Relocation - Part Seven

[churbooseanon]

Another character shows up in the background this chapter. I swear I’m introducing new people with surprising frequency. I’ll have to see how long I can keep this up.

 

Relocation - Part Seven

They arrived hand in hand, Church smiling and Tex frowning quietly to herself in a way that made David’s stomach do the strangest little flips. There was something about the split lip, about the stiffness as she strong-armed Caboose aside when the cheerful blond tried to give her a hug, and when he saw it he knew. Knew in a way that started as a low keening in the pit of his stomach and built up to a painful pitch in his head but never makes it past his lips. The long sleeves of her leather coat hid her arms, but the way her arm had tensed when she pushed Caboose aside told him more than he liked. And for the life of him, David couldn’t understand why they all just looked at her and brushed it off.

“Afternoon, Tex!” Donut greeted cheerfully—he had apparently declared himself the welcome wagon for the red shift, who had all gone tense again like they had when Alexa arrived—and she just nodded in a minute way and let Caboose grab Church’s arm and drag him away from her.

David watched as her arms crossed over her chest, a slow and deliberate motion that sent phantom pains flaring across his own chest. Something in the way she walked toward them told him she had at least one cracked rib, if not more. And the flash in her eyes as she looked at him, met his gaze, was undoubtedly recognition.

“Gentlemen,” Tex greeted the group as she drew closer, amusement in her voice but her eyes were still on him. “Alexa.”

“Bitch,” Alexa said right back, a mixture of amusement and disdain in her tone. “Didn’t know you were back in town. Just get bored and decide to chase Church for a while?”

“Don’t have to chase what comes when ordered,” Tex responded, and the way that Church choked on the glass of something or other Tucker had forced into his hands spoke volumes of the double meaning that made Tex’s lips curve in amusement.

“Whatever,” Alexa grumbled, and David watched her attention shoot back up the lake toward where Connie and Alex had gone.

“Helps when you keep them on a short leash,” Tex continued, not bothering to move to sit.

David couldn’t blame her. His own body ached with the remembered echoes of pain that came from trying to sit too abruptly with a cracked rib.

“If you need to keep them on a leash they’re more of a pet than a lover,” Alexa countered easily, and David just watched the looks the two of them shot at each other for a moment, wondering if there was history there. Then he quickly decided that wasn’t likely considering the way Church seemed relatively unbothered by the conversation, except the not-so-veiled parts that were clearly supposed to be about him.

“I suppose that depends on how the leash is used,” Tex chuckled low in the back of her throat, and with that David was actually done with this conversation.

“Looks like it didn’t get used properly,” Alexa snapped, smirk curling her lips, and the look on Tex’s face was dark. “Tell me, was it your pet who did that, or one of your marks?”

“Marks?” David couldn’t help but ask, and then the attention of both of the women were on him, annoyance in Alexa’s eyes, and a hint of murder in Tex’s. He was pretty sure those expressions were meant for each other, not for him, but that didn’t make it any less unnerving to see them intent on him like this.

“Allison is a bounty hunter,” Alexa explained, smirking. “So either Church finally found a backbone…”

“Hey!”

“Or she bit off something bigger than she could chew.”

Needed to do that in case there was never another chance… Shaun’s voice echoed in his mind, and the concern it had been said with suddenly and painfully fit itself the right way around in his head.

“You work with Shaun,” he said, turning his attention fully toward Tex, and the pain that flashed across her face confirmed it for him.

“Not… exactly,” Tex sighed, shifting at last to sit down, and David managed to hold back a wince of sympathy. “Shaun’s a locksmith, a damn fine one. I got him licensed as a bounty hunter a few years back so he’d be legal to work with me, but I only drag him into my work once in a while.”

“Who’s Shaun?” Alexa asked, and David could hear the frown in her voice over having the conversation stolen from her.

“An annoying regular in every night,” Grif grumbled from somewhere but David wasn’t tearing his eyes from Tex to look for him.

“Mornings too,” Tucker provided. “First thing, him and Daniel. Practically more regular than you, Alexa. Strange, I thought Connie invited those idiots this year.”

“He kissed Wash,” Donut happily added, and David just groaned at that pronunciation. The way Alexa looked him up and down at it was more than enough to confirm that no, her twin wasn’t the gossipy type who would have told her. And now everyone had to fucking know.

