The Mythology of Love (Patreon)

I need some advice. Those of you who have been around long enough will probably recognize this, but what I want to know is whether this is strong enough to stand on it's own.  This is about the first quarter of the potential novella. Because it is from fanfiction, it is written and I am tweaking. Be honest since I can't afford to buy editing and a cover for a book that won't interest people.

The Mythology of Love

Chapter One

Lamia, Scott doodled on his notepad, swirls curling off the 'L'. Morbid, but that's how he felt right now. This case was not improving his mood, but he had enough psychology classes to recognize that he was simply projecting his own self-hatred onto their suspect. Sad really. Scott should just hate this guy because he was a serial killer targeting women from the poorest parts of Albuquerque. 

Lieutenant Addison barked something about the case, and Scott wrenched his attention back to the latest rape. The victim had escaped, but not unscathed. They were looking for a younger unsub, someone who was still learning his craft. He believed he was improving the world by targeting these women, and he probably had a whole lot of self-hatred because he couldn’t stop lusting after them even as he wanted to kill them.

Scott’s training gave him all the tools required to see the outline of their perpetrator, but none of the details. And this was the sort of case he normally loved to work, as perverse as that sounded. David was a bulldog of a detective, and the two of them would bounce ideas off each other late into the night. Unlike many of the detectives who questioned Scott’s right to be in the squad room—particularly after it came out that he had washed out of the academy fifteen years ago—David always accepted him as one of the team. 

They weren’t Dr. Scott Nichols and Detective David Parsons. They were Scott and David, two men who had started off as roommates at the police academy and had become close friends. Scott closed off the part of his brain that mused on Lamia and betrayals and offered his best profile along with suggestions for how their unsub might live and how to start unraveling the threads of his life that would lead back to him. He finished, and noted that all the detectives were writing furiously. 

He had earned that. They respected his skills, even if they didn’t consider him one of their team. 

“Does anyone have questions?” Lieutenant Addison asked. He scanned the room while waiting. “Parsons, you get the downtown churches. Take Dr. Nichols with you and see if you can’t shake some names out of the workers.” That was the toughest task on the list, but then David could work miracles. David was a miracle. “Garcia, work the child abuse angle going back twenty years.” That was longer than Scott had suggested, but Addison did have a reputation for being thorough. “Brown, Perez, talk to our two living suspects and see if the profile reminds them of anyone they know. Ramirez, you have the tip line. Weed out what you can from your desk.” The youngest member of the unit practically wilted. She was ready to get out and start arresting criminals, but she didn’t have the years of experience the others did.

Scott feared that she might let valuable tips slip past because she saw that work as below her. Maybe he could talk to David and have him give Ramirez a little coaching. Scott traced the L on Lamia again, the lines overlapping until the loops blurred and became a random doodle.

All the detectives stood in a cacophony of scraping chairs. The uniformed officers who had lined the back of the room were slower to move. They milled. Scott could do an interesting study on how they formed and then dissolved groups. 

"Nichols, you okay?" David asked. Nichols, not buddy or champ or brainiac, which was his least favorite of all the nicknames.

"Fine, Parsons," Scott snapped. Scott waited for the confused look, for the raised eyebrow as David silently asked why he'd been demoted from David to Parsons. 

“Then can we get going?” David’s tone was rich with exasperation. That gave Scott a perverse pleasure. He wanted to annoy David, to pay him back for all the things David had—or hadn’t—done. He wanted some small measure of revenge, and that was just sick. Scott should recuse himself from the case or ask to work with another detective.

However, they had a serial killer to catch. As much grief as Commander Morales caught for hiring a consultant full-time, Scott had to come through for the department. Sure, he could consult and watch interrogations and give victims a friendly face to talk them through trauma, although Scott did keep pointing out that his doctorate was in sociology and not psychology. And since, as a criminal sociologist, he had studied profiling and other forms of psychopathy, that distinction was lost on them.

However, this was the sort of case that justified his position and kept him employed.

Without waiting to see if Scott was following, David headed for the door. Scott was left to follow his very nicely formed ass. For a man who had passed forty, David had the body of a god. And wasn’t that the problem.

Scott hated himself.

Chapter Two

In Lamia's case, the murder hadn’t been her fault. Zeus had fallen for her, chased her, pursued her. Watching Russo’s interrogation, Scott couldn’t help but compare the two. Russo’s abuse at the hands of multiple family members had been documented in the case files. Schools had turned his mother in for neglect and suspected abuse, social workers had filed damning reports only to have them ignored when Russo’s family moved to a new city—a new state. 

“What do you think?” Lieutenant Addison asked.

Scott kept his attention on the interrogation. He had the sound turned down so he could focus on body language.  David was leaning forward, his hands flat on the table as he tried to control his temper. Russo was closed off, his arms crossed and his chin down as if to defend his neck. “He’s our guy.” Scott frowned. “Not that I can say that definitively, because the science does not support that.”

Addison chuckled. “I won’t quote you in front of the jury. Good job, Nichols. He would have killed a lot more before we found him if you hadn’t put us on the right path.” The moment of emotional validation over, Addison crossed his arms and turned his manly attention back to the interrogation room.

