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"Is that done?"
There was no response, so Byers cleared his throat and tried again. "Langly? Is it done?"
Langly started, though why Byers wasn't sure. It wasn't as though he hadn't been paying attention; he'd been staring straight at Byers as he spoke. But he'd been staring for a couple of days now.
"What?"
"Your column, Ringo. Is it done?"
Langly shook his head and looked away. "Gimme a half hour."
Byers sighed. They were pushing deadline badly already. He turned to Frohike, hoping for some support, but the older man wouldn't meet his eyes. It'd been like that for a couple of days, too. Best to leave it alone, he supposed. They'd talk when they were ready.
Another half hour wouldn't matter too much in the long run, he supposed. He nodded lightly and went to check on Jimmy.
The two of them watched him leave the room, rubbing absently at his face.
Frohike couldn't stop himself from glancing at Langly, and regretted it. The kid had turned the stare on him, and the anger in it forced him to his own feet and out of the room.
**
Byers was leaning against the kitchen wall, eyes closed against the steady ache of his ribs. Langly set the flash drive on the counter and moved to his side.
"Maybe you should sit down," he said quietly.
Byers took a sharp breath in surprise, and grabbed at the counter through the fog of sudden pain. Langly put his arms around his waist, heard the fresh gasp, and moved his arms to Byers' shoulders, cursing his own stupidity.
"God, Johnny, I'm sorry. C'mon, sit down."
He shook his head. "Better standing," he managed.
Langly rubbed at his shoulders, peering intently into his face. "You sure? Relax, c'mon. Just take it easy."
He pulled himself together and leaned back against the wall. "Sorry. Breathing hurts less when I'm standing up."
Langly stayed put, not sure how to help. "Isn't it supposed to be getting better by now?" he asked. "The doctor said…"
Byers tried a reassuring smile. "It is. Really. It just takes some time."
Langly grimaced. "It doesn't help I keep grabbing you like that."
"Ri, it's okay, really." Byers cut him off. They'd been having variations on this conversation for the last two days, too. "It just takes time." He picked up the little drive. "Is—"
Langly rolled his eyes. "Yeah. It's done. Finally."
"Thank you. Did Frohike finish uploading the last edition before he left?"
"Probably. He didn't say anything to me."
He nodded. "Jimmy?"
"He went to the movies." Langly smirked briefly.
Byers glanced at the ceiling. "He's got a new aftershave. He asked me what I thought."
"Can we stop pretending we don't know once Yves starts slinking out of his room in his robe?"
Byers managed to limit it to a chuckle. Anything else hurt. "I can't imagine what would possess her to stay the night here."
Langly grinned, a little more relaxed now. "So we're on our own. I'll get dinner while you finish up the layout, okay?"
"If you promise to order dinner, fine."
Langly laughed.
**
With the paper put to bed, they lingered over the sweet and sour. Usually Langly would keep up a constant stream of conversation, or there’d be music on, or the TV. Byers sometimes wondered if Langly just couldn’t stand to be alone with his own thoughts.
Tonight, though, he was unnaturally quiet, and quite often Byers would look up to see him staring at the walls, or the food, or Byers himself with a distant expression.
His attempts at conversation fizzled, Langly issuing vague monosyllabic answers when he bothered at all. Eventually he gave up and the evening passed mostly in silence. When the pain returned, Langly followed him into the bedroom and waited while he took the pills, still quiet. Byers brushed his teeth and carefully undressed while Langly finished up in the bathroom.
When they'd come home from the ER, Langly had swiped nearly every pillow in the place and had piled them into a wedge so he didn't have to sleep flat on his back. He'd been a little embarrassed but it made it a lot easier to breathe, and he was still using most of them. He settled himself gingerly while Ringo hovered and fussed over blankets.
"You okay?"
Byers nodded. "Tired."
Langly switched off the lights and slipped into bed. As John's eyes closed, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder, stroking down his arm, constant soft caresses.
"Thanks," he murmured.
Langly made an odd noise, but Byers was too tired to figure out why. "Go to sleep, John."
**
John woke up, shivering slightly. Ringo had stolen all the blankets again in his sleep, but it was probably the returning pain that had actually dragged him out. He'd be grateful once everything stopped hurting. He crawled out of the bed and staggered away to the bathroom. It was going to take a while for the pill to work, and he decided on a shower.
The warmth of the water helped, the steam maybe not as much. After a while, he shut off the water and dried himself carefully, the meds taking the worst off the ache in his side.
He was quiet getting back into bed, but apparently not quiet enough.
Beside him, Langly let out a long breath. He glanced over to see the younger man looking at him in the dim light filtering in from the corridor.
"Pills working?"
