7

Bill's alert, and seemingly in good spirits when they go in to visit him. He grips Tommy's hand, tighter than normal, and thanks him, and Tommy's face heats.

Lisa decides to stay the night.

Lawson and Tommy go home to pack a bag for her and pick up some dinner to take back to her that didn't come out of the hospital cafeteria.

"Nothing like going through your mom's underwear drawer," Lawson says, making a face as he pulls out the top drawer on his mother's dresser.

Tommy sits on the edge of the bed, beside the open overnight bag that already contains jeans, a blouse, and a light jacket. "Want me to do it?"

Lawson shakes his head. "I feel like that's even creepier, ya know?"

"Hm."

Lawson hesitates, shoulders around his ears, then darts a hand down into the drawer like a heron snatching a fish from a lake, spins, and tosses a scrap of white fabric into the bag with an overdramatic gag.

Tommy snorts, and then keeps snorting, until he's outright laughing. "Oh my God, you shoulda let me do it. I wouldn't have puked about it."

"I didn't puke." He closes the drawer, shudders…and then leans back against the dresser, and folds his arms, and Tommy's laughter dies away, because they were quiet on the ride home, but there's an energy crackling between them of things unsaid.

Tommy braces himself for a we need to talk.

Instead, Lawson reaches out and kicks the toe of his shoe with his own, gaze on the carpet. "Hey," he says, quietly.

"Hey," Tommy says back, and taps his sneaker against Lawson's. New step-in Sketchers against battered Vans.

"I'm glad it was you here instead of me," Lawson says, shoulders tucking in, head still bent. His nose wriggles side-to-side, Bewitched-style, and Tommy would get caught up in how cute it is if he wasn't worried that Lawson was trying not to cry. "I wouldn't have – I would have panicked, and I'm – it's good it was you. You knew just what to do."

"You would have known what to do, too." When Lawson shakes his head, Tommy insists, "You've been taking care of your dad for years. You always know what he needs."

Lawson shakes his head again, and Tommy stands. There's only a few feet between them – the length of both their legs stuck out – so he forgoes the cane, and closes the gap, and reaches up to take Lawson's face gently between his hands. When he sweeps his thumbs beneath his eyes, they come away damp, and Tommy ducks down so he can peer up at his crumpled expression.

"I don't wanna fight with you," Lawson says, miserable.

Tommy blinks hard. "I don't want to fight with you either. I…I'm gonna say ‘sorry,' because I am, but I know that doesn't fix anything, ‘cause I already said sorry, and then I acted like a total–"

Lawson moves all at once, lurches forward and wraps him up tight in both arms, and crushes all the air out of him.

Tommy slips both arms around his neck and crushes back.

Lawson takes a shuddering breath, and whispers, "I'm always so afraid you'll wake up one day and realize you don't want to stay." He sniffs hard. "The house, and my parents, and – and my shitty job, and just…"

Tommy palms the back of his head and holds him down on his shoulder. "No, honey. No, no, no."

"I don't know if I can ever get a book published." He sounds heartbreakingly young, and so much smaller than he is. "I don't know if I can make things better for us, and I–"

Tommy turns his head, and presses his face into Lawson's cheek. "Law. Lawson." The helplessness that sweeps through him, burning in his eyes and tickling at his throat and squeezing his lungs, must be the sort that Lawson felt a couple nights ago, when Tommy was beside himself. Even as his heart breaks, he's comforted by the knowledge that they're both worried about making the other happy.

But at the same time, it's ridiculous that they've taken happiness on as a chore and a challenge, one to be handled alone. They're working so hard toward the same thing, and tripping each other up in the process.

He kisses Lawson's cheek, and breathes against his ear, and says, "I love you. Do you know how much I love you?"

Lawson clings to him – and, after a beat, he nods.

~*~

They pick up takeout salads with chicken and fruit, and eat with Lisa in Bill's room at the hospital. Lisa keeps up a lively chatter that Tommy thinks is forced, and Bill's asleep before they're halfway through dinner.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Lawson asks her, when visiting hours are over.

She nods. "I'm sure. You boys sleep tight."

On the way home, Lawson reaches across the center console for his hand, and Tommy laces their fingers together.