Scott was caught between amused at Addison’s attempt to emote and his own frustration that it meant so much to him. Why did he care what others thought? If his goal was to stop bad guys, why wasn’t it enough that Russo was sitting across from David about to confess to everything? Why did he still have this burning need for more? For validation? For love?

That last… that was the danger. Scott spent his life watching others destroy themselves because of some perceived privation in their lives. Russo had become Lamia, raining destruction on everyone he saw because he felt the hole in his own life. Sometimes Scott feared that for himself. Or perhaps he would be Hercules, driving mad by Hera until he killed the very ones he loved.

Morbid really—how many times people blamed madness on the gods. No one wanted to take responsibility for their own actions. In The Odyssey, Zeus had complained about that fact, so the human Homer recognized the ridiculousness.

“What do you think he’s seeing?” Addison asked in a whisper as he watched the interrogation.

Scott studied David’s body language. In the academy, David had introduced himself as someone with a special skill in reading faces and body language. Sometimes Scott attributed his own love of psychology and sociology to his early studies as he tried to match David’s uncanny abilities. Over the years, David had confessed to the rest in little bits. He caught flashes—images like overdeveloped film. He never saw what a person was thinking about. Instead he saw what motivated those thoughts.

If Russo was thinking about the women he killed, David would endure lightning-fast flashes of why Russo did it. Maybe he would see the laughing face of a woman or feel a ghost hand sliding over his body. Maybe he would recognize the cast of Russo’s internal drama from the background files: his mother’s drug-gaunt face, his father’s scarred hands.

“I have no idea, but nothing good,” Scott said. David’s broad shoulders were hunched and he was arching over the edge of the table as if he was about to make a mighty leap. No doubt he wanted to throttle Russo. But unlike other officers who could harden their hearts to the pain that shaped most criminals, David had to bear the burden of understanding the criminals.

Addison grunted.

Russo brought his hands down on the table and burst in a flood of self-righteous words as he confessed to every sin and declared it a holy crusade. The whole climax was so textbook to be boring. Russo only knew the evil in the hearts of all women, so he saved children by killing their mothers. The absurd truth that he was trying and failing to save himself would not save him from a life in prison.

Scott turned his back on the observation window and headed toward his office. He hesitated at a bank of windows that gave an excellent view of the mountains. He really needed to get himself into therapy. After David’s divorce, Scott had offered him a spare room. After all, they had lived together off and on for the last fifteen years, so it hadn’t seemed like such a big deal.

Yet it was.

Scott had no place to retreat. No sanctuary where he could put together the shreds that remained after David had recoiled in horror. And now they had an imitation of the intimacy they’d enjoyed before. If Scott hadn’t pushed…

That was water under the bridge. 

“Hey, you. I was looking for you.” Scott whirled around to see David watching, a frown making twin furrows between his eyes.

“Hey.” 

“Did you see the confession?”

“Yeah. Good job.” Scott plastered on a smile and wondered again if David was telling the truth about not being able to get images from anyone he knew well. If anyone had every studied the psychology of telepathy, they hadn’t published the results, but from a psychological standpoint, Scott could imagine telepaths would have a blind spot. Mundane humans did.

“We should go out and celebrate. The commander and commissioner are going to be thrilled at how fast we closed this, and without having to call in the FBI.”

A spark of hope landed in the dry tinder of Scott’s heart. “We could go out for steaks at Gyu.”

“That would be awesome,” David said. 

“I could call. They often have someone cancel last minute, so we might be able to get in tonight.” The kindling went up in flames.

David twisted his feature into an apologetic moue. “I have a date with Cynthia tonight.”

“Cynthia?” Scott didn’t hide his disbelief. After the divorce, David had all but run away when women showed an interest in him. That was the evidence Scott had used to pursue his idiot theory that David might be happier with a man.

David’s expression grew fond. “We’re going out to that new Chinese place. Did you know she lived in China for two years? She taught English while she was saving up money. She worked her way through medical school. She’s an amazing woman.” That was David’s lovestruck expression number three. David was a handsome man, not stunning, but very distinguished. But when he loved someone, his features transformed.

Scott forced a smile onto his face. “She sounds like wonderful.”

Scott understood why humans blamed the gods for their madness. It was so much easier than taking responsibility for your own stupidity after ruining a fifteen-year friendship. Because Scott could not figure out how to wind the clock back and recapture the platonic love they once shared.

Chapter Three

“So, what do you think?” Scott forced his body to be still and prayed David had been telling the truth about not getting readings from people he knew. If he saw Scott’s fantasies played out in technicolor, that would be not only humiliating, but damn close to rape. After all, David didn’t want to have sex. He didn’t fantasize about running his hands over Scott’s chest and feeling the muscles under the warm skin. And since that fantasy was motivating Scott’s sudden desire to sell his two-thousand square foot home, the threat was real.

“It’s a good time to put it on the market,” David said.

The sudden rock in Scott’s gut told him that he had deceived himself again. He’d set this up as a test. After all, protection of the home was one of the most fundamental drives in the human psyche. Maslow had called shelter one of the basic traits. When humans lacked it, they would do anything to secure it for themselves. 

Technically, humans didn’t need to have the same shelter in order to feel secure, but most wanted it. People hated losing their homes. A house fire could trigger depression or stress disorders. Penelope had quietly challenged a house full of violent suitors to protect the palace until Odysseus had come home. Kings Priam and Laius had both tried to kill their sons to stop prophesies that their sons would grow up to destroy their homes. 