“They won’t be here,” Tex said at length and David watched as she bit her lip, carefully aiming for the bottom corner furthest from the split. “Shaun’s in the hospital.”

David couldn’t help but flinch at the declaration. Practice kept his breath even and his hands from shaking as he thought of the scents of clinical strength cleaning fluids, the chill that always seemed to be in the air, the scrape of a rough blanket against his legs while he tried so hard to stay still while the nurse drew blood and assured him that he was going to be fine.

“The fuck did you get him into?” Tucker demanded, already on his feet. Strange, David hadn’t thought that Tucker cared that much for the ‘annoying fuckass’ he seemed to see Shaun as.

“I don’t think that’s remotely your business, Tucker,” Tex answered, her voice level and David found himself surprised to see Tucker holding his ground despite the fear he’d displayed toward the woman the day before.

“Yeah, except with you people being in the hospital is never something simple,” Tucker accused, his voice sounding hard. “I may not like the annoying fuckass, but what the fuck, Tex?”

“Tucker,” Church interrupted, his voice filled with a warning and his arm coming up to tug on the black man’s hand was enough to draw David’s attention for just a moment. Which meant, of course, he missed the return of Connie and Alex until he heard his best friend’s voice behind him.

“What’s going on?” Connie demanded, her voice hard in a way that rivaled Tex’s to be completely honest.

“This bitch got Shaun put in the hospital,” Tucker accused and David bit his lip at the way the word made his stomach turn all over again. “Seriously, what the fuck, Tex?”

“Tucker, shut up,” Connie snapped, and David watched as she turned her attention in turn to Tex. “I know you’re not obligated to share with the audience, but I would really appreciate it if you decided to share a bit more with us than just 'he’s in the hospital’ seeing as it’s probably your fault.”

“And just how the hell do you figure that?” Tex demanded.

“The way you and Shaun rushed out yesterday morning. You clearly had a job for him. And now he’s suddenly in the hospital? Come on, Tex, we can all two and two together.”

“Four!” Caboose shouted cheerfully.

“So just say something,” Connie finished, ignoring Caboose.

With a sigh Tex pushed herself to her feet, her eyes rolling as she did. “It’s not your place to demand anything of me, Rebecca. Despite that, I’ll say Shaun’s in the hospital, he got hurt doing something important that he cared about being involved in. Anything else is his business to tell you.”

“Tex…” Church’s voice was soft and pleading and yet David watched as Tex stood there and shot a glare at her boyfriend.

“Yeah, I’m just not in the mood for this right now, Church. I’m sure Tucker can give you a lift home.”

“Oh come on, I hate driving him anywhere,” Tucker groaned.

The others seemed content to let her go, to just watch as Tex strode off. David didn’t know what drove him to his feet, but before he knew it he was following her. Rushing after a woman that should not have moved with such speed and confidence with the pain he knew she had to be feeling in her ribs. She was faster than he’d expected, though, and David only caught up to her when she was pulling keys out of her pocket and starting to haul herself into a beat up old Jeep.

“Wait…” he said, and her eyes flashed to him and filled with pity.

“He’d probably appreciate a visit from you,” she sighed as she settled into her seat and thrust her keys into the ignition. “I’m heading back there now, so if you want…”

“I only met him the day before yesterday,” David admitted, running a hand through his hair. “He wouldn’t want to…”

“Get in or don’t, I frankly don’t care,” Tex answered, pulling on her belt. “But we both know what you’re going to do, so just get it over with already.”

They both knew? Well, that was news to David. He still hadn’t made up his mind, had he?

Needed to do that in case there was never another chance…

David hooked his hand over one of the roll bars of the Jeep and hauled himself into the passenger seat.

* * * * * *

This wasn’t how the day was supposed to have gone. Shaun had meant to wake up this morning, throw on that shirt that he’d been told about a hundred times made him look fuckable, and sweep in to Connie’s picnic as part of phase two of 'Operation Seduce the New Employee.’ While there he was supposed to indulge in Sarge’s grilling skills—which were apparently ample—and Donut’s sugar cookies, and Caboose’s cupcakes and maybe even glut himself on anything that tasted like blueberries or cinnamon to help him remember the taste of David’s lips, and maybe remind David of the kiss. There should have been frisbee with Tucker or breaking up Simmons and Daniel as they discussed boring shit and ruined the fun. He had planned to make Connie laugh and Church curse and David watch him hungrily or at least with something other than annoyance.

