Chapter 16

Sawyer thought for a while that if he could be still enough, he might be able to lull Bashir into thinking he was asleep. That he'd gone under happy, content with his life and everything they'd just experienced together, and not at all thinking about the shitshow that the rest of his day had been.

"What are you thinking about?"

Aaand so much for making a comeback as an actor . You can't even convince your boyfriend you're asleep.

Also, not your boyfriend.

Not yet.

Sawyer sighed. He wanted the answer to Bashir's question to be "nothing." He wanted to be asleep, wanted to let the euphoria of an orgasm with the guy he had a huge crush on send him off to sleep before he had to reengage his brain. Naturally, given how his life had been going lately, that didn't happen.

On the other hand, if Sawyer was going to be awake, he might as well be talking to Bashir. He'd been dreaming about having more time to spend in Bashir's company, not even necessarily doing…well, this— each other—although that had featured rather heavily in his mind. But just being able to be with him was a gift, and he wasn't going to reject it. Kurt would—

Sawyer swallowed hard. "Some about Kurt," he said after a second. "Which, trust me, isn't what I want to be thinking about while we're in bed together, but I don't think I can stop yet."

"You don't need to."

"Mm. I'd like to, though." He hitched his arm a little farther around Bashir's waist. "How do you do it? With your work, I mean? How do you keep the things you see during the day from haunting you at night?"

Bashir shook his head. "Years of practice, and even then it doesn't always work. But this wasn't exactly a normal day for either of us."

"No." Not even close.

"What about you?" Bashir asked. Sawyer tilted his chin up to look at him. "When you were an actor, I mean," he said. "How did you disengage from the act?"

Sawyer chuckled. "I never quite managed to," he said ruefully. "I started acting when I was six, and all I heard from my parents—especially my father—over and over again was how important it was to be present. To listen to the director, listen to the other actors, mind my lines, get it right the first time. It became an obsession for me. I got to the point where I was afraid to break character for the entire time filming was going on."

"Very method of you," Bashir commented.

"Less ‘method' and more ‘unhealthy mental fixation' in a child," Sawyer said. "I think that's what broke me, in the end. My last movie was…really hard. I was seventeen, but I was playing a younger kid, and the whole film re volves around the kid's slow death. It was thirteen weeks of filming, and by the end of it I had stopped eating, I was hardly sleeping…even the director told me I needed a break, but I couldn't disengage. Not until the film wrapped. After that my dad finally got me checked out by a doctor, and I ended up being admitted to the hospital for malnutrition and anemia."

If the way Bashir's arms tightened around him was any indicator, he disapproved of his father's methods. Yeah, me too. "Why didn't your parents do something for you sooner?" he demanded. "Isn't that—aren't there laws against that kind of thing?"

"Parents have a lot of leeway when it comes to their minor children and acting," Sawyer said. "And our family was already a little infamous because my sister had just been admitted to a hospital the previous year for an eating disorder. Plus the fact that my mother had been completely checked out for years at this point, and there was nobody to stop my dad from treating us like the tools he'd made us into."

Sawyer felt Bashir's chest rise and fall, his breath regulated despite the speed of his heartbeat. He's angry for me. It was sweet, if unnecessary. "Why was your mother checked out?"

"This was her blackout-drunk period," Sawyer said dryly. "Post-kidnapping. She didn't recover enough to actually engage as a parent until both my sister and I were out of the house. Eventually she separated from my father over it, but by then…eh, it was too late to do any good."

"I forgot about the kidnapping," Bashir said.

"It made all the papers for a while." Sawyer shrugged. "It all worked out in the end. I won an Oscar, quit acting, emancipated myself, and got access to most of my money thanks to having a damn good lawyer. By then my sister was married to another up-and-coming actor, with a baby on the way, so my father accepted that I was a lost cause and focused his publicity machine on Jessica instead. She was actually on a couple of different reality TV shows, and—"

"Wait, wait." Bashir got up on one elbow and stared at Sawyer. "Back up. You actually won an Oscar?"

"Yep." Twenty years ago now, but hey, it still counted. "Best supporting actor in a drama. I was the second-youngest person at the time ever to win."

"Oh my God , you were in—"

"Yeah." Sawyer cut him off before he could say it—not because he was afflicted by flashbacks anymore, but the title was just…so dumb. One of the most brilliant production teams in the business, and they'd almost shot the project in the foot with that ridiculous title.

"I remember when that came out in the theatres," Bashir marveled, settling back down beside Sawyer. "I only went to see it so my friends and I could poke holes in the hospital scenes—we were med students at the time, we thought we knew everything—but most of the audience was crying by the end of it."

"Including you?" Sawyer asked archly.

Bashir chuckled. "Maybe…just a single, manly tear or two."

"Of course, of course." They were silent for a bit, and Sawyer thought he might even be able to fall asleep, but then Bashir asked, "So how did you go on to become a cop?"

