Chapter 8 #3
“What’s wrong?” Crosby asked, removing his earwear and stepping away from the shooting corridor to the table in the back, where he pulled out his cleaning kit and proceeded to break down and empty his weapon to clean.
Joey did the same, the space eerily silent since they were the only two down there for this session.
“I….” Joey was horrified to find himself tempted to blurt out all the…
the things going on in his chest about Chadwick, but Jesus, poor Crosby.
Who wanted to be subjected to that? Joey had the feeling Crosby had his own problems. He’d been sleeping on Gail’s couch a lot in the last few weeks so he could help her with basic stuff: dressing, bathing, getting to work.
If he’d ever thought the two of them were sleeping together—and he hadn’t, because Gideon said the smells weren’t meshing—that idea would have been killed quickly watching Crosby’s patient brotherly concern over his friend and partner since she’d been down for the count.
But he did have something he could share. “Overwatch,” he said after a moment. “You feeling up to it?”
Crosby grimaced. “I ran it a little when I was recovering from that dog-bite thing. Not my favorite, no, but mostly ’cause… you know. You worry. It’s like, ‘Hey, I just sent my friends there. I hope they don’t get dead ’cause I made a fucking decision,’ you know?”
Joey grinned at him. “Yeah, I fucking know. It’s like, ‘I’ll face that shit myself, thank you, but don’t let me throw someone else at it because, damn.’”
Crosby nodded glumly, his handsome All-American football hero face assuming an anxious expression that made Carlyle appreciate him more.
“Well,” he said, after a few moments of replacing his gun and cleaning kit in the case, using precision and care also at odds with his appearance.
“Maybe Harding’s new hire will be King Shit Overwatch, and you and me can relax. ”
“New hire?” Where had Joey been for this?
“Yeah, heard him on the phone with Blodgett. Said the guy was the best he’d seen since you, so, you know, you don’t have to be King Shit New Guy anymore.”
Joey snorted. “I wasn’t the King Shit New Guy, Crosby. That was you.”
It was Crosby’s turn to snort. “Fuckin’ Jesus, a year and a half and I finally barely beat you at small arms? What’re you drinking?”
Rum and coke. The thought came out of nowhere and made Joey smile.
“Whatever it is, it means I’m too stoned to do overwatch—so there.”
Crosby’s deep chuckle was reassuring. It meant that even if one of them ended up alone with a computer screen while the other was following his orders into hell, neither one of them were really alone.
A WEEK later, Calix Garcia swaggered into the staff room.
Joey saw it happen. He took two steps in, his eyes sought out Judson Crosby, who was sitting next to Gail, assembling info on their perp, and he froze.
Joey wasn’t sure if anybody else could read his face, his reactions, the way his breath caught and his brown eyes widened, the tautness of his compact, muscular body, but Joey could.
He’d remember it forever because he’d never seen anybody actually find his mate at first sight before. Except that wasn’t even the real words for it. It wasn’t find his mate. It was—
No. No no no no no no….
Because admitting something like that was real was like admitting he still believed in Sky Woman or Maple Sapling or Flint—the old stories his grandfather told when he was still a child and allowed to hunt by his grandfather’s side.
It was impossible. It was….
Harding called them all to order, and all thoughts of that gnawing in his chest, the need that had only grown since that night on Gideon’s couch, fled.
They had an active perpetrator on a killing spree, and it was all hands on deck.
CHADWICK AND Carlyle got to the deserted nightclub just as the two ambulances were leaving, and Joey heard Gideon’s voice pitching as he spoke to Gail over comms.
“He what?”
“He was wearing a vest,” Gail said, her voice gritty, “and the perpetrator shot Crosby point blank before Crosby brought him down. Cracked ribs. Punctured lung. He’s on the way to the hospital for surgery.
Garcia and Harding have custody of a witness who’s going to need some cozening—maybe a night in one of our emotional trauma centers, someplace safe.
Crosby picked up on the fact that this kid was abused a lot at home, and even though he’s not a minor, his family isn’t going to be too excited about him being involved at anything at a gay nightclub. ”
“Shit,” Gideon muttered. “Does Garcia know the particulars?”
“I don’t know,” Gail muttered. “Yes. Probably. Fuck.”
It was the first time Joey had ever heard her rattled as overwatch. Fucking Crosby.
“We’ll take care of them,” Gideon promised, and while Joey heard the stress in his voice, he was pretty sure he sounded reassuring to Gail. “Don’t worry. You keep us apprised on Crosby, and we’ll make sure our wits land and the new guy isn’t terrified. Square?”