Instead he was still lying on a hospital bed, taking in the silent disapproval and concern of Daniel as he glared down at his lackluster hospital meal and waited for his doctor to come back with an optometrist and some machinery to check his eye out.

“Shaun…” Daniel said at last, and almost immediately Shaun was sitting up a bit higher, ready to actually talk to his best friend rather than continuing to dance around the whole situation like they had been doing since Tex had left.

“Yeah, D?”

“Are you going to eat that jello cup?”

All he could do was laugh, despite how it hurt his head, and toss the cup and spoon at his friend. “Man, even in a hospital you can’t help but indulge that sweet tooth of yours, can you?”

“It did not appear that you were going to consume it yourself,” Daniel answered immediately as he caught the treat and carefully peeled the lid back. “I believe it would be a shame to let it go…”

Daniel stopped short at the sound of a throat clearing at his door, and Shaun let his attention move from his friend to the newcomer. Or maybe it would have been accurate to say the return visitor. Because, honestly, he hadn’t expected to see Tex at that moment. Hadn’t she said she was going to the picnic? She hadn’t been gone long enough to be reasonable, and yet there she was, standing in the door.

“Tex…” he cautiously greeted, well aware of the way Daniel was tensing up beside him.

“Don’t ask. Brought you a guest. Mind giving them the room, D?” she asked, no, it would have been more accurate to say she demanded politely. Of course Shaun knew Daniel wasn’t going to move, wasn’t going to leave them alone.

Until, that was, Tex moved aside and Shaun was left staring at a very nervous, almost jumpy looking David. The blond’s eyes went wide as he got a good look at Shaun, and he let himself believe for half a second it was because he just looked too good, even in a hospital gown. But the way David’s gaze traced the gauze that covered half his face, darted to the additional lengths up and down his arms, and his mouth fell open to say something but failed to…

It was more fun to delude himself.

“Of course,” Daniel said after a moment, pushing himself from the seat, and Shaun just watched as his friend rose, jello cup still in hand, and purposefully head for the door.

In a matter of seconds Shaun found himself alone with David, who was starting nervously into the room.

“Well, honestly, you weren’t high up on my expected list when she said visitor,” Shaun admitted as David finally picked his way over to the seat Daniel had vacated. “I figured maybe Tucker or Connie, or Donut. I was seriously hoping it wouldn’t be Caboose because his hugs are just…”

“What happened?” David asked as he sat down in Daniel’s chair, and Shaun sighed.

“Nothing much, just a little accident,” Shaun started to say, only to see the hard look in David’s eyes.

“Tex is a bounty hunter. You’re a locksmith. So clearly you were doing something that a normally sane person wouldn’t,” David pointed out.

“Yeah, well D would tell you I’m not a…”

“When you kissed me, you said it was in case you never had another chance. You asked me to wish you luck. You knew you were going into a dangerous situation,” David kept going, as if Shaun hadn’t bothered to say anything at all. “And now here you are, fucked up like I haven’t seen since… Well, in a while. So let’s not dance around things, Shaun. What the fuck happened?”

There was a hard, desperate edge to David’s voice that Shaun didn’t know how to explain, or dodge. Instead he just sighed and brought his fingers up to the head wrapping for what had to be the hundredth time since he’d woken.

“Simple version? A really terrible guy that Tex has been trying to take off the streets for a while now ended up back in town. He’s gotten used to her hunting him and sets his safe-houses up pretty securely. She needed a specialist to back her up on the doors, and I agreed to help. The asshole booby-trapped the thing, and like a booby, I set it off. Long story short I may or may not be able to see out of my eye. We’re waiting for the doctors to figure that out.”

For a while David was silent, and Shaun couldn’t help but squirm a little at the heavy atmosphere the room had taken on. He hated it when things were quiet. But clearly David wanted that and he couldn’t find it in himself to pierce the pensive air David was seemingly clouded by.