He nodded, self-conscious in the scrutiny. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't. Not really."
Byers waited for him to explain, but Langly just kept watching him through narrowed eyes. "Ringo," he said eventually. "We need to talk about this."
Langly rolled over. "Don't take this the wrong way, John, but no. We don't need to. Not now."
"We can't just ignore it."
"Look, I don't want to talk about it. At least not until that fucking bruise goes away. I can barely look at it."
He winced. It hadn't occurred to him. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It's ugly, isn't it."
"Yeah."
"Maybe I could cover it somehow…"
Langly rolled back to him. "What?" He blinked. "For Chrissakes, John. I didn't mean that. I don't care how you look. I mean—" He glared. "Johnny, I didn't mean it that way. It's just that I look at it and I can't stop thinking about it, about what happened."
"Oh."
"I'm sorry. I just, I can't—" He shrugged. "I'm sorry."
Byers was silent for a while. "I'm sorry I assumed…"
"Forget it, Johnny."
He nodded slightly. "We are going to have to talk about it sooner or later, you know."
"Says who," Langly demanded sourly.
"You know we are." Byers was gentle but insistent. "You're too…" He took a breath, trying to put words to the fear that had been building inside him. "You're too angry," he said finally. "I'm… worried about you."
Langly snapped his head around to stare. "You're worried about me? Unbelievable."
Byers started to say something, but Langly cut him off. "You. Are worried about me. What the hell is wrong with you?" He got out of bed abruptly and reached for his jeans. "Jesus," he muttered.
Byers moved up behind him and took his arm. "Ri."
Langly started to shake him off, but stopped, sighing heavily. He let himself be pulled back to the bed and sat down.
"I am worried about you, Ringo. You can't stay this mad. Not…" He shook his head. "You're going to hurt someone. You're not angry at Mel, you know."
Langly rolled his eyes. "He did almost get you killed, John."
"Ringo, you're not angry at Mel. He saved my life. You know that."
Langly sighed and threw himself backward, pulling a pillow over his head. "I know," he said, muffled.
"You're angry at me."
The pillow came off. "What?"
"You're angry at me, for putting Jimmy and myself in danger."
"I don't give a damn about Jimmy."
Byers almost smiled. "You know you do."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm not mad at you, Johnny."
"I think you are, really. I think you're trying to convince yourself you're angry at Mel because it's easier than being mad at me."
He eyed Byers with disfavor. "You get that out of a book?"
"You know I'm right."
"No, John," he said heavily. "I'm mad at me."
That silenced Byers for a moment. "Why? You didn't do anything."
"Yeah, exactly."
"Oh." Light dawned. "Is that what this is? What do you think you should have done? Jumped the guy? Wrestled his gun away from him?"
"I dunno. Something." John opened his mouth to argue but Langly cut him off. "I should have done something, John. You needed me, and I didn't do anything. I didn't. I just froze. I just… fucking… froze."
"I don't think you can help that," John said reasonably. "It's a reflex, for you. Frohike and Jimmy jump without thinking, you and I freeze. It's just a reflex."
"You don't freeze."
"I do, kind of." He shrugged. "I'm not sure how to explain it. I just get quiet inside and wait to see what happens."
"It's not the same. You don't freeze up. You keep talking. You're not scared."
He almost laughed, but it hurt too much. "I get scared. Believe me, I get scared. I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill Jimmy and me, and then you and Mel." He shifted uncomfortably, not just from the twinges he was still getting from his ribs. "Because I had to get the story," he admitted quietly.
Ringo was silent for too long, and John didn't think he wanted to see his expression. He tried to explain.
"He… he would have… found you guys. I knew it. He wasn't buying it, and he was already starting to wonder who else was there. I could see Fro coming up behind him, and he'd have been next and after that you. Even freezing wouldn't have saved you, and I can't stand that I almost got you all killed, almost got you killed." It poured out of him in a desperate flood of words. Tears started to well up and he turned away so Ringo wouldn’t see, but he moved too fast and crunched against one of his ribs and it knocked the breath out of him.
Langly heard the gasp and grabbed his shoulders, carefully righting him and helping him sit up so he could breathe, soothing him with a gentle hand and soft words. Eventually, he managed to slow his shallow gasps and Langly eased his head back and held him tentatively against his shoulder. "You okay now, Johnny?"
Byers nodded tiredly.
"You need another pill? You only took one, didn't you."
"It's okay."
"Yeah." Ringo didn't sound convinced, but he didn't argue, either. He stroked John's hair and they sat like that for a while.
"We can't keep doing this," Byers mumbled.
"As long as you need, John. I'm not tired."
He shifted, surprised. "No… I meant…" He faltered. "No. This is nice. Thank you."
