I Will Wait

TAD'S ASS hurt—ached with poison fire—and there was no good way to joke about his ass hurting, because a gunshot was never foreplay , dammit, ever .

His day had put the gawd in gawdawful.

One minute, he and Undersheriff Aaron George had been peering over the edge of the canyon, following a blood trail from somebody who had escaped from the drug raid that had been conducted the night before. The raid had been a disaster. Tad and Chris had been doing their parts, riding behind SWAT, when suddenly shots had rung out in the ungodly darkness, and Chris's friend and old mentor had fallen. The resulting mess would go down in the history of goatfucks, and not only had they lost track of the kid they were looking for in the first place, but there had been nobody to step up to the plate of this small town to tell them what came next.

He and Chris had been milling about the hospital, ready to call the California Bureau of Investigation in pure frustration, when Aaron strode in, his partner, Larx, at his heels.

Watching Aaron order about the other men in the department, organize watch for Eamon, his boss and friend, direct a very competent investigation, including targeting one of his own men partially responsible for the mess, and ask respectfully for SAC PD resources—because with Eamon shot, shit had gotten suddenly big—had been fucking a-ma-zing. Chris and Tad had jumped at the idea of working with the man, getting shit done was the best of drugs in their line of work, and doing it without bullshit or ego was like an aphrodisiac.

Still, he and Aaron had been tired bordering on exhausted when they'd come to check out the original scene of the raid that morning. Aaron hadn't been called in till 3:00 a.m., and nobody had gotten any sleep. And there they'd been, poking around at the base of a tree, when the slug had landed in Tad's ass, followed by the thunder of the gun almost immediately.

The "almost" was important, Tad had thought as the day had slogged on. The "almost" meant the shooter had been far enough away to not just explode Tad's entire leg into flesh-and-bone shrapnel. A basic shotgun didn't have that great a range, and this wasn't a hunting rifle or a sniper rifle. After the bottom had dropped out of their world, Tad and Aaron had gone sliding down the side of the canyon in the world's worst sled ride, and they'd come to rest against this old, practically petrified tree, lying horizontal to the canyon's incline. The back of Tad's upper thigh had felt like a nuclear explosion, particularly after Aaron's first try to clean it out with half a bottle of water and his ripped-up khaki shirt. But it hadn't been fatal, as much as Tad might have yearned for a long, soft nap after they'd established that .

But they had a companion already trying the dirt-nap thing. The kid they'd been searching for had taken the same route they had—off the cliff and under the trees. Except he'd gone one better and was currently hiding under the really big tree, near the base where the root system elevated part of the bole just enough for him to have wriggled in. Tad wasn't sure—and didn't have the mental energy—to figure out why the kid had done that, and he really didn't know the triggers to get the kid out. He'd managed to coax April out from under a figurative tree by using… well, he hated to think about that time, and he wasn't going to now.

He was saving all his energy for what they had to do.

And it was a lot .

They'd barely gotten themselves situated against the tree when Aaron's partner, Larx, had driven down the service track, probably looking for a way to help them all get to safety. When Larx's SUV had been forced off the track (more shooting—God, so much shooting—that Aaron and Tad had fended off with their service weapons), Tad had needed to brace against a leaner part of the tree, shielding himself behind its bulk while he used the trunk to steady his shaking hand as he fired.

The firefight stopped, and Tad didn't know how to feel about that because it stopped when he and Aaron hit their targets. Some officers worked their entire careers without drawing their pieces, and he and Aaron George had not only pulled their weapons but had wounded—possibly killed—suspects, but Tad had no idea how to process that. He couldn't even put a face to the person he'd wounded. He'd fired at the gun in the trees.

He didn't have time to process it anyway. The SUV had tumbled down the hill, and Aaron needed to venture down to the lower part of the canyon to help Larx get back up. For an interminable, broiling afternoon, Tad sat, back against the tree, trying to establish contact, any contact, with the mostly unresponsive kid suffering withdrawals in the shadows, with no luck.

He could no longer fight off those horrible days with April. He remembered her handcuffed to a shitty bedframe in a No-Tell Motel where he'd washed her and shaved her licey hair and sedated her through the worst of her withdrawals. Kidnapping. It had been kidnapping. He knew it. He should have been arrested—he should have been imprisoned —and April had hated him, bitterly. She'd screamed at him until her throat bled. She'd begged him. She'd kicked, she'd bitten, she'd cursed.

In the end, she'd simply lain there, broken, her body wasted from the drugs, an IV trickling nutrients into her arm, as Tad spoke to her, softly, telling her every moment he could remember of her and their mother and their childhood. Every good thing he could summon, every hope he'd had for her, every beautiful thing he'd seen in his sister, whom he'd die for.

On the fifth day, she'd vomited water.

Then she'd asked for food.