“You knew you were going into a dangerous situation,” David repeated, a touch of accusation in his voice. And it didn’t take Shaun long to figure out just why that was.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “This guy Tex was after… honestly we were lucky to get out of it as well as we did given how badly I fucked up. I…”

He hadn’t figured on waking up in a hospital. Shaun’s expectations had either been walking away with his cut of the bounty money, waking up tied to a chair in some dirty warehouse with his whole body on fire from pain, or not waking up at all.

Expecting all of that he’d still gone through with it.

“And the one thing you wanted to do before throwing yourself stupidly into danger was kiss me?” David asked, and the question was weightier than Shaun expected to hear.

“Yeah. I guess it was,” he chuckled, looking away, unwilling to see the rejection on David’s face right at that moment.

Shaun didn’t know exactly how he expected it to happen. Maybe a sharp bark of disdainful laughter. Maybe the sound of David standing to walk away. Maybe a pitying sound that got him no where but didn’t exactly cut him off at the knees in the future. Maybe even David saying something nice but dismissive.

He hadn’t expected the warm hand that covered his, the fingers that curled into the space between his fingers and thumb, or the gentle squeeze that came with the loose grip.

“You’re an idiot,” David told him as Shaun looked back at the other man, his eye wide. “The worst kind of idiot.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Shaun teased, keeping the hope out of his voice as those warm fingers gently squeezed his hand again.

“You get one chance,” David’s voice was smooth and gentle and maybe weightier than Shaun could quite account for as his heart leapt into his throat. “Consider it a… concession to how flattering it is that not getting a chance to kiss me would have been a regret of yours. Consider it pity for the stupidly wounded. Consider it whatever you want, but you get one chance once you’re out of here to prove to me that you’re even worth a second glance.”

“And the kiss wasn’t enough for that?” Shaun teased. “You looked quite…”

“And don’t say something so fucking stupid that I have to take the chance away,” David insisted, his voice firm. “Got it?”

* * * * * *

Shaun was stronger than David had given him credit for, because David honestly hadn’t expected himself to be pulled from his seat by his loose grip on Shaun’s fingers. He was suddenly on his feet and bent over the bed nonetheless, Shaun’s arms wrapped around him along with a complicated tangle that included IVs and wires.

Nor was he expecting the uninjured part of Shaun’s face to be buried in the crook of his neck, or the words Shaun whispered against his skin, making his heart ache with pity even as the touch made his skin burn, “I’ll prove whatever you need me to. You’ve just gotta stay on my right side, okay?”

“I…”

David hesitated, hated himself for it almost immediately, and then tentatively wrapped his free arm around Shaun’s shoulders. Habit and experience found him rubbing gentle circles on the older man’s back.

“I will. But I’m only going to do it because I prefer to have room to wind up before I punch idiots,” he said, whispered really.

Something in the way he said it or the specific words, or maybe his unspoken assurance that Shaun would pull through this with his vision, seemed to be the breaking point that Shaun had been holding himself back from. Under David’s loose embrace he could feel Shaun’s shoulders start to shake, and he could feel the moisture against his neck. Shaun’s hands tangled desperately into the back of David’s shirt, and all he could do was stand there, hold him, and mumble wordless reassurances into Shaun’s ear.

He stayed there long past when the position was uncomfortable, holding Shaun through the quiet sobs. Stayed there despite the fact that he heard two sets of feet rush back to the room, and for all that Shaun couldn’t, he could see Tex and Daniel when his eyes darted to the door. Pain was still on Tex’s face, plain as it had been for most of the ride to the hospital. Daniel, though, looked blatantly relieved, almost like a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“Fuck,” Shaun eventually gasped into David’s neck around the sobs. “I must seem…”

“It’s normal,” David promised, cutting Shaun off before he could disparage himself. He knew that better than most, was painfully aware of that with the fact that the gauze on Shaun’s face would have been pressed directly against the newest of his scars if he hadn’t been wearing his t-shirt. “Sometimes… Sometimes we just need to let it go.”

The hands in his shirt tightened again as Tex and Daniel slipped from the room once more, leaving David alone with Shaun for a while longer in a silence that was broken by the sound of monitoring machines and muffled sobs .

