Dan & Tyler 2 - Wintergreen (21 page)

"Breathe," Tyler advised him, and pushed Dan's head down, keeping a hand curved around the back of Dan's neck. Automatically, his thumb brushed back and forth in a caress as familiar as the shape his hand was making, and Dan shuddered and pushed himself upright again, turning to stare at Tyler.

"I can't do this. Suppose he won't see me. Suppose he won't even fucking
talk
to me --"

"I'll be waiting," Tyler said as calmly as he could, and let his hand drop back in his lap. "Right here, for as long as it takes. When you know what the situation is, just call me. If you need me to come and get you, I'll drive up to the house. If it's --" He couldn't bring himself to describe Dan staying here as 'okay' or 'fine.' "If you're staying, just tell me that, and I'll go."

"I never asked where you were going," Dan said, his pallor replaced by a guilty flush. "I've been so focused on me… sorry."

 

"Me?" Tyler shrugged. "Short-term, after two nights sleeping in a chair, I'm going to drive until I find a hotel with a bed."

 

"I think they all have them," Dan said. "And windows. And doors. But they're an extra."

Tyler cuffed Dan's head, because Dan would expect it, the action easy, taking his hand away less so. "After a good night's sleep, I'm going to keep on driving and go to see Cole. I've got a few loose ends to tie up, and it's easier to do it face to face."

He doubted that he'd get the restful sleep he craved. He'd staved off the nightmares in the bustle of a hospital that never quite slept, but once he was alone in the dark, he'd dream. And wake sweating, shaking in an empty bed, hoping that he hadn't made too much noise.

Better make it a motel; somewhere cheap, where no one cared.

 

"Cole?" Dan pulled a face. "I guess you have to… but you're not going back to work for him, are you?"

He'd thought about it, God help him. It would be so easy to slide back into the warm water and let it close over him. But Tyler didn't need a therapy session to decode that image, and he was too old to be crawling back into the womb. He'd stood alone for the last few years and survived, he could do it again. Dan's support had been helpful, but without it, Tyler wouldn't fall over, or worse yet, cling to Cole as a replacement crutch.

"No. Loose ends. A report. That's it." The terse words seemed to reassure Dan more than heartfelt protestations would have done, and he nodded.

 

"And after that?"

 

"We had a vacation planned, remember?" Okay, that was cruel of him, and he regretted saying it, but fuck, he was human, and Dan was walking away from him
again
.

 

"Oh. You're still going to --" Dan folded his lips together. "Send me a postcard, as well as Anne?"

 

"Sure," Tyler said, the lie easy. Speaking of lies… "Assuming you stay, what do you plan to tell your father?"

Dan's gaze returned to the farm. "I'll tell him the truth. Most of it, anyway. If I go back, he's got to take me as I am. I'll tell him about you and just… change the ending. No crazy hit woman, no spies and snipers… I'll say I met you and you saved me from starving and we lived together. When he asks about my arm and the bruises, I'll say I got beaten up."

"Not by me," Tyler said, the vehemence of his words surprising him. "You're not going to tell him that I did this to you?"

Dan turned his head. "In a way, you did," he said quietly. "And I don't mean my face. But no, I won't. Me getting attacked was always something he was worried about, so he'll accept it if I say it happened outside a bar one night or something." A trace of cynicism flashed over Dan's face, reminding Tyler of what Dan had gone through on the road and how it had made him grow up fast. "Deep down, he might even think I deserved it."

"He won't do that."

"You don't know him." Dan wrinkled up his nose, the gesture endearing. "I'll tell him that and then say it made me rethink staying in Carlyle, and if he asks about you, which I doubt, I'll say you found someone else."

Tyler couldn't help it. He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel, jarring his arm painfully. "Fuck!"

 

"Hey!"

 

"I found someone else?" Tyler demanded. "Is that what you think I'll do, boy? Just drive away and pick up the next man I see hitching a ride who's got a tight ass and a smile?"

"No, of course I -- it's just what I'll tell him, that's all.
Tyler
." Dan grabbed hold of Tyler's arm and shook it. "It's a story, it's not what I think. I'm not planning to do that, either. Find someone else, I mean. I just need a break, okay? You me, all that shit that went down and what you did -if I stayed with you right now, we'd end up at each other's throats, and I don't want that. I'm not going to ask you to wait for me to get over myself, because that wouldn't be fair to you, but God, Tyler, you have to know how I feel about you."