That’s what Scott had hoped for, and instead he’d gotten a solid dose of reality.

“Do you want some eggs?” David asked as he went for the refrigerator, unaware that Scott’s guts had spilled out onto the terrazzo tile.

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s just as easy to fry four as two, and you know you get hungry mid-morning.” The egg pan lived on the stovetop, and David started cracking eggs into it. One, two, three, four.

Scott was going to be ill. “I don’t want eggs!” he shouted.

David turned and lifted an eyebrow. “Okay,” he said slowly, as if Scott were unhinged. Maybe he was. “I know I tend to leave my shit around, but I’ll make sure everything is ready for showings.” He gave Scott a reassuring smile.

Scott sank down onto the island stool and braced his elbows against the cool concrete. If he didn’t, he might fall over. He didn’t need therapy, he needed a full commitment. Maybe a seventy-two hour hold, even. “I don’t want you to feel pressured to move,” he offered weakly.

David put the lid on the pan and came over. He rested his hand next to Scott, but he carefully didn’t touch. “You have given me more time than I had a right to ask you for. After the divorce…” David’s gaze skittered away. He took a deep breath. “I know I was a mess and probably way more than you wanted to put up with.”

Scott grabbed David’s forearm. “Don’t say that. You weren’t imposing and I never ‘put up’ with you. We’re friends and I’m glad I could give you a place to land after that harpy threw you out.”

David huffed.

“I’ve loved having you here.”

David looked down at where Scott’s hand still rested on his arm. Scott was pinned. He wanted to leave his hand there. They’d always been tactile with each other. Wresting had given way to a comfortable comradery. Scott had never been a physical man, which explained why he had failed out of the academy. But with David, the rules had changed. Touching David’s arm felt like reclaiming that space.

However, it simultaneously felt illicit and wrong. Scott wanted to feel David’s muscles, to touch his warm skin, to explore every freckle. Touching him was step one of Scott putting his desire ahead of David’s new need for space. For a moment, they were frozen, and then Scott jerked his hand away.

“You’re a great friend,” David said, his voice slow and careful. “I will always value our friendship, but I’ve abused it, too. You invited me to stay a few weeks, and I’ve been here a year. I need to get my own place. Did the real estate agent give you a suggested estimate for when the house might sell?”

Scott shook his head.

“I’ll make sure I’m out fast enough that I won’t interfere with the sale.”

“Maybe you could move in with Cynthia,” Scott said with just a touch of bitterness.

David frowned. “Cynthia?” after a second, awareness dawned. “Oh yeah. No, we aren’t dating anymore. I’ve been seeing Debra from the gym. She is a riot. You’d love her. We should go out some time.”

“Sure,” Scott agreed. They’d go out the same way they’d gone out of Gyu to celebrate closing the serial killer case a few weeks back.  When hell froze over.

David turned back to the stove, and Scott felt the loss of the only family he'd known since he was eighteen and his mother had vanished with her newest boyfriend. He’d come home to an empty apartment and an envelope with a thousand dollars in cash and a note about how she was so proud of what a man he’d become.

He’d been fucking eighteen. He hadn’t been a man—he’d barely been able to tie his own mother-fucking metaphorical shoes. That was the helpless rage in his chest now. He and David would still partner on some cases, especially since Addison tended to assign the toughest crimes to David.  But Scott couldn't lie to himself any more. The days when they were family were gone.

And he couldn't afford to ignore his murderous fury toward Cynthia and Debra and everyone else who got David's affection. Leaving was the only way to protect David from the spirit of Lamia Scott could feel curl around his own heart.

Chapter Four

"Parsons," David snapped into the phone. His headache softly pounded between his eyes, but it had been pounding for two weeks now. He suspected his upstairs neighbors in his new apartment were to blame for that. He had made subtle hints about noise ordinances and his job as a police officer, but he clearly needed to get more direct if he wanted to get a good night’s sleep. 

Either that or he needed to buy his own damn house.

"David?" a woman asked.

"Yeah?" David mentally scrolled through the women he had taken out in the recent past as he struggled to identify the voice. Sadly, he couldn’t. He had dated too many women, and too few had left an impression on him.

After a long silence, the woman said, "David, it's Cassandra."

"Cassandra?" Damn. Now he recognized the slight east coast rounding of her vowels. He stomped down on his gut-level hatred for the woman. Back before he’d known Scott well, back when he would still get readings off him, he saw her over and over. Every time Scott failed at something—he’d failed to get over the wall or he’d failed to make his push up count—David had been treated to an image of Cassandra walking away or Cassandra with one more in a string of boyfriends. David understood that the woman loved her son, but she had damaged him in ways that David couldn’t conceive. Scott deserved more. 

"Scott isn't here yet," he said before she could drag him into some conversation. It was like she knew he didn’t like her, so she focused all her energy in convincing him that she was likeable.  He frowned at the clock as he realized just how late Scott was. But the window to his office was dark and the blinds closed. Scott always had them open. If he’d had his way, he would have had a desk in the middle of the bull pen like one of the detectives, but even Scott had to admit that his reference library required some serious space. 