After a few saltines, she'd fallen asleep, and he'd sat in a corner of that shitty room and sobbed. The next day, of her own free will, she'd requested rehab, and he'd needed two days in a clean motel, treating himself for all the things he'd picked up from her—scabies, lice, fungal infections—while he'd eaten and slept.

And grieved, because the things he'd done to haul his little sister from hell weren't things he could just wipe off his soul with some medicated lotion.

And now, his ass on fire, his body shaking with fever and aching fiercely in every joint, he could only whisper to the kid under the tree, not knowing the things that would help him find his way home and in no shape at all to find out.

He'd been dozing, the smell of the kid's vomit and filth trapping him in that memory with April, when he heard Aaron calling to him. Aaron and Larx had managed to get halfway up the incline with supplies, which was, as far as Tad could tell, a miracle. They had a plan to get up to his level, the supplies with them, but Tad needed to step up. The pulley system they'd arranged and built out of paracord and a prayer had been ingenious, but in the end it depended on raw muscle and Tad being able to catch the rope they were flinging up the hill so they could set it up again. By the time they'd levered the supplies up to where Tad and his despondent friend under the tree were camped, and then helped Larx—who was not okay after rolling down the cliff in the SUV—get up the incline, Tad was done. Absolutely done. He was sure he couldn't do another thing but go fetal and moan until somebody magically teleported him to a place with morphine and sterile gloves.

He'd had to settle for the supply drop instead.

When all was said and done, his wound had been more thoroughly cleaned, antiseptics and antibiotics had been generously applied, and his ass had been wrapped in the cleanest gauze to be found in the middle of a gravel pit anywhere. And he had clean sweats—oh thank God, thank anyone who had donated the sweats to him. Aaron had assured Tad they were his , a little too long but they fit nicely in the thighs, and they were warm and not stained with blood and sweat.

And then Larx had reached into the clothing duffel and pulled out….

Tad shivered now, pulling the flannel hoodie closer, burying his face into the collar, smelling Guthrie's shampoo, his soap, even a little sweat in the lining.

He knew there was an explanation somewhere, and he wanted to hear it. Wanted to hear how Guthrie had found him, had known he was there. Tad wanted to touch his hand, tell him how grateful he was.

Wanted to kiss him, see his face in the sun.

But all of that was subsumed under the amazing truth that the hoodie represented.

He's here. He's here. He's here.

No matter how skittish his new lover was, no matter how shy, Guthrie had shown up when showing up was impossible, and Tad could have cried with how much that meant.

But there were other things to tend to first.

Food was pressed into his hands, and he realized how much protein bars and Gatorade had not done the trick since ten that morning. The burger wasn't hot anymore, but it wasn't congealed either, and it tasted like manna from heaven as he gulped it down. Even the fries were delicious at this point, and Larx gave him an apple to go with everything in the end.

"Eat the apple," he said. "It'll keep you regular."

Larx was funny. Aaron was steadfast, but Larx was funny. They were both in their late forties and so… so dad he couldn't even fathom a word for their dadness . Aaron, blond and broad, had been the muscle behind the pulley system, but Larx, smaller, leaner, with dark hair and eyes, had been the one to think it up. Both of them had tended to his wound, and they both had what Tad could only think of as the "dad touch." Absolutely nonsexual but firm. Kind. Practical.

The kind of practical, Tad had learned, that sacrificed part of his shirt to cover a nest of sleeping rattlesnakes found near the landing place for the supply basket to make sure the snakes remained sleeping and wouldn't notice all the human activity near their lair.

Tad was going to take Larx's word for it that the snakes would stay put—but he'd noticed Larx and Aaron shoving their bloodied clothes and a closed bag of trash into a space under the tree between their camp and the snakes' camp, so he decided the faith was well placed.

And now, after Aaron and Larx had cleaned up their camp and offered their poor psychotic addict under the tree a blanket and some food—and a sedative, which they'd administered in the hopes of getting him to calm down and get some sleep and maybe gather the wherewithal to come out from under the tree—they were settling down on a mat of spongy eggcrate with the tree at their back.

Aaron held Larx against his chest, and Larx held Tad, all of them gathered under a layer of sleeping bags and blankets. Now that Tad had gotten some painkillers and some food and was no longer shivering in his bloodstained black jeans, he found there was something immensely comforting about being held by two strong fathers who had already proven they were letting nobody go on their watch.

He could also count all the ways his body hurt—not just his ass, but everywhere . He and Aaron had fallen down a cliff, for sweet fuck's sake. There were going to be bruises, bangs, and scrapes. And he'd really needed somewhere soft to lie during that interminable afternoon.

The comfort of his new friends against his back and the spongy eggcrate under his ass was wonderful, but above their heads the stars stretched wide and impersonal, and he felt small and insignificant and oddly alone.