A logical follow-up. It was also a question that Sawyer had gotten used to ignoring, but for Bashir he'd make the effort. "I'm still not entirely sure how I came around to it. I spent a few years," more like five, but who was counting, "not really doing much of anything at all at first. I had money, and I was just…tired coming out of acting. It really felt like a retirement, after more than a decade in the business, and I was tired by it. I bought a condo and lived alone and ignored the world for a while, and then eventually I decided I was done with that. So I went to college."

"Someplace small where no one knew you?" Bashir asked, and Sawyer grinned.

"Or as close as I could get. Yes. I bounced from major to major for a while," another five years, but whatever, he'd learned a lot, "and finally got a bachelor's in Criminal Justice. My first serious relationship was with a cop, too, and I liked hearing about what she did. She was the liaison officer with the local school district, and she did a lot of early outreach with kids, and it was just really interesting to me. So I decided to go that route too."

"Huh."

Oh boy. Was Bashir going to ask about Sawyer being with a woman now? Was he going to be upset over the fact that Sawyer was bisexual? Was this going to become a thing? That was the wedge that had driven him and his former boyfriend apart, Marc's certainty that Sawyer was going to get tired of being with a man and seek something more heteronormative and if Bashir did the same, he might just—

"You dated a cop and you still decided to become one, despite the awful hours?"

Sawyer laughed with more than a little relief. "Well, I was kind of suckered there because she worked in schools, so she had more normal hours than most cops. Once I was on the force, our schedules never lined up, and it just became clear that things weren't going to work out unless one of us gave up our career. Which didn't happen, so I moved. "

Bashir shifted a little, and Sawyer raised his head so his lover could free his arm before Bashir pulled him back down. "Is that when you came here?"

"I worked in a few other places first, but eventually, yes. I moved here, got promoted, and was partnered with the surliest, most standoffish detective on the force." Sawyer bit back a sigh. "I honestly don't know that I'd have stuck it out with Kurt if not for Molly. She was great to me—invited me over for dinner, made sure I had a place to go for every holiday that popped up… Eventually Kurt had no choice but to start being friendly or make Molly sad. That was the one thing he never wanted to do."

A lump rose in his throat, and Sawyer had to swallow hard against it to get his next words out. "I don't understand why he's dead. Whether he was murdered or whether he killed himself, there's just no—it doesn't make sense. He was already losing everything, and Molly never hurt anyone. Why…"

Bashir didn't murmur any platitudes about fate or acceptance, which Sawyer appreciated more than he could say. He just bent down far enough to press a kiss to Sawyer's forehead and said, "We'll know more soon." That was the only honest thing he could possibly say, and surprisingly enough, it was calming.

There was one path forward, and that was the path of following the evidence. Bashir would get the evidence, and Sawyer would go wherever it led him. "Yeah." Sawyer kissed Bashir's shoulder. "Thanks."

"You want to try and sleep?" Sawyer could tell Bashir was stifling a yawn.

"Yes." Even if he didn't fall asleep, he wasn't going to keep Bashir up any longer. His…boyfriend? Did they qualify now? Or was this more of a one-night-stand kind of th ing? A pity fuck after Sawyer had come to him on the verge of falling apart? Time would tell…but Sawyer chose to hope it was more. He had to. "Let me roll over, though." His bruised side was loudly informing him that it wasn't going to take this pressure for much longer.

Bashir let go, and Sawyer rolled over on the bed to face the other direction. Better…but not really, because now he was cold. He scooted back until he was touching Bashir again, and Bashir didn't push him away, just stroked a hand down his arm before settling into bed. Sawyer listened to him breathe, slow and steady like a metronome, and soon he stopped hearing anything at all and fell asleep.

He didn't dream.

The only problem with sleeping at Bashir's was that Sawyer didn't have a change of clothes with him. His outfit wasn't hopelessly filthy, but it wasn't clean either. Besides, he'd spent part of his time in these kneeling next to the body of his dead partner, which…yeah, it wasn't the sort of memory he wanted to slide back into, especially after a shower. That left borrowing clothes from Bashir, which—

"Why are you so tall?" Sawyer muttered as he tried on a second pair of pants. The cuffs scuffed the floor behind his heels when he tried to walk.

"I'm not," Bashir said, pulling on a dress shirt. "I just have kind of long legs."

"You have gorgeously long legs," Sawyer agreed. "I, on the other hand, don't." He pulled the dress pants off and looked at the rest of the offerings Bashir had laid out. Sweatpants weren't exactly work attire, but it was early enough that he had time to stop at home before heading into the precinct.

Shit, he wasn't even supposed to be in today, given everything that had happened, but Sawyer knew he needed to be there. They were still short on staff, and if he stayed at home he would just end up being morose and alone, which didn't sound good right now. No, he'd go back to work and keep at it as long as he thought he wasn't hurting their caseload. Nan would tell him if she thought he needed a break.