"I know," she answered after a brief pause. "I don't know how to say this."

"Whatever you have to say, just say it," David said, his stomach already twisting in fear as his imagination recycled his worst nightmares. Scott had left. Scott had asked his mother to break the news because David already hated her. She wouldn’t have to deal with any guilt at severing the last bonds. David had tried to walk an impossible line between being Scott’s friend and not leading him on, and he had failed miserably. Of course there would be consequences for that.

He could hear Cassandra take a deep breath. "David, Albuquerque General just called me. Scott's in the ICU. He had an accident."

"What?" David nearly whispered the word because he suddenly found he didn't have any air in his lungs.

"The hospital just found me. I was staying with a friend and I had my phone off. I found out less than an hour ago, but two days ago, a car spun out on the ice and hit Scott as he was going through an intersection. They said he hasn't woken up yet, and I can't get there until Thursday."

David couldn't gather his thoughts. As his concentration shattered, dozens of images assaulted him. His memories, other’s memories, thoughts from random people walking through the bull pen. For a moment, David lost himself under the flotsam and jetsam of human emotion.

"I assumed you knew. I mean, I know he changed his contact information, but I thought the police would have gotten a report or checked on him when he didn't show up for work. But then you said he wasn't there like you expected him." Cassandra's nervous words trailed off.

"Scott had the last two days off. He's not late enough for me to start looking for him. What do you mean he changed his contact information, why didn't the hospital call me?" The knots in David's stomach tightened until his gut ached. His worst nightmare had been Scott finally leaving, that having his own apartment and his own life wouldn't be enough and David would lose the last of him, but this… this was worse.

"I know this is a shock, but I really think you should talk to Scott about that. Oh dear. I really hope you can talk to him. I want to get there, but I can't get to the airport until tomorrow."

David could hear the soft crying start on the other end of the phone. Scott hadn't woken up yet after two days. Gripping the phone until the plastic groaned, David struggled to find his balance as the bullpen wavered in and out of focus. A man with a gun slid sideways through reality, a woman cried. David struggled to sort out the threads of reality.

"I've got to get to the hospital. I—" David stopped. "I've got to go," he finished as he unceremoniously hung up on Cassandra. Two days. Two days alone in the hospital and David wasn't even listed on his contact information. David grabbed his keys and left without even telling Lieutenant Addison where he was going.

Chapter Five

In the past, David could always count on the hospital bending rules; after all, David was Scott's official next of kin, and David held his power of attorney. David knew exactly what most of the nurses thought of their relationship.

The women would look the other way when David sat at Scott's bedside, or when Scott sat at David's. That's how it worked. Standing at the nurse's station with his teeth clenched, David was ready to wake Scott up just to kill him for taking David's name off that paperwork.

"Visiting hours are over," Nurse Crotchety repeated, and her brown eyes didn't have an inch of leeway in them.

"Call it police business," David said, his fantasies drifting toward murder and mayhem.

"If it was police business, you would have said that in the first place. Besides, Mr. Nichols can't answer questions in his current condition." She crossed her arms and gave a smug grin that just pushed David's last button.

“Dr. Nichols,” David corrected her sharply. Scott had worked his ass off for that doctorate, and some power-drunk nurse wasn’t going to take that away from him. "I'm going to check on my partner, and if you don't want a shadow who will ticket you every time you step off the curb outside a crosswalk, you'll get out of my way," David growled as he walked past the station.

"Hey, you can't go down there!" Nurse Crotchety came storming out from behind the desk, her bony elbows jutting out like an uncoordinated scarecrow as she tried to dart in front of David, only to miss when he broke into a jog. "I'll call security!" she yelled as she chased him down the hall. She never would have caught him except for the fact that David had to stop and check the window on each room. That let her dig bony fingers into his arm, which he ignored as he dragged her down the hall with him.

"My badge trumps their hospital ID," he answered tersely as he finally found the right room. Scott looked pale against the white sheets, his hair shaved.  He never had time to take care of himself, so he would ignore his hair until it got longer and longer. About the time David started making Shaggy and Scooby jokes, Scott would go and have it trimmed short. But it had never looked like this. He looked like a new recruit ready for boot camp. 

Now it was real. Before they were only words. Scott hadn't woken up for two days. Words. Seeing Scott looking small in the middle of a sea of medical equipment, his face covered in stubble and his arms a Technicolor of bruises, the accident had become startling real.

"You can't be in here," the bitch complained as David opened the door. Letting go, she trotted her bony ass back toward the nurse's station before David silently crept into the room. He'd never seen Scott on so many machines, not even when he’d gone down with Covid-19. A large white bandage covered one side of his skull, and David fought against the hot tears that threatened.

"Hey, buddy," he whispered as he moved to Scott's side and touched a limp arm. "What are you doing still sleeping? Of course, maybe you're just trying to avoid me. You took me off your contact information. Why did you do that?"

Using a foot to pull the visitor's chair closer, David sank down as he held Scott's hand in his own. He didn't really need an answer, he already knew. Scott had been slowly withdrawing ever since the disaster. David had come home to a steak dinner and roses on the table and a very flattering offer from his very male partner. He’d stammered through a rolodex of excuses, and with each one, he could see Scott mentally retreat. 