The house is too quiet when they walk in. Just a few days ago, Tommy would have given a whole month's paycheck to have the place all to themselves for the night. No need to be careful and quiet, no pausing and listening for creaking floorboards, or soft, questioning taps at the bedroom door. But now, the quiet is somber and oppressive, rather than liberating.

Without asking, Lawson gets down two tumblers, and reaches into the cabinet above the fridge where the few bottles of hard liquor live. He gets down the bourbon.

"Ice?"

"Yeah." Tommy watches him get cubes out of the freezer and then pour them both generous doubles; takes his glass with a murmured thanks and leads the way into the living room.

They sit pressed together on the couch, and Lawson turns on the TV. It's still on Food Network from this morning, and he flips hastily away, finally settling on an overwrought action movie with more explosions and car chases than dialogue.

They sip their drinks, ice cubes shifting with quiet clinks. When Tommy lays his head down on Lawson's shoulder, Lawson tips his head so it rests on top of Tommy's.

He takes a deep breath and says, "What we're doing with Dad isn't sustainable."

Tommy hums a sympathetic noise. "What can we do?"

When he says we, Lawson shifts his drink to his other hand so he can put his arm around Tommy, and hold him even closer. "In a perfect world? We'd move to a single-story house with plenty of bedrooms. Hire Nancy fulltime, or another home healthcare worker, if she can't do that. Ideally someone who could live in-house." He exhales in an exhausted-sounding rush. "And in that perfect world, you and I could live next door, or just down the street. And…" He trails off.

As a general rule, they don't play the Perfect World game. That would only lead to frustration, and impossible dreams. But he thinks they've each been playing it on their own, silently, secretly. Wishing for things they can't have.

Which, given today, given the challenges they overcame seven months ago, seems petty and stupid.

But this thing with Bill is an issue.

"Okay," he says, stroking Lawson's thigh, firm presses over the denim. "So we can't do perfect. But what can we do?" Before Lawson can answer, he says, "Other than paying off my medical bills, I'm not spending much. I can–"

"I can't ask you to–"

"Yes, you can." Normally, Tommy would get heated, and argue, and insist, but he's tired, and the idea of fighting pains him. So he's insistent in a quiet, uncharacteristic way that has Lawson's teeth clicking together as he closes his mouth.

Tommy leans forward to set his drink on a coaster and twists his upper body when he leans back, so they're facing each other. Blue TV light flickers along Lawson's temple and jaw, catches on the bristles of his five o'clock shadow, and glimmers in the whites of his eyes. He looks apprehensive. Fretful.

Tommy grips his knee with one hand, and reaches up to swipe the tip of his forefinger down the slope of Lawson's nose, a fast little flick he hasn't executed since they were teenagers necking in the backseat of the Le Sabre.

Lawson startles, blinks…and then his lips twitch sideways in a lopsided smile.

"Your nose is adorable," Tommy says, mock-stern, and Lawson's smile widens, flashing teeth.

"Your eyebrows look like angry caterpillars."

Tommy sighs. "Yeah, I know."

"Cute ones."

"Uh-huh. Listen, I'm serious. It's not just you anymore." He lifts his hand and waggles his fingers to flash his ring. "We're us now. A team. And I think – I think we've been sniping at each other…or, well, I've been a bastard, because I want to be able to take care of you. And you want to take care of me – and your parents. And we're just…"

Lawson's smile slips, and Tommy presses the end of his nose like a button to get him to blink again.

"We have to be a team, babe. We have to share, and take care of each other, and your parents, and our friends, and just…talk.We need to sit down at the table, and go through our finances, and make plans, and all that boring adult shit we've been putting off. And we have been putting it off. I have. I keep thinking ‘oh, well, I'll get better, and then…' But this might just be it." He lets his hand fall to his own leg with a slap, and frowns.

Lawson leans in and kisses him. Quick, and sweet, and bourbon-tasting. A silent acceptance of the last thing Tommy said, of the idea of this being it.

"Are you listening?" Tommy asks, when Lawson pulls back.

"Yeah. I hear you." He makes a face. "Time to grow up."