"No," Tyler said, the words difficult to say because they exposed a weakness. "I don't. I'd like to."

"I love you," Dan said, easy, simple words spoken casually in a way Tyler would never have been able to do. "You get me hot just by looking at me, but that's only part of it. When I thought she was going to kill me and I'd never see you again, it felt like something inside me was broken, it hurt so fucking much -- and when I thought she was going to hurt you, I wanted to take her down. You're fucked up, moody, and you like your curries way too spicy, but yeah. Love you." Dan leaned in and kissed Tyler on the mouth, a swift, hard kiss that left Tyler's lips tingling. "And I know you love me or you wouldn't have put up with me the way you do, so you don't need to say it back to me."
Dan opened the truck door and grabbed his backpack without waiting for Tyler's reply. "I've got your number, and I'm going to keep in touch with you, okay? This isn't goodbye, just a -- a time out. I'll call you -- no, God, that sounds like a promise that I won't. But I will."

"Sure," Tyler said, and managed to put a smile on his face. "You do that, boy."

Dan smiled back at Tyler, his eyes blank, dazed even, as if now that the moment to leave had arrived, he was having second thoughts. Tyler wanted Dan to go with an intensity that alarmed him. If Dan stayed even a few seconds more, Tyler could see himself breaking down and begging him to stick around, and putting that much pressure on the boy wasn't fair.

Finally, Dan got out of the truck with an awkward grace, his injured arm throwing him offbalance. He stood for a moment, his hand flat against the truck's door, and then nodded once and slammed it closed.

Tyler watched Dan walk away, along the road, across it, dodging a red pickup truck going way too fast, and then up the lane leading to the farmhouse. Before Dan reached the house, a man appeared from the barn, taller than Dan, dressed in overalls and a loose jacket.

The two men stood, a distance between them, and then the older man began to walk forward, his steps quickening, and Tyler turned away just as Peter Seaton hugged his son for the first time in months.

So that was that. He thumbed off his phone -- Dan wouldn't need to call him now -- and drove away without looking back.

 

He supposed he should have cried, yelled, done something dramatic like running after Dan. Those were all normal reactions that normal people would have had.

Tyler just drove, eyes dry, his attention focused on the road, the route he'd need to take clear in his mind. He'd need to stop for gas somewhere and maybe pick up a can of soda or a bottle of water. He glanced in the mirror and, yeah, he looked the way he usually did.

Something inside me was broken…

 

As long as it didn't show on the outside, he'd be fine.

 

***

 

Peter put a mug of coffee in front of Dan and then sat down at the kitchen table and took a gulp of his own drink, his mug cradled in his large hands as if he wanted to feel its warmth.

 

"I didn't think you'd come back."

"I wasn't sure I would." The kitchen looked different somehow. Big. Bigger than Tyler's, anyway, and it smelled wrong, as if something was missing. After a sniff, Dan decided that it was because Peter never cooked anything that wasn't traditional American. The only spices Peter kept in his cupboards were salt and pepper; the only herbs around the place the mint and parsley in the kitchen garden, run wild and never picked, just slashed back when they threatened to take over. Dan supposed that his mother must have planted them, along with the rose bushes on the south side of the house and the two lilac trees outside the rarely used front door, lilacs that bloomed in May and filled the air with a rich, dizzyingly purple scent. Peter didn't know the difference between a daisy and a delphinium.

"I thought you were dead," his father said. He sounded bewildered, as if Dan's return had confused him, a cruel trick played on him. "Months you've been away, son. Months."

 

"I know. I--"

 

"My birthday. I thought maybe you'd call then. Or Thanksgiving or Christmas." His father shook his head, correcting himself. "No. Not Christmas. I knew you were dead by then."

"Well, I'm not," Dan said. He resisted the urge to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't a ghost; given the way his head was aching, he didn't need the extra pain. God, this was so fucking awkward. "I'm sorry you were worried--"

A blessedly familiar snap of impatience restored the situation to something Dan could deal with. "Not sorry enough to pick up the phone."