The man lived in his own head too damn much. It made him a good profiler, but he struggled to form relationships. And David had ripped his own friendship away. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. He’d tried to patch things over. He’d promised that he didn’t care. He’d put a rainbow-sticker on his car to make it clear that he supported the LGBTQI community. He’d tried.

And he kept waiting for Scott’s enthusiasm for life to bring him back. David was the closed off one. He’d barely made it through four years of the Army and its enforced closeness with other human beings, but he didn’t like humans.

He didn’t like that the visions forced him to engage with others. He never had the option to tell people to shut up, because they wouldn’t stop thinking. By the time he knew someone well enough that the visions stopped, he usually disliked them intensely.

But Scott didn’t have an ounce of malice, and that day David had ruined everything. That saying about letting go of what you loved and it would come back to you—it was bullshit. What you loved didn't come back, not when you didn't know how to love right.

David ran a finger gently over the stubble that was left of Scott's hair. "Hey, buddy. You're going to miss all the fun at work. We've got a triple homicide. I drew it yesterday when you were off, and I was planning on tapping you for it. Of course Garcia thinks he can get you to help with that series of high-rise burglaries, but like I told him, murder trumps jewelry thieves. And Addison thinks he assigns work, but you and I both know that you have him wrapped around your finger. A little psychobabble and you could talk him into letting you work a missing dog case." David closed his eyes against the image of Scott's face slack and silent.

"We need to talk to you a minute, would you step into the hall, please?" a polite voice asked from the door. David took a deep breath and turned to find a familiar security guard standing at the doorway. "Detective Parsons?" the man asked, visibly shocked.

"Gary, right?" David asked, vaguely recognizing the man from the hospital drug thefts he and Nichols had worked.

"Yeah. Oh god, that's Dr. Nichols?" The guard stepped into the room, and David shifted so the guard could see Scott lying in the middle of the wires and tubes and machines, dark circles under his eyes making his eyes look sunken in the pale face. David got a flash of Scott standing with files in his arms, smiling at David. That was probably the guard’s first memory of Scott or maybe it was the moment the guard had decided Scott and David were sleeping together. Given the sappy smile Scott had on his face, that was possible. How the hell had David missed all the signs?

"I didn't know. I'll talk to Mrs. Delgado, explain this.” Gary waved vaguely, and David knew exactly what the man was thinking. If he didn't, the blush on the man's face would give him a good clue, but David didn't care what the guard thought as long as he kept the nurses away.

"Scott, I know you need your space, and I'm trying really hard to be okay with that," he whispered desperately, "but you can't leave. Not like this." David tightened his hold on Scott's hand. "I fucked up. I shouldn’t have panicked, because having you love me is the greatest gift a man could get. It was. I know I pissed all over that. God, I'm pathetic." David fought another round of emotion that threatened to choke him. The pain pressed at him until he could feel the strain of it pulling his heart.

David rested his forehead against the edge of the bed. Thoughts drifted past. A rollercoaster. A plate of arepas. A dog with floppy ears. The only thing David knew was that none of those came from Scott. He wished he could see Scott’s thoughts. Was he dreaming or had that beautiful, powerful mind gone silent? David let himself float on the pain and the drip and whir of the other machines.

He'd dropped as many hints as he could about not having a problem with a gay partner even if he just couldn't understand the attraction himself. He'd been supportive, and he'd tried to minimize how much of Scott's attention he demanded so that he wouldn't lose the right to some small piece of Scott's life when Scott finally found someone to love. He'd tried to live with less. Right now, he just wanted to scoop Scott up and never let him leave again. Right now, he resented every second he hadn't had with Scott because now he realized he might not get any more. David finally gave up, warm tears sliding silently down to drop on Scott's bed as he realized that he was a selfish bastard. He wanted back every second that he'd sacrificed in the name of Scott's freedom.

Chapter Six

David sat up fast. His was disoriented and a flood of other’s thoughts spun until David had an urge to vomit. With long-practice, David pushed the visions away. A man in a white coat stood at the end of Scott's bed.

"Your lieutenant explained that there has been some sort of confusion with the paperwork. You and Ms. Cassandra Nichols share power of attorney?" he asked. David nodded mutely. Obviously Caleb had found out where David and gone, and obviously the lieutenant was willing to bend a few rules. He was a good man in addition to being a good lieutenant, which is why David had told him about his gifts, and told him how having someone familiar around—like Scott—had allowed him to suppress those unwanted images. David reached for Scott's hand, hating the feeling of the fingers lying lifeless in his hand. Scott was always moving, his hands dancing in time to his words.

"I thought I would brief you before Ms. Nichols arrives. She agreed that you were authorized to make unilateral decisions until she arrives tomorrow afternoon."

David took a deep breath and braced himself for the worst. "What's the diagnosis?" David asked as he focused on Scott's closed eyes.

"He took a blow to the head, that's the worst of the injuries. We operated to repair hematomas in the right hemisphere of his brain. The worst case scenario is that he will remain minimally aware for the rest of his life."

David grabbed the side of the bed as the ground lurched.

"However," the doctor quickly said, "that's not the most likely outcome."

"Give me straight answers," David growled as he finally turned to face the doctor.