"Yeah." Tommy fiddles with the thick seam on the outside of his jeans. "For twenty years my whole motivation was coming back here. To you. But that's not – in real life you don't ride off into the sunset. You still have to live. You get to live," he corrects, and smiles, filled with a sudden, flooding warmth that has nothing to do with the bourbon. He gets to live. Gets to. Today sucked in a lot of ways, waking up alone, his father-in-law falling out of his wheelchair in the grips of a seizure. But it could have been so much worse, and here he is sitting on the couch, alive, with the love of his life.

Slowly, Lawson smiles back.

"I have to stop waiting for when I'm better. And you need to stop expecting me to get sick of this marriage and leave."

Lawson ducks his head; it's hard to tell with the bluish TV glow, but Tommy can imagine the color that suffuses his cheeks. Then he tilts his head, peers up through his lashes, and says, "And you have to stop yelling at Leo."

Tommy winces. "Yeah."

"He's sensitive."

"I should apologize."

"You definitely should."

They sit in comfortable silence a minute, TV rumbling unheeded off to the side.

"Okay." Tommy pats Lawson's hip. "Lie down."

"What? Why?"

"I wanna suck your dick, and my legs don't feel up to kneeling down on the floor."

~*~

Lisa calls the next morning, early, while Tommy's in the shower, and tells them not to rush on their way back to the hospital. Tommy picks out both their clothes – which makes Lawson wrinkle his nose like a kid, but he looks damn good in the light henley Tommy selects, so he can wrinkle his nose all he likes – and goes downstairs to tidy and make sure there's nothing that looks like it needs Lisa's attention when she gets home. He wants her to go lie down and get some rest when she's back, rather than worry about dishes or dusty tabletops.

They stop for breakfast at Winslow's Diner: hot cakes, and sausage patties for Lawson, and oatmeal with blueberries for Tommy. He offers to share and gets another nose wrinkle before Lawson stuffs more syrup-soaked pancakes in his mouth. They order to-go biscuit sandwiches for Bill and Lisa, and Lawson gets a coffee refill while they wait.

Tommy takes a deep breath, and Lawson's gaze goes from sleepy and mild to riveted on Tommy's face. Oops. "I've been thinking," he says, and if he sounds a little nervous, it's because he is. But only a little. Mostly.

"No, it's nothing bad. But, uh – are you gonna go to New York? To meet with Keith?"

Lawson's wariness doesn't dissipate, and Tommy wants to kick himself for being a jackass. All he can do now is do better. "I don't know." When Tommy doesn't respond right away, he arches a brow and says, "Why? Do you think I should?" It would sound like argument bait, if the corner of his mouth didn't twitch and betray a withheld laugh.

"I think you should do whatever makes you happy," Tommy says, loftily.

"Pffft." Lawson snorts, and laughs, and Tommy huffs a sigh to cover his own threatening chuckles.

"Hey, now."

Lawson kicks his shin under the table. "Hey, now," he says back.

"I'm not pressuring. I'm just asking. Are you gonna go? And don't," he adds, "just say what you think you should say to keep me from blowing a gasket. Like, do you want to go? As yourself? Not to make money to take care of anything." He gestures vaguely. "But do you, Lawson Granger, want to meet with Keith Whateverthefuck about your book?"

Lawson's brows climbed slowly throughout his spiel, and now, big-eyed, he says, "Uh…"

"I'm just asking," Tommy presses.

"Yeah, well. I see that. And I, Lawson Granger" – he smirks and Tommy rolls his eyes – "really and truly do not know if I want to go to New York and meet with Keith Whateverthefuck."

You should. That's Tommy's first and loudest thought. He presses his lips tight together to keep from voicing it, because this – Lawson's writing, his career prospects – can't be something Tommy shoulds him into doing. He can praise, and he can back him up, but he can't push him. He's his husband, not his parent. This isn't a homework assignment he can ride him into finishing.

"It's killing you not to say something, isn't it?" Lawson guesses.

"No." Tommy fiddles with his empty coffee cup. "A little," he admits.

Lawson's smile goes rueful.

"I'm not trying to pressure you. I'm not," he insists, when Lawson just stares at him. "I'm asking because, if we can set up some good help for your dad beforehand, and everything works out, if you go, I want to come with you."

Lawson's face falls slack with surprise.