“I feel like an idiot,” Shaun observed a minute later, choking the sobs back as his hands finally loosened. Carefully David untangled himself from the mass of arms wires and IVs and returned to the seat, pointedly meeting the gaze of Shaun’s uncovered eye. “Went from trying to play the whole thing off to celebrating you giving me the time of day to crying in, what, two minutes flat?”

“If it helps, it’s endearing,” David admitted as he shifted in the seat to try and feel more comfortable. Granted he knew the thing that made him tense was the wet spot on his shoulder, and there was nothing he could do to fix that anytime soon.

“You’re kidding,” Shaun chuckled as he brought his bandaged arm up to wipe the tears from his face. “Unless you’re the kind of guy who likes sobbing wrecks. I promise that I’m not like this normally.”

“No,” David chuckled in spite of himself as he watched Shaun try to use the back of his hand to get some of the moisture from his eye without bumping the heart monitor clamped around his finger. “It’s just nice to see someone handling a situation like this as they should.”

“As opposed to?”

It took a lot for David to keep his hand from going to his shoulder and the worst of his scars.

“Being cold. Pretending it doesn’t affect you,” David suggested from personal experience.

Shaun raised an interested eyebrow but David just ignored it as someone cleared their voice at the door, and when he looked he found a pair of men in white coats standing there looking very pointedly at Shaun.

“I’ll… Just go find Tex and Daniel,” David said, pushing himself from the chair and quickly excusing himself. He didn’t even get a chance to make it far, because the pair were waiting just outside of the room. Tex was leaning against the wall and Daniel had plopped down into a chair near her.

“Thank you,” Daniel said, looking up at him as David stopped before the pair. “Shaun had… yet to properly process the situation. If nothing else, you have done him much good.”

David sighed as he flopped down into the chair next to Daniel, and stared down at his hands.

“Hey, you…” Tex started to say, and David felt her hand come down on his scarred shoulder. He reached up and grabbed her wrist, and surprisingly, he found her letting him easily remove her hand from his shoulder. Still, once it was gone she shook his grip off and defaulted back to standing against the wall, arms crossed over her chest.

“If I might make a guess,” Daniel asked, and David nodded permission for him to continue without looking, “you are not fond of hospitals, are you?”

“Not in the slightest,” David agreed, refusing to grit his teeth.

“That makes your presence here all the more appreciated,” Daniel assured him, and David could hear the smile in his voice. “I am sure Shaun will also be adequately appreciative.”

Maybe, but that didn’t mean David liked it. The colors, the sounds, the smell of the place all made him want to shudder. If he didn’t focus on the here and now he could feel the cold hands of a rough nurse on him, trying to place a line. Remember the searing pain the blade had left in it’s wake. Remember the ache in his chest from a cracked rip. Remember the ache in his leg from the break. Remember any one of the other injuries he didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to have lived through.

“Maybe, but Connie’s going to have my head for this. The picnic wasn’t optional for employees.”

* * * * * *

“Could you not tell them what you told me?” Shaun asked, letting his fingers tangle into the blanket one of the doctors—he didn’t remember the guy’s name—had tucked up around his waist after they had finished looking him over.

“If that is what you want,” the optometrist said, his voice sounding like he was saying it was only proper. “Should we send them in when we leave?”

“Yeah. I’d like that,” Shaun said as he resisted the urge to let his fingers come up and play across the exposed skin on the left side of his face.

Of course his doctor, the one who was generally in charge of him, seemed to notice the twitch of his fingers, and frowned pretty severely at Shaun. “If you scratch at those stitches, I’m going to send nurse DuFresne in here to deal with you,” the man threatened.

Shaun just shuddered at the thought. That nurse had a cheerfulness to him that reminded Shaun almost alarmingly of Donut but a quiet forcefulness when it came to patient care that was more in line with Tex. “Yeah, I’ll remember.”

“Good. The damage is bad enough without us having to deal with you reopening your wounds,” the doctor insisted. With that he gestured to his colleague and the pair headed for the door.

Moments later the mixed trio of friend, romantic interest, and batshit insane bounty hunter strode into the room, all looking various degrees of tense. Daniel seemed a bit better than before, while David looked on the verge of fleeing. Yet all three of them seemed to pause when they took in the sight of him without the bandages.

“They say I’m going to end up with some pretty impressive scars,” Shaun greeted them, keeping his voice as level as possible. “Nothing they could do about that.”