"Brain injuries are unpredictable. The test results indicate there is still activity in the right hemisphere, so I do have hope that he will recover some function, but he is likely to be a different person when he wakes up. He may have trouble controlling the left side of his body or seeing out of his left eye. He may even have trouble with spatial perception or suffer personality changes. Until he wakes up, there really isn't a way to predict the actual damage. I just don't want you to expect him to wake up and be the same as he was before he had this accident."

David jerked his head in a rough nod. "Fine. We wait."

"I'm going to send in a nurse to discuss the possibilities—"

"No," David cut him off. "I'm not discussing anything until Scott wakes up. My partner has pulled through some rough spots." David had caused more than one himself. Long after Scott had decided he didn’t have the strength to make it through the academy, David had pushed him to keep going. They had sparred as David knocked him on his ass over and over in an attempt to teach Scott to defend himself. He had left bruises that had taken days to heal, and it had been for nothing. Worse, David couldn't love his partner. That last was the worst. If only David could love him the way Scott wanted… if David could just look at Scott and see something besides a little brother, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe Scott would be home tucked into David's bed instead of driving back to his shithole apartment.

Scott insisted that he just wanted time to pick his next house, but David should have recognized that his friend was depressed. He’d gone from a beautiful Santa Fe style home with views of the mountains to a shit hole. David should have moved out when Scott brought up selling the house. That’s what Scott had wanted, but rather than ask his friend to get the hell out, he had sold a home he loved.

"Having unrealistic expectations won't help Mr. Nichols," the doctor started in his patronizing tone. David took an angry step forward, his face tight with a frustrated need to take his anger out on someone or something. The doctor decided prudence was the better part of valor and fled.

With the doctor gone, David sank down into the chair again. Without fury to prop him up, David could feel the despair and fatigue and loss pull him down, and he didn't fight. Putting his forehead back down on Scott's mattress, David surrendered to a half-zone. Faint regrets pulled at him, but even looking back on the mess that had become their lives, David couldn't find the moment when he could have saved their relationship. He could have affected the details of their slow drift, sped up or slowed down the moment when Scott left him, but he couldn't change the fact that he and Scott didn't share the same definition of love. His love for Scott would never be enough. And now, the small part of Scott that David had managed to hold on to was slipping away. David clung tighter to the lax hand. He couldn't do anything else.

Chapter Seven

David walked into the hospital room where Cassandra was reading to Scott from an old book with ragged corners.

"How is he?" David asked.

"Drifting in and out," she answered in the same sing-songy voice she used to read to Scott. "You look terrible."

David scrubbed his face with a hand. He probably did. After two weeks of leave he'd had to go back to work, so he was tired and cranky and worried about the fact that Scott would sleep and wake and gaze around the room without actually engaging with either his mother or David. The doctors kept calling the progress promising, but David didn't see much to cheer about. Cassandra sighed and put the book down on the table.

"I'll let you have some time with him," she said as she stood up.

"Cassandra." David stopped. This probably wasn't the time or place, but he'd wondered for weeks, and he had finally worked up the courage to ask, either that or the lack of sleep had finally impaired his judgment enough that he was going to ask a question that he didn't want the answer to, one or the other. "Why did Scott take me off his contact information?" David focused on Scott's hands, which twitched randomly.

Cassandra sighed. "I think you need to talk to Scott."

"I can talk all I want to Scott, but he's not talking back," David pointed out with a dry laugh that almost turned into a sob.

"I’m sorry," Cassandra agreed softly, and god David had come to hate that phrase. She said the words so often, but she never apologized for the right things. She never apologized for not loving Scott enough. And David was a huge hypocrite for even thinking that.

David just stood in the doorway, not letting Cassandra escape until she offered him an answer, and she sighed again before giving in. "Scott felt like you were trying to move on with your life and he was clinging too much. He didn't want you to feel like you had to be there."

"Scott wasn't clinging," David protested. "I've been his next of kin for almost ten years."

"And Scott loved every day of that," Cassandra rushed to say. "I know I didn't give him something important when he was a little boy. I thought…. But Scott didn't want you to feel like…" she stopped and took a deep breath. "Scott didn't want you to be obligated. You weren't his family, and he thought he needed to make those boundaries clear between you again, that too much had been blurred so that your lives were tangled in each other's."

David didn't say anything, but he'd liked their tangled lives. He'd liked nagging Scott about his lack of personal hygiene when he got really into a case. He’d loved coming home to some Indian monstrosity that had made all two thousand feet of the old house smell like curry for days. He’d wanted tangled. Or at least he'd liked their tangled lives until he'd grown uncomfortably aware that Scott was interested in more than a big brother. "Cassandra," David said, and he didn't have any other words. Cassandra put her hand on his arm.

"I’m so sorry, David.” Then she detoured around him and left him for his hours with Scott. They'd watch a game while David filled him in on all the cases, and once again Scott would aimlessly stare at one random point after another, his eyes reflecting nothing but a dull awareness of the world.

Chapter Eight

"David, you have to save me from the sadist," Scott insisted as David came in at the end of the physical therapy session. Scott stunk of sweat, his blue t-shirt stained wet as he struggled with the parallel bars. His left leg still kicked wide with each step and the foot landed on the instep so it couldn't bear his weight. David could see Scott arms tremble from the hard work out.