"And not because I want to yell at Keith." He did want to, but he wouldn't. Not on this trip. "But…" Here he went self-conscious. Because they were married, yes, and they did married things, but a lot of the time he felt like they were kids at a sleepover, plus fantastic sex, but minus proper adulthood. "We never got a honeymoon. And I thought…"

He doesn't need to finish. Lawson's eyes go anime-wide, and his lips part on a shaky breath, and he's such a fucking sap, his man, but damn does Tommy love making him that way.

"Really?"

"Really. Sound oaky?"

Lawson nods, and reaches across the table. They sit with their fingers laced together until their waitress brings their to-go order.

~*~

Bill comes home. Tommy sits down with his laptop, and the checkbook, and a calculator, and then he starts interviewing home healthcare workers, because Nancy can't commit to more than her two days a week, but she has some recommendations.

He sees Leo a few days later. He peeks out his office window and spots him having lunch with Dana out at a parking lot picnic table. It's a barbecue food truck in attendance today, and their sauce always gives Tommy indigestion. He snags his brown bag lunch and makes his careful way outside, down the sidewalk, and across the parking lot.

Dana spots him first. She lifts her head, and her gaze lands on him, and the smile drops off her face. Her eyes narrow.

They haven't spoken since that night at Flanagan's. He knows she and Leo went by to visit Bill in the hospital. There was a massive spray of seasonal flowers on the nightstand, and a jumbo box of Junior Mints, Bill's favorite. He's seen Dana's name flash on Lawson's phone screen, and knows they've texted and talked. But Tommy and she have managed to avoid one another in person.

Dana always was stubborn when they were kids, as stubborn as Tommy and more vengeful besides, so he hasn't been expecting an easy reconciliation. Still, the ferocity of her glare stops him momentarily in his tracks.

Leo must noticed it, too, because he twists around, and spots Tommy, and though Tommy doesn't feel he deserves it, Leo waves and offers one of his normal, small, almost bashful smiles.

Tommy takes a deep breath and approaches the table. "Hey, guys." He can't muster chipper with Dana looking at him like that. But he can be contrite, and he hopes he is. "I wanted to–"

"Don't say ‘apologize,' jackass," Dana snaps. "You don't mean it."

He sighs. "I do, though. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, now."

"Dana," Leo says softly, placating hand stretched across the table. "It's okay."

She frowns. "The day before he screeched at you in public–"

"I didn't screech."

"–he sat right where you are now, and held my hand, and gave me the puppy dog eyes, and said he was ‘sorry' if he'd been a jerk during his recovery. Then he turned right around and was an asshole again, when you were the one trying to do Lawson a favor. He was a shithead when we were kids, and he hasn't changed." The last she delivers with a cutting glance over Leo's head at Tommy, and it lands like an arrow. It hurts.

She's not wrong, though. He was a prickly kid, who turned into an impatient, snappish adult. Capable of calm politeness when necessary, but always with a jab on the end of his tongue. Lawson kept up with him when they were young, and does still, and always smiles with his whole face when Tommy says fuck you. Dana usually gives as good as she gets…but maybe she's never really liked him.

Or, more likely, she's still holding a grudge because he left. Because he hurt Lawson twenty years ago, and then seven months ago, when he lied, and manipulated him, and almost died in his arms. He adores you, she said the last time they had lunch together. At the time, he took it as a reassurance. Now, he thinks it was a warning. He adores you, don't you dare fuck up his life more than you already have.

He thinks he and Dana will have to have a proper conversation at some point. It might even devolve into a knock-down-drag-out fight. But for now, he has an apology to deliver.

"Leo, can I talk to you for a minute?" He hopes his face is doing the right thing. He doesn't know what Dana means by "puppy dog eyes," but she and Lawson both accuse him of it often.

"Sure." Leo scoots over on the bench. "You can sit."

Dana stands in a sudden rush. "You can have my seat," she says, coldly. "I'm getting a refill." She picks up her paper cup and strides toward the food truck.

Tommy takes her abandoned spot with a sigh, settling in across from Leo and folding his hands together on the tabletop. "She's not wrong."

Leo frowns, attentive rather than scathing, like Dana.

"I've always been a shithead. I'd blame the other night on the beer…"

"You'd had a lot by the time we arrived," Leo says, offering him the out.

"Two and a half."

