the tiniest bit of something else, a little tropical. Aftershave, maybe. Or sunblock.
At some point, he must have dozed off, because his eyes opened abruptly as Crockett asked, “Got a girl in here?”
Tubbs blinked, wide-eyed against the light. “Excuse me?”
Sonny gestured to the tie with his thumb.
Chuckling, Tubbs rubbed his forehead.
“I hope you’d share, if you're gonna use my bed." His head was tilted a little, upper lip just barely tweaked in a false sneer.
Tubbs almost spat. He collected himself, sitting up and straightening out the magazine.
"I am… not awake enough for that joke, man," he muttered, trying to look somewhere neutral.
"Oh, like you haven't ," Sonny tsked, face soft and worn.
He had. And he would, Tubbs admitted, 'share,' if Sonny expressed that kind of interest. He could picture himself with a girl between them, even if that wasn’t a much better idea than picturing themselves without a girl between them.
Sonny used the towel around his shoulders to rub his hair mostly dry, looking at the crocheted blanket on the bed.
“I assume the doilies there are supposed to be a blanket and not a shawl,” Tubbs shrugged.
Sonny smiled like he was going to chuckle, but no sound came out. “Yeah. This was before you, but we used this retirement home as a base for a while during a big sting, and one of the octogenarians, uh, Sadie, had a little crush on me, I guess. Sadie and Rosie— Sadie thought I was the cute one, and Rosie said Eddie was— they had this oneupmanship game and, well, somehow I ended up with a really ugly, really heartfelt blanket.”
He yawned.
“Haven’t gone back to visit,” came out in a pained sotto voce. He continued, admitting, “Assuming they’re both still alive, I don’t have the heart to tell them Eddie isn’t.”
With a quiet, slow breath, Sonny threw the covers off one side of the bed himself under them, Sadie’s blanket over his shoulders. He closed his eyes and rolled over on his stomach like Tubbs' presence didn't even register.
Tubbs flattened the magazine to the bedside table and glanced at his friend’s face, haggard and smooshed into the pillow.
“You sleeping?”
“I’m down for the count,” Sonny mumbled, fabric over his mouth and nose.
Tubbs patted him on the back and got up.
“Yell if you need anything, alright?”
Sonny murmured agreement, and then reached out from under the covers to blindly grope around where Tubbs had been sitting.
“You looking for something?”
“Yeah,” Sonny grumbled, opening one eye, “You.” He put his hand out palm up, and, without overthinking the gesture too badly, Tubbs reached out.
Sonny squeezed the tips of his fingers in his hand, and then snaked his arm back under the covers.
“Thanks, partner.”
“Anytime.”
Tubbs stood a little longer by the side of the bed than he should have, watching Sonny breathe. There was a touch of appel du vide in his thoughts tonight, he sighed, trying not to listen to the part of his brain telling him to slide under the covers beside him. Nothing good came of lusting after your partner.
He flipped the light off and padded into the living room. With the smell of coffee and sea salt in the air, and the thought of Sonny’s head on his shoulder, he fell asleep.