Langly seemed to be just staring across the darkened room. Byers sighed, trying to make himself say what he needed to.
Then Langly stiffened, suddenly, a sharp indrawn breath. "You meant…"
He didn't finish it, but Byers nodded. "I think so. It's too hard, doing this and being with you. I'm always afraid something will go really wrong, and…" He shook his head slightly. "I couldn't stand knowing I'd gotten you hurt. Gotten you… killed."
Langly was silent again, barely moving, and it went on for several minutes. Byers had hoped it would help, but he knew Langly felt the same pull he did, the same mission, and that giving it up would be hard. He glanced up, hoping for some clue what Langly was thinking, and saw tears glistening on his cheeks in the dark.
"Ri—"
Langly shook his head violently. "No. Johnny, no. It's—I can—" He shuddered. "Johnny, give me another chance. I can change, I promise. We don't have to give up, please. Please. I—"
Byers hadn't expected this much panic. Langly was shaking, suddenly, clutching at him desperately, and he tried to make him see sense. "Ri, it's not worth it. It's just not worth it."
"Johnny—" The rawness of the pleas was hard to listen to. The paper—the stories, the people, helping—was important, but Byers didn't want to think that maybe it was more important to Langly than they were. "Johnny, I can change. It'll be okay, it'll work out. I'll get help. Just give me another chance."
That wasn't right. "Help…?" John stared at him, confused.
"A shrink. You know. Whatever."
John's expression seemed to stop him.
"A, you know, a therapist, whatever." He hesitated, uncertain. "Look, if it's a reflex, I can change it, right?"
"Change what?"
"Stop freezing. Stop… being such a coward." The last word hung between them, left John speechless. "We could still be together."
And that took John's breath away. Ringo's voice was small and hopeless, like he knew he'd already lost the argument before it'd begun. It was the need to stop the fear that shook John back into coherence.
"Ri, I don't want to break up. I can't even imagine…"
Hope blossomed, and he watched Langly choke it back, afraid to encourage it.
"Ri, I don't. I'm talking about giving up the paper."
The hope rose again, and then it fell, and Byers still didn't know why. "Ri?"
"Do—Do you mean that?"
He sighed. "Yeah. This is too dangerous. I can't lose you. I can't keep putting you in danger, you or Mel and Jimmy. I can't do that to you, Ri. I…" He shook his head. "I can't lose you."
"It'd be nice," Langly said slowly, "not to have to worry…" He sounded about as depressed as Byers felt. "Maybe we wouldn't have to give it all up, though.We could still get stories… Tips… Document diving…" He shrugged. "Straight hacking. Not go into… all the other stuff."
"Yeah, I guess," he said, unenthusiastically.
Langly watched him for a while. Byers didn't know what he was seeing, but it didn't seem to make him happy.
"It won't work, Johnny." He sighed. "You can't give it up. I don't know if I can, either, really, but I know you can't. It's too big a part of you."
He started to object, but Ringo cut him off. "You can't. I can't make you. I don't want to make you. You're—" He shook his head. "Ever since… Susanne… you've had something burning in you. Something important. It's what you are. It's… It's why I love you, you need so much to be a good man, to help. Even just thinking about this, you… You're different. Part of you is gone already."
They didn't talk like this often, and Ringo seemed determined to get it all out, everything he'd been thinking. "John, I love you. I love who you are. And I don't want you to have to stop being that just because you can't rely on me, because I'm afraid for you and can't even help. Because I'm a coward."
That word again, and Byers was still astounded by it. He tried to think of some way to make Ringo get it. "Ri… Do you remember our first time?"
Langly sighed. "The thing with the dogs. In Tulsa."
"Yes." He thought about it for a moment. "The dogs, yes."
Langly closed his eyes. "And that pitfight bastard coming in and catching us. I remember all that. You stood there with that box of crazy puppies and you wouldn't put them back and he almost hit you with that metal thing, God yes, I remember. Fro jumped him and he missed and you were okay. You… were okay."
"That's not—"
But Langly was still talking, still in that long-ago moment. "And Fro called the cops, and I still just stood there. All I could do the whole time was just watch you, John, watch you standing up to that fucker. Refusing to let him have them back. Refusing to be scared. And God, I'd had a crush on you for a long time, but… Watching you like that, I knew I was in love with you. And I was so scared that you were going to die. And that I'd never even be able to tell you how important you are… And I still couldn't do anything. I still froze." His voice had dropped to a whisper. "I'm sorry, John."
John reached up and wiped at Ringo's tears. "Ri, do you know what I remember about that night?"
Langly let out a bitter laugh. "The fucking metal bar. Just like the guns. What else do you remember out of something like that?"