"True," Dan admitted, "but I wanted space between us and calling you would've gotten us nowhere. It's not as if you'd have changed your mind about me just because I wasn't around to remind you of how disappointed you were."

A frown creased his father's forehead, and Dan couldn't figure out why until he realized that he'd spoken to him man to man, not father to son, sharing his feelings without defensiveness or apology. Hanging around with Tyler, who definitely qualified as an adult, had made Dan less conscious of the generation gap.

His father stared at the bruise on Dan's cheek and then nodded at the sling Dan wore. "You've been fighting. Is that why you came back? Are you in trouble?"

 

And now he felt like a twelve-year old again, his nose bloody from a punch, a letter from his teacher in his pocket detailing his shortcomings.

"No. No trouble. And yes, I guess I was fighting, but I was helping someone. A friend." He wanted to tell his father the truth, all of it, not these careful evasions, but he couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to worry the man. God, he was protecting his dad; that was just -- that was freaky. It should be the other way around.

"A friend," his father repeated heavily. "I see." "Yeah," Dan said, knowing just what lay behind that comment and too exhausted to force Peter to spell it out. Leaving the isolation of the hospital had been a shock; the world outside seemed noisy, untidy, and the journey, even with Tyler driving carefully around potholes, had left him feeling battered and bumped. "He was like Luke. That kind of friend. We lived together. He found me when I was starving because I'd…" No, he couldn't tell his dad how he'd lost his belongings and what he'd done to survive. He just couldn't. "I'd lost most of my stuff. I was on his land, and he took me in. He was kind to me."

Peter's mouth twisted with revulsion. "His sort only wants one thing." And there they were, right back where they'd been when Dan had left. It hadn't taken long, now, had it? "His
land
? He was older than you?"

"Fifteen years or so," Dan said levelly. If he started yelling, any chance to make this homecoming work would be lost for good. "And he offered me a meal in exchange for helping out around his place for an hour or two, that's all. We were fixing the roof when he fell off and hurt his ankle. I said I'd stay a while longer until he was better -- look after his garden -- and we just… we clicked."

His father raised his hand, a small, involuntary movement, as if he was pushing aside the images Dan's words had placed in his head. "But you're not with him now."

"No," Dan said, not missing the hopeful note in Peter's voice. Trust his dad to home in on the emotional bruises as well as the visible ones. "I'm not with him now. We didn't split up the way you think, though. He brought me here, dropped me off, and he's gone to, uh, see someone he used to work for about a job. I could've gone with him, but I needed some space. A lot's happened to us recently, and I'm not sure how I feel about it."

"Space? You need space? What in the name of God does that even mean?" Peter sounded genuinely baffled by the concept, which amused Dan enough to allow him to regain control of his emotions. Talking about Tyler wasn't easy. Peter sighed. "Never mind. You came back. I suppose that's something."

"Yeah…" Dan cleared his throat. "I thought you could use a hand around the place. It's a busy time of year."

Not that it was ever anything else; even in winter, there was always work to be done on a farm. It never ended. This past winter had been a revelation to Dan, as he and Tyler had holed up and seen it through in warm, cozy, lazy isolation. He hadn't had to get up once when it was pitchblack dark, shivering as he dressed, the frigid air outside waiting to numb his hands and feet as he toiled away. If he'd woken before the sun came up, and habit meant that he had, to start with at least, Tyler had given him plenty of incentive to stay in the haven of their bed -- not that he'd needed it.

"You can't work if you can't use your arm," Peter said bluntly. "How long will it be before you can take the sling off?"
"Oh, it's only there to remind me to be careful. It's going to be a few weeks before I can really do a lot with that arm, though," Dan admitted. "They put some stitches in it, and I'm on antibiotics." Peter was looking curious, so he added casually, "I fell and sliced it open on a piece of metal, all edges. Hurt like hell, but it's not serious." Okay, that was bending the truth, but not breaking it. A bullet was metal and it had edges…

Peter snorted. "Doesn't sound like you're going to be much help, but it doesn't really matter. I don't need any."

 

"Huh? Oh…" Dan bit his lip, a little chagrined by the dismissal of his offer. "Yeah, I guess you had to take someone on after…"

 

"After you and that worthless piece of shit took off."