“Four by four,” she replied, and Joey breathed out a sigh of relief.
Gideon disconnected and spent a moment hunting for a parking spot that wouldn’t snarl traffic for miles in either direction. He found one and paused for a moment, eyes closed, face toward the sun.
“Gid?” Joey asked hesitantly. “We okay?”
“You know, you and me were both only children. I think Gail and Tal have siblings. As far as I know, Clint sprang up from the earth like a mushroom. But this—this must be what it’s like to worry about one kid—one kid who’s always getting hurt.
One kid who’s always about to go tits up.
I just… you wouldn’t think it was Crosby, would you? ”
And Joey felt it, not for the first time. Gideon’s attachment to the unit. The way he regarded all of them as his people. Like they were the only group he could ever be comfortable with.
And how Joey felt the same way.
“He’s going to be fine,” Joey told him inanely. Nobody knew that for certain.
Gideon turned his head and gave him a tired grin. “Let’s go see how Calix is. I mean, one day and his partner’s shot? Might make him rethink the whole works.”
Calix Garcia was not rethinking anything.
In fact he was already ahead of them all.
They had another witness in protective custody with his family, and Calix had already made arrangements with Clint to keep the detail until the boys could be debriefed, as much to keep an eye on them as to keep them safe from the guy Crosby had already taken out.
He’d already made mental notes of things Crosby knew that he wanted to learn, protocols for making sure witnesses and victims landed, knowing resources to call on so that people who were in a shitty situation didn’t completely lose their footing—or their housing or their family—because a criminal had cut a destructive swath through their lives.
Harding, who had to deal with authorities in Queens and the brand-new gambling commissioner replacing Jay Arnold because their perp was making book on local high school ball clubs and probably sixty-dozen people Joey didn’t know about, was happy to turn Garcia over to them while he did his damned job.
One of the first things they did, while escorting Garcia’s witness to the safehouse with the other wit, was stop for food for both of them. Garcia was pale and woozy at that point, and his witness probably wouldn’t turn down a cheeseburger.
Through mouthfuls of burger, Garcia admitted that Crosby had been going to brief everybody on his blood sugar and how it could be a touchy thing. Not diabetes—not yet—but he ate right and tried to keep food on his person at all times.
“No worries,” Joey said through his own mouthfuls of burger. “Harding forgets to fuckin’ eat. We always have food on us. Protein bars, apples—we’ll treat you right.”
And Garcia, who looked like a tough little bird, much like Joey himself, had grinned at them, all peacock, and Joey felt that particular wrenching again. Sky Woman smiled on the two lovers in the glen, and everywhere they lay, flowers bloomed.
His grandfather’s voice, telling Joey a story that had never been in a book, never told at a campfire, just, well, told because his grandfather liked telling stories.
He could see it so clearly—Calix Garcia, mid-sized, tightly built, cocky as fuck, and their solid, earnest Crosby. Why he’d never really thought Crosby would be bisexual before, he couldn’t say, but Joey suddenly knew, without a doubt, that he and Garcia would fit in all the ways.
“We about done?” Gideon asked, wiping his mouth. “I gotta say, things always look better after food.”
“Soundtrack is mine,” Joey claimed without thought, and Gideon’s private, just-for-them grin locked something in his stomach.
Tonight, he thought. And a logical part of him knew that Gideon would have company that night.
He’d been planning sort of a wine-and-cheese thing for the friends he made outside the unit.
Part of it was that Gideon was sort of brilliant, and he didn’t get to discuss academics a lot when he was chasing down suspects and dodging bullets, but partly—and Gideon had admitted this—it was so he could remember that there was a way of thinking that didn’t always involve life and death.
In his own words, it helped him “human better” when he interacted with humans who didn’t always boil behavior and circumstances down to bare survival.
He doesn’t have to human with me, Joey thought. Tonight it will be animal to animal.
THAT NIGHT, he stood on the street, staring up to the window through which he could see the shadows of Gideon’s bedroom. There was a flickering of lights, the suggestion of chatter, but the October mist oiled his face, his jacket, as he stared up, and he could not feel the heat of the room.
He might not want you.
But Joey remembered that look from four weeks ago when he’d awakened on Gideon’s couch. How it had burned.
You’ll never forgive me if this happens when you’re feeling weak.
But Joey wasn’t feeling weak. He was feeling ravenous. He couldn’t logic his way through him and Gideon Chadwick anymore. What he wanted was beyond words.
With a leap and a grunt, he grabbed the ladder of the fire escape and started to climb.