"Yes, but, well, you're…" One corner of Leo's mouth quirks in a rare smirk, and Tommy gapes at him.

"Wait. Are you calling me little?" He tries to be stern, but feels a smile threatening.

The smirk falls away. "What? No. I only meant…you hadn't eaten anything. And you…"

Tommy snorts. "Yeah, I'm a lightweight. It's fine." He sighs. "I am…not the biggest person. Literally, or figuratively. I'll admit that I have absolutely no idea how the publishing industry operates."

"I gathered that," Leo says, but kindly. "It's not something someone outside the business generally has any familiarity with."

"I don't actually think that you're trying to screw him over – I know you've stuck your neck out for him, and I really appreciate it. I also know you have no control over what your friend Keith does or doesn't do. And he might be a very nice person for all I know."

"He is."

Tommy makes a face, and Leo breathes a quiet chuckle. "I just…" He scrubs at his jaw, swamped all over again by a fanged and indefensible frustration that makes him grit his teeth. "I want this for him so badly. He's so talented – always has been – and it kills me that I can't make this happen for him."

"Is it about wanting to show him off?" Leo asks gently. "Or wanting him to live up to his…"

He trails off when Tommy shakes his head vehemently.

"No, no, not that. It's not about that at all."

Leo waits patiently for him to explain, and, as ever, Tommy feels so much that the words get logjammed in his throat. He wants to pop open his skull and let Leo see everything all at once. But that's not how you help someone understand something. It's like Lawson always says: you have to paint the picture. You have to tell the whole story.

He takes a deep breath, and says, "He was always telling stories when we were kids. About stuff that happened in class, or stuff that happened at home. He used to do these bits about his grandmother that made me snort milk out of my nose. But it took a year after meeting him before I read something he'd written. And he didn't want me to: I found it on his desk, and he tried to get me to put it down. But I knew then: he was good. Even at fourteen. It wasn't just ‘this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened,' you know?"

Leo nods.

"It was like I was there. I was a character, and I was flying a spaceship, or riding a dinosaur, or whatever wacky thing he'd come up with. One of our teachers convinced him to enter a short story contest our sophomore year of high school. Against adults. And he won. Leo, he won."

Leo offers a small, lopsided smile. "His work is very evocative. Lyrical, even."

"I think most people never figure out what they're really, truly passionate about. But he's always known, and he's always been good at it. He should have the career – the life – that he wants, and he has all the talent and dedication to get it…but knowing he's at the whims of the industry and all its arbitrary bullshit…" He shoves both hands through his hair, messing up its gelled neatness, and links his fingers at the back of his neck. "He's supposed to be an author," he says, helplessly. "And I can't make that happen, and I…" He shakes his head.

"Tommy," Leo says, softly, "you know that it's not something you can or should ‘make happen,' right?"

"I know." He looks down at the table, and sees that his hands have balled into fists on the tabletop. He opens them flat, but winds up pressing his fingertips to the wood hard enough that they turn white, knuckles popping from the pressure. "I know that. But I…" Embarrassingly, his throat tightens, and his eyes sting. He blinks the threat of tears away, and swallows hard. When he glances up, Leo's expression is so soft and understanding that he blurts, "I did him so, so wrong twenty years ago when I left. I know that – I know he left college to take care of his dad. But I can't stop thinking: what if I'd been here? Could he have stayed in school? Could he have–" His breath hitches, and Leo waves a soothing hand to silence him.

"Have you talked about this with Lawson?"

"A little." Not in so many words. More like he cried all over him and lamented twenty lost years. But. Same diff.

"I'm not a therapist," Leo says, "but, as your friend, I think you're beating yourself up over events in the past you can't change."

"Yeah. Maybe."

They sit in more or less companionable silence a moment. Tommy spies Dana loitering over by the food truck, still, sipping a fresh drink and talking on the phone. Did she call Lawson? Is she even now bitching about him to his husband? He can't blame her.

Leo clears his throat, recaptures his attention, and says, "I shouldn't say this, but Keith is excited to meet Lawson." His smile is encouraging. "I think he's going to give him good news. He asked for the full manuscript and Lawson emailed it to him yesterday."

Tommy's brows lift, because he didn't know that. Lawson once again shielding him from potential bad news, protecting him.