So. Sweatpants—still too long but at least they had elastic at the bottom—plus a plain black T-shirt, and Sawyer felt better about getting home without crawling out of his skin. Plus, he had the pleasure of seeing Bashir's eyes darken a little as he stared at him.

"I don't know whether I prefer seeing you in my clothes or taking them off of you."

"We should try both," Sawyer said. "To be thorough."

Bashir sighed. "I don't have time to be thorough right now, unfortunately. I have a lot to do at work today."

Translation: He had Kurt to autopsy this morning. The spark of mischievousness which had lit up in Sawyer's chest snuffed out. "Right. Yeah."

"What are you doing tonight, though?"

Sawyer shook his head. "Probably disobeying my captain and listening to more godawful podcast episodes and scouring camera footage for any additional clues. I know," he added when he saw Bashir make a disgusted face, "I don't want to listen to that asshole either, but it's possible there's a link between some of his old episodes and the killer's methodology. So far we've come up empty, but Nan wants to follow it through to the end just in case."

"Well." Bashir came over, framed Sawyer's face in his hands, and, very gently, kissed him on the mouth. "In case you get a break around seven…" He kissed his cheek. "And I also avoid getting a late call out to a scene…" He kissed his other cheek. "We should have dinner again."

"I'd love to," Sawyer said. "You can come to my place, if you want."

Bashir grinned. "You wouldn't mind?"

"If you don't mind the fact that I have no clean coffee cups and my sheets haven't been changed for a week, yes." Actually, no, he'd change them when he got home. Otherwise that was just rude.

"I can work with that. Want me to bring food?"

"Yes, please." Sawyer gave him the address, kissed him again, kissed him one more time because fuck it, he wanted kisses and Bashir was ridiculously good at it, and then left Bashir's house a little after seven.

He felt almost guilty about feeling so…well, good. Kurt had died yesterday; Molly had sobbed her heart out in his arms yesterday . Sawyer shouldn't feel as if things were going well, and yet he couldn't help it. Being with Bashir, sleeping in his arms and doing a hell of a lot more there too—it made him happy. Bashir made him happy.

Please , he thought as he ran inside and changed, throwing Bashir's clothes into his hamper to wash before he gave them back. Please let me keep this. Sawyer wasn't religious and he didn't make a habit of trying to extract promises from nothing, but today he was willing to make an exception. Please let me just have time with Bashir. That's all I want. There was too much he wanted to know to have to wait and push things back over and over, although he knew Bashir would understand.

Sawyer wanted to be worthy of that understanding.

He got to work before Nan this time, and despite his restful night he must still have looked like shit, because almost everybody gave him a wide berth. He avoided his captain, going straight to his desk to figure out where to get started this morning. Officer Doran walked up to him there a few minutes later.

"Detective Villeray," he said, stiff and sad all at once. "I'm very sorry about what happened to Detective McKay."

"Thank you." That was thoughtful of him. Officer Doran didn't leave, though, so Sawyer followed up. "Is there anything else?"

"Oh, right." He reached into his pocket and handed over an evidence bag containing a thumb drive. "This has security camera footage from the businesses closest to Bellfield Park. Detective Walker asked for it, just in case something stands out." He paused. "It's a forensic copy; the real one is in an evidence locker."

"Ah." It probably wouldn't yield anything useful, but it paid to be thorough. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Officer Doran left, and Sawyer took the excuse not to listen to a morning of bad true crime revelations and instead uploaded the footage to his work computer.

There were feeds from three different businesses, each one on a different approach to the park. Sawyer honed in on the hours just before and after when Bashir had called time of death and fast-forwarded through the empty minutes, checking for anything of interest. At least this late at night, there were few enough cars that he didn't have to spend forever figuring out that there was nothing to…

To…

Wait.

That was Kurt's Mustang, right down to the Liquor, She'll Love It decal on the back window. He had stopped at the light right by the gas station at 12:04 at night. Feeling like he'd just swallowed a lump of burning coal, Sawyer backed the footage up and watched as his partner drive to a careful, controlled stop at the light. He must have gotten drunk after the fact, given his driving here. Or…Sawyer leaned in and looked at the light shining off that shock of short blond hair.

That wasn't Kurt. That was a woman. What was a woman doing driving Kurt's car?

He zoomed in and backed the footage up, then forward, then up again, searching for a better-lit view of the driver. Eventually he found one—it was only a few frames, but the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that he knew who this woman was.

Tami Glen. The M.E.'s assistant. A woman who had every reason to loathe the people who disparaged her crush. People like Kurt.

Fuck. Sawyer felt his happy evening crumble into dust. He needed to confirm this, but once he did…

He would to have to bring her in for questioning in the death of Detective Kurt McKay.