"One more lap, and I'll let you escape," Randy promised as he walked behind Scott, his hands at Scott's waist.

"I should warn you, my partner is special ops. He can so totally kill someone with a paperclip," Scott said with a knowing look in Randy's direction.

Randy just laughed. "Creative death threats do not work. Come one, one more lap, and this time, get the weight on that lazy leg of yours and not your arms," he prompted.

Scott huffed in frustration as Randy practically lifted Scott, helping him turn so he could walk the length of the parallel bars back toward the waiting wheelchair. With slow and painful steps, Scott covered the distance silently. David listened to the labored breathing, the drag of Scott's left foot across the mat as Scott struggled to get it to respond to the brain's signals again.

The doctors kept talking about how lucky he was. He had recovered with his personality intact, minimal vision loss in his left eye, and a seriously lazy leg, but he had recovered. Some days David felt like they were lucky. Other days, watching Scott struggle to walk a dozen steps as he panted and made that little whine every time he put weight on his left leg… those days David refused to call them lucky.

"You're still the reigning champ," Randy congratulated Scott as he virtually collapsed into his wheelchair. Scott drew a deep and shuddering breath as he gave Randy the best smile he could manage. After seeing how some of the patients took their frustrations out on the physical therapist, David had to think Randy appreciated the effort. The therapist patted Scott on the shoulder. "And now I deliver you to your big, buff boyfriend, no need for threats or paperclips," he joked.

Scott stopped breathing for a second, but David just moved in, unlocking the wheelchair brakes with practiced ease before aiming them toward the exit.

Scott finally recovered his voice in the elevator. "Oh boy, I’m sorry. I don't know why Randy would say something like that.”

"Don't worry about it." David tried to figure out how to bring up the part Scott should worry about without sounding like an overbearing asshole. David wasn’t Scott’s boss or his boyfriend, and David was struggling to figure out where his boundaries were. Clearly he had backed off too much last time, but he couldn’t afford to let Scott’s habit of neglecting himself cause more problems.

"I mean, I know you aren't interested. I never gave him the impression that we were together." That sounded almost desperate, and Scott twisted around in his chair, bracing himself on the arms so he could look up at David.

"Calm down." David put a hand on Scott's shoulder. "Most of the hospital thinks we're together, and if that makes it easier for me to get information about when you're trying to hide some complication, I don't mind," David said as he raised one eyebrow. Scott at least had the decency to blush at that reference.

"You're like a pit bull. I told you it wasn't any big deal," he muttered.

"Yeah, that's what you said.”

Scott frowned. “Someone ratted me out, didn’t they?”

David snorted. The staff had figured out what David had known for years—Scott didn’t take care of himself. “The doctors think the movement disorder is a little more serious than nothing. But like I said, the rumor doesn't bother me." David tried to ignore the hopeful look on Scott's face. He tried to ignore it, and when that didn't work for more than two seconds, he tried to mentally list all the reasons he should give this a try. It would make Scott happy, it would keep Scott close, it would mean he could take Scott home. David frowned. It would mean Scott would expect to share his bed, and that's where the fantasy sort of fell apart for David.

"Scott," David sighed as the elevator appeared. He pushed Scott in, swinging the wheelchair around so Scott would be facing front.

"You do not have to explain. I don't expect—"

"Hey," David’s voice was sharper than he intended, and Scott immediately fell silent. "Scott, I'm not interested in you like that."

Scott was already nodding. "I get that. I’m so sorry," he said, sounding suspiciously like his mother with her favorite catchphrase. "Look, I'm doing really well in therapy, and as much fun as your whole overprotective thing is, I've got it from here."

"No, you don't, and I don't think I'm explaining myself well," David said. He felt Scott slipping away again, but this time David didn't want to let go. Yeah, he should. He should let Scott go and find some gay lover who wouldn't care that Scott was in a wheelchair and his left side wasn't fully functional and that he'd developed what Scott considered a small complication: intermittent stereotypic movement disorder. After seeing Scott sitting on his own left hand in an effort to prevent it from jerking out of his control, David didn't consider the complication all that small.

"Look, I don't need the pity. You weren't interested before, and you sure aren't going to be interested now," Scott snapped. The elevator doors opened, and Scott shoved off, wheeling himself forward across the smooth tile while David hurried to catch up.

"Scott!" he called, catching one handle on the wheelchair, and pulling Scott to a stop near the front doors. The van would be here soon to take Scott to the transition house where they were teaching him how to be handicapped in a world that wasn't wheelchair friendly. It might be years before Scott could walk well enough to give up the wheelchair, and with the movement disorder, a walker was out of the question. Scott chose the transitional house over David's bright and shiny new home, and David could still feel the sting of that rejection. And from the stubborn look on Scott's face, David was about to face a whole lot more rejection. David didn't know if selfishness or love was motivating him, but he wasn't giving up again.

Taking a firm hold on the wheelchair, David pushed it outside and parked it under the shade of a tall tree next to a stone bench.

"I'll tell Randy to back off," Scott said, his voice defeated.

"Scott, I don't give a shit what Randy thinks or the guys at the station or most of this hospital."

Scott glanced up with eyes filled with pain. "I wish you did," he whispered. Scott never cried anymore. David reached out, but Scott immediately wheeled himself back a foot or so, just out of easy reach. "Look, I just need some space."