Larx and Aaron were so obviously in love. Their teamwork had shone through every interaction, every plan, every idea. Apparently, an entire troop of teenagers and a brain trust of very underpaid teachers were putting together a miracle for them on the plateau above their heads, but Tad was… incidental in all of that. All he had to comfort him, really, was that shirt wrapped around his shoulders and the smell of Guthrie against his skin.

The ambient lights from the construction above flickered off, and the sense (if not the sound) of profound industry faded, leaving their little encampment in almost absolute darkness.

The stars glared, malevolent in their icy indifference, and Tad was shivering with fever, willing Larx to hold him closer before he disappeared.

And that's when they heard it.

A guitar, played in the silence of the canyon, and a clear, strong voice singing a lonely song. A song about waiting for your lover until the world ended.

"Til Kingdom Come."

Guthrie had mentioned it a few times as a possibility to replace the both revered and reviled Linda Ronstadt song that had so enthralled Tad at the beginning. Tad loved it. The simplicity of a lover who would wait for his love forever if need be, asking humbly for the same promise in return spoke to Tad. Weren't they all, in the end, waiting for love?

And love—that was all it could be called—was soaring out over this lonely, inhospitable canyon, carried through the dark by Guthrie's voice, by his music, and by, Tad was absolutely sure, the purity of Guthrie Arlo Woodson's heart.

Guthrie sang "" next and let the final chords of the song—a sort of clanging guitar masterpiece, hang in the air above the canyon like the final smoke of a fireworks display, and at first Tad thought it was a misfire. He should have ended with a lullaby. And then Guthrie pulled out Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," and he breathed out a sigh of contentment.

The next song was soothing, an invitation to sleep, but he still heard that almost cacophonous finale and the lover's belted promise, again, to wait.

And he realized that Guthrie wasn't going anywhere, not tonight. As darkness washed over him and he tried to sink below the shivering fever and the pain of his wound, he heard himself humming.

I will follow you into the dark….

He knew in his heart that for the man who would bring him kindness, bring him comfort, through all the madness the day had entailed, he would make the promise and keep it, even if he had to wait the rest of his days.

THE NIGHT passed in a blur of fever, of pain, of Larx's quiet comfort. At one point he'd awakened with a throat full of broken glass, thinking April was under the tree and he couldn't get her out. Then he dreamed that Guthrie was there with her, falling down the canyon, falling farther, faster, like Larx had done as Tad and Aaron had watched helplessly. He woke up crying Guthrie's name.

"It's okay, son," Larx said softly. "He's here."

And Tad could smell him on his shirt, against his skin, and for a moment, he calmed down.

The morning dawned bright and chill, and Tad knew he didn't have long left. He'd spent the night wrapped warm and tight in what was essentially a summer night in the mountains, and he'd been sweating and shivering with cold and fever so badly he'd barely registered the body heat of the two men trying to keep him safe. They'd put him in the rescue basket, tucked him in tight, and hauled him to where the coupling links were to hook the basket up again.

Larx gently covered his face with a cloth and told him to close his eyes—the end of the ride was scary.

Tad was so out of it, he only recalled a feeling of weightlessness, of rising instead of falling. For a while he heard the rasp of the bottom of the basket on gravel, and then felt a slither as it hit plastic of some kind, and then—oh God, he was flying , like on an amusement park ride, hauled up and dangling in the air before being tugged backward and gliding along the ground.

Was he dead? This was like the dead guy in Gladiator , he thought muzzily, but if he was dead, shouldn't his body hurt less ?

Finally the basket came to a rest, and someone uncovered his face. There were EMTs unpacking him from the eggcrate and the sleeping bags used to make him secure under the straps of the basket, and then he was on a backboard.

And then a stretcher.

Somebody said, "Let them through. They know Detective Hawkins."

Chris? That was Chris's voice, but that was not Chris's rough hand in his grimy one, and definitely not Chris's sweet, sweet voice in his ear. The face over his was in shadow, thanks to the strong morning sun through the trees and a fall of greasy blond hair, but Tad knew him now, knew his smell, knew his feel .

"How you doin', son?"

"Guthrie," Tad croaked. "God. You're here."

"I'm not the only one," Guthrie told him, placing a soft kiss on his forehead. "C'mere, darlin'. He needs to see your face."

And there was April. Oh God, that eternity of a night when he'd dreamed of her in withdrawals, trapped in his worst memory of both her and himself, and she was here. She was here , clean in all the ways, weeping softly as she held his hand.

"April," he breathed.

"Oh, big brother," she sobbed, "you have no idea how glad we are to see you."

He smiled, and he would have told her the feeling was mutual, but the EMTs had enough, and he was lifted into the back of the bus, and the world became a white blur of antiseptic after that.