Then Leo sobers. "But that doesn't mean he'll take on Lawson as a client. So don't get your heart set on it," he warns.

Tommy snorts. "Yeah. Thanks." He extends his hand across the table. "I'm sorry for being a jackass."

Leo accepts his shake readily. "Don't worry about it. Apology accepted."

~*~

Lawson's waiting in the parking lot when he gets off work, fifteen minutes late thanks to a last-minute customer phone call. "Hey," he says, when Tommy slides into the passenger seat. "Mom wanted to know if we could–"

Tommy doesn't slow. As he pulls his door shut, he braces his other hand on the console, leans into Lawson's space, captures his jaw with his now-free palm, and kisses him soundly. Not a chaste, hi, honey, parking lot appropriate kiss, but hard, and wet, and insistent.

Lawson stills a moment, in surprise, and then his hand is fisted in the front of Tommy's nice shirt, and his tongue is pushing past Tommy's lips.

Tommy allows it a moment – shit, no, he revels in it, almost lost to the drugging swipe of his tongue – but then reminds himself that they are, in fact, in a parking lot, and pulls back. Sinks down into his seat while Lawson blinks at him.

After a long beat, Lawson finishes, "…stop at the store on the way home."

Tommy grins. "Sure. Sounds good."

Lawson blinks some more, then clears his throat and faces forward. "Damn," he murmurs, before he cranks the engine, and Tommy laughs.

They buy ground beef, and onions, and brioche buns. It's a warm night, and Lawson wants burgers, and Tommy picks out the produce: the lettuce, tomatoes, and a head of cabbage for a quick-pickled slaw.

Back home, Lawson gets the dinky little Weber grill loaded with charcoal and lit on the back deck, while Tommy stands leaning against the counter inside, chopping cabbage and carrots, and pausing now and then to peer out the window and admire the shift of Lawson's back muscles beneath his worn-thin t-shirt as he puts the grill rack in place and starts slapping down the burger patties.

Lisa joins him, and it's easier than he expects to tamp-down the kneejerk urge to duck his head and pretend he hasn't been watching Lawson twirl the spatula and shimmy his hips along with whatever song's playing in his head. He's assumed every other time he's tried to play at a more platonic vibe it was some sort of latent prudish streak; typical embarrassment over being a red-blooded human with urges and admirations. But he thinks now that it might have been more personal than that: some sense that he hasn't earned Lawson, or the chance to be happy and dopey in love.

But it's like Leo said: he can't change the past. He has to move forward, and be good to the people he loves now that he can.

Lisa sidles up beside him at the window, and makes a fond, amused sound. "Bill was always like that when we first got married. Always a song in his head. He didn't walk; he danced everywhere."

He aches for her, for the loss of the kind of marriage she used to have. He knows Lawson does, too; that his guilt has threatened to drown him at times, and that he goes above and beyond the call of duty to look after not just his father's medical needs, but to pick up all of Lisa's slack and then some. He tries to make her life easier. He's good. Tommy's chest clenches with an affection so acute it's painful. He thinks of his own mother, and knows he doesn't possess half of Lawson's goodness.

"Hey, Lisa?" he says, scraping cabbage shreds into a bowl, and she turns to face him, gaze big and blue in his peripheral vision. Astute like her son's. "Lawson has that meeting with the literary agent in New York next week."

"I know! I'm excited for him," she says, voice jittery with nerves.

"Me, too." He sounds just as jittery. Then presses on. "Nothing's certain, yet, and obviously we'd wait to make sure we hired someone you're comfortable with to help with Bill, but–"

"Oh!"

He turns to her again, and sees a smile bloom. Joyful.

"Are you going to go with him? A trip just the two of you?"

His face warms, but he doesn't duck his head now, either. "Yes. If we can swing it. We thought we might make a mini honeymoon out of it."

"Oh, sweetie, that's wonderful!" She hugs him, and he hugs her back, careful not to dab cabbage juice onto her sweater. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find someone. I want you to be able to go." She takes a deep, hitching breath that he feels against his chest, and in the spasm of her arms around his neck. "You boys deserve a getaway." Softer, like she can feel the racing of his heart, she adds, "You both deserve to be so happy."

He wants to believe her…and maybe some day he will.