"Scott, talk to me," David asked. Scott started laughing, but it was an ugly sound, full of hatred and anger and a darkness David hated hearing come from Scott. "Scott?"

"Scott… not buddy or champ, but just Scott." 

That made no sense.

Scott sighed. "If this were just homophobia, I could use my magical powers of psychology to help you discover that you’re using your anger to hide all these hidden desires. From there it'd just be one short fall into your bed. Man, I know that fantasy," Scott nodded miserably.

"Scott, I don't—"

"Yeah, I know. Total fantasy.” He held both hands up as if surrendering. “It's not that you're this homophobic jerk. No way. No, you just honestly aren't attracted to me, and right now, that's not so surprising," Scott gave another dark laugh.

"I wish I were, and there's nothing wrong with how you are now." David got up and crouched in front of Scott. It let him rest his hands on Scott's thighs, and yeah, it was a dirty rat-bastard thing for David to do, but he was willing to play dirty to keep Scott this time. He'd tried playing fair, and he didn't like how it turned out. Scott shook his head.

"You have worse vision than I do," Scott snorted.

"Scott—"

"Man, I’m too tired to do this." Scott leaned back and closed his eyes, and David could count every stress line across his face.

"Scott, I don't want to lose you," David admitted quickly. "I don't want you going to that damn transition house, I want you coming home, to my home. The place I got is wheelchair friendly, all one level. It’s a beautiful Craftsman style that’s been renovated to be open floor plan."

Scott slowly shook his head. "No way. You want to move on with your life, and you should. You should have little baby Parsons running around that home of yours. Give it a year or two and you will." Scott sounded so damn tired.

"Don't I get some say, or have you arranged my whole life for me? Maybe you’ve picked out the woman that should bear these hypothetical children." David snapped. At least that got Scott to open his eyes. David took a breath and tried to calm himself. He hated how the images grew more powerful and chaotic when he lost control. "Buddy, I want you to come home."

"Not compatible, man," Scott said sadly.

"Just because I don't want you in my bed doesn't mean I don't want you in my life."

"I think the future Mrs. Parsons might have something to say about that." Scott’s features twisted with anger and disgust.

"What is it with you and supposed baby-drive?" David demanded, anger quickly rising up to challenge the hopelessness he'd felt a second ago.

"I don’t know," Scott said softly, and that totally threw David off. Scott was supposed to get defensive, not go all indecisive so David didn't have a target to attack. He paused as he regrouped.

"I don't want to reproduce," David finally said.

Scott laughed. "You could have fooled me."

"Well, obviously I fooled myself as well because I don't get it. Why would you be so sure that I was trying to reproduce, that there will be a Mrs. Parsons to object to you living in the house? For that matter, why would you think that I would care what a Mrs. Parsons would think even if I did lose my mind and decide to marry again?"

"You dated half the station," Scott almost shouted. "Amy from the DA's office and Jessie from records and Cynthia from the ME's office, and Debra from the gym." That last one earned an especially thick layer of derision.

David threw his hands in the air. "I was trying to show you!"

"Show me what? That you could fuck half the women in Albuquerque? That I was cramping your style? That it's hard to bring the girl home when you don't know if the junior partner is going to be hanging out in his underwear on the couch?" Scott voice rose to a shout.

"I was trying to show you that I didn't mind if *you* dated," David snapped right back. "I never brought those women home."

"Because I was there!"

"Because I didn't want to! If I wanted to bring them home, I would have told you to make yourself scarce for the night."

"Only now, you can't. Now, I'm the cripple who you're feeling sorry for,” Scott shouted back, droplets of spittle escaping with each shouted word. “Of course, maybe you want to play martyr. Maybe you want to be able to show off your crippled partner who you're so good about taking care of. Not buying, Parsons."

"Listen you little shit," David snapped as three months of patience ran out in one second. "I fucking love you. And if the love I can offer you isn't enough, then fuck you. I want you home because we’re friends. Every time I step through my fucking door to find an empty house, it feels wrong. I’ve felt wrong, and I have ever since you moved out. I was trying to give you your space so you could find someone who could offer you something better than some dried up old cop who'd rather use his own hand because relationships are just too fucking complicated for me to deal with. I wanted you to be happy. And if that's some sort of crime, then just go fuck yourself, Nichols."

David stormed away. 

It was only in the truck that he realized he had just broken something so valuable that he could never replace it. But by then the van from the assisted living facility had appeared and Nichols had vanished inside. The attendant was still standing on the curb helping a second patient, an ambulatory one, into the front passenger side, but David couldn't have part two of this conversation in front of an audience. He couldn't have part two of this conversation at all. David thought he should cry at the loss of something so important in his life, but he couldn't. He could only feel numb.

So, your options.

1. Good enough to write here.  Go ahead, finish it up because it is good enough that I want to know how it gets resolved, but don't invest in the publishing end.

2. Good enough to publish.  Yes, I think there are a lot of readers who would like this angst-level and different look at love.

3. Somewhere between 1 and 2.  I like it, but I don't know how others will react to it. 

4. Sadly, let this one go. The magic of this story came from the fanfic roots, and without the fandom history between the characters, it doesn't have the same power.