“And your vision?” Daniel asked, crossing immediately to the seat David had most recently vacated.

“About that…” Shaun sighed heavily and while Tex stayed at the foot of his bed, an expression akin to relief flashing through her eyes, both David and Daniel tensed at his sigh.

Which, granted, was what he wanted of them.

“Hey David…” Shaun continued, holding his hand out, and damn if the other man didn’t move to his side, Daniel even making room for him. The blond seemed reluctant for a moment, but Shaun just held his hand out until David rolled his eyes and laid his fingers in Shaun’s hand.

“You’ll stay on my right side, yeah?” he asked, and watched as David bit his lip in a thoughtful and pained way. “Because… Well, my left side is probably going to be too ruggedly handsome for you to handle up close.”

David’s eyes went wide for just a second, and Shaun couldn’t resist grinning as he gripped David’s hand tightly as he opened his left eye, which he had purposefully kept close until this point just for the sake of the build up. Anger and relief warred on the younger man’s face, slightly blurrier in Shaun’s left eye than his right, and that was enough of a distraction for Shaun to tug David close enough for his left hand to curl into that blond hair and pull him into another kiss.

It was only a brief press of lips this time, frustratingly chaste, because almost immediately David’s hands were on his shoulders and he had pushed away. That didn’t matter to Shaun though. The bewildered fury David wore as he stumbled back a step was worth every second of the ploy, fury mixed with something like relief on such a level that his heart skipped a beat. It was beautiful when contrasted to the clear anger radiating from Daniel.

“Asshole,” David snapped as he jerked his hand from Shaun’s grip and stormed from the room. Tex, Shaun could see, was doing everything she could not to laugh at the whole scene as Daniel just smacked David’s injured arm.

“Shit!” Shaun barked in pain as the backhanded smack actually managed to hit him right in one of the more tender spots. “That fucking hurt, D!”

“And is nothing less than you deserve for your idiocy and insistence on cruel pranks at a moment when we were most concerned about you,” Daniel snapped before striding after David.

“Oh come on, I thought you’d both be relieved!” Shaun shouted after them before meeting Tex’s gaze and smiling at the amusement that danced in her eyes. “Well, at least someone thought it was funny.”

“Don’t get me wrong, New York,” Tex laughed, and the way she defaulted to the nickname she had used for him during the first month of their 'working friendship'—she had been unceasingly amused by the fact that a New Yorker had walked into such a blatant mugging as the one she had saved him from—betrayed her own concern over him, “I didn’t find that funny. In fact, that was a pretty dick move for you to pull on your best friend and the guy you’re trying to nail. Which, of course, puts it right up your alley. Honestly, I’m surprised Daniel didn’t see it coming.”

“Then why are you laughing?” he asked, frowning because Tex always had a reason for everything she did.

“Because I’ve only known this David kid for all of thirty minutes, if that, and I can already tell him and D are going to be friends. And unlike you, I understand just what that’s going to mean.”

Shaun raised an eyebrow—his right because even trying to wiggle his left stretched the skin in painful ways—and frowned, waiting for further explanation. “And just what is that?”

“Shaun, you’ve got a guy that knows you better than you know yourself hanging out with a guy who really would be better off avoiding the hell out of you and yet seems drawn to you. That’s right up there with having someone you’re dating meet your ex,” Tex observed.

“Or showing up at your on again, off again boyfriend’s place of work while his boyfriend is there?” Shaun countered with a smirk, and earned himself a glimpse of Tex’s middle finger.

“Basically you’re going to have a hard time pulling your normal game on this guy if Daniel decides he actually likes this poor sap you’re going after,” Tex warned, still waving her finger at him. “Maybe you should rethink this whole thing before D cuts your legs out from under you.”

Shaun just smiled and allowed himself a brief chuckle. “Really, Tex, that’s only something I would have to be worried about if I was thinking about my normal game.”

Tex’s middle-finger salute failed as she stared at him, her mouth not quite open but the rest of her face betraying her shock. “You’re not?”

“Not by a long shot,” Shaun admitted, still smiling at himself and thinking about the smell of strawberries and Irish Spring and the taste of cinnamon and the recent satiny warmth of David’s lips. “Not by a very long shot.”