Byers half-smiled. "That's true. It's not what I was thinking of, though. I remember how much courage it took, for you to come to my room that night."
Langly snorted. "I had a room full of puppies, John. I didn't want an asthma attack."
Byers shook his head. "You're not fooling anyone, you know. The puppies, though, that took courage, too. You'd come up with that whole plan, just to get pictures of the dogs and the pits, and go to the cops. But when we got there, and saw what he was doing… I remember the look on your face when you found that pen of puppies, and you couldn't just take the pictures and leave. Then Frohike explained what they were there for, and there was no way we were getting you out of there without them."
"Yeah, and we made so much noise breaking the lock that he heard us. If we'd just left with the pictures…"
"The puppies would have been dead in hours," John finished.
Langly's shoulder twitched under his head. "Yeah, but…"
"I want to say I fell in love with you that night, too, Ri. But I didn't. I'd been in love with you for years."
Ringo was startled, and John reached up to touch his face. "I had. After Vegas, when… when we almost lost you. I'd had these dreams for a couple of years, where I'd be with Susanne, and then she'd disappear, and I'd be left with nothing. But after Vegas, they weren't about her anymore. I'd be standing in the Warehouse, downstairs usually, talking with you, never anything important, and then I'd kiss you and everything would start to fade away and then you'd turn into sand and blow away and I'd be alone in the middle of the desert…"
Langly didn't seem to know what to say, and Byers took a few moments to just breathe. He shifted cautiously, trying to take some of the pressure off the worst of his ribs, and Langly loosened his grasp and tried rubbing his back instead.
"It was awful," John said eventually.
Ringo looked at the wall again. "I know. I mean, I know part of it. I mean—" He hesitated, and then shrugged. "We'd hear you having the dreams. And sometimes when it got bad I'd come in and just sit with you a while, while you slept. Just to be there if you needed something…." His voice trailed off.
It was John's turn to be startled. He tried to sort out how he felt about that, and was surprised by what he found.
"Are—Are you mad?" Langly asked anxiously.
"What? No. I—No." He wasn't sure why, really. It seemed like the sort of thing that should have made him feel invaded, but it really didn't. He thought of Ringo sitting by him while he slept, and it just made him warm inside, that he'd been safe and protected even when he hadn't known it. "No. I—Thank you. I wish I'd known."
"You said her name one night," Ringo said quietly. "I wouldn't have told you, because I knew you wanted her, I knew…"
It left John in awe. "God, Ringo." He struggled for words. "I will never know—never—how you found the courage…" He started over. "The dreams, where you'd disappear, I let them keep me from saying anything to you. I thought… I was afraid, terrified, that if I told you how I felt, you'd disappear, it'd all fall apart, home, the paper, everything. I was afraid I'd be alone again, and it was better to be around you, even if it was like an ache all the time, than to have you just vanish from my life…"
John took a deep breath. "And that night in Tulsa, seeing how much you cared for those puppies, how helpless they were, and how—fierce, you were about them… I was just lying there in that hotel room for hours, trying to get up the nerve to go next door, and you…" He shook his head in wonder. "You just… came to me. You just came and knocked on my door and when I let you in, you kissed me, and you've never disappeared and it's been so good, so good…"
He felt tears on his face, but Langly was crying too, and he didn't care. John shrugged helplessly. "I don't know how you did it. You couldn't have known how I'd react, you couldn't have known if I was straight or bi or what, you didn't know if I was with someone, or even if you just weren't my type…"
Langly curled his lip at the litany, seeming to know they were questions John had asked himself, too.
"And you did it anyway, thinking I still wanted her." John shook his head again. "'Cowardice', Ri, is so far from how I see you that I can't even imagine it." He almost smiled. "You're not good with guns, I know. But that only makes someone a coward in those idiotic action movies you watch." Ringo started to protest but John put his hand over his mouth. "Life isn't a movie, Ri. I don't need you to be my action hero. You've already taken the biggest risk for me I could ever want, and I'll be grateful for the rest of my life."
They were still for a while, listening to the sounds the ancient building made in the night, the hum of the security system, the ticking of the corridor light no-one had gotten around to replacing yet, the occasional faint creak the fourth stair from the top made as it settled in the cooler night air.
Ringo bent his head and kissed John on the cheek. "Thank you," he said finally. "You make me feel good."
John chuckled a bit and Ringo turned pink.
"No, I mean it, Johnny. Watching you, when we're on a story… You get so determined, and so… strong. It's such a huge part of why I love you. That night, all those dogs, that bastard and all the blood… It just seemed like there wasn't enough love in the world to do anybody any good. And there you were in the middle of it, and no matter what you weren't going to let him… I was watching the puppies playing in the bathtub, later, when it was over, and they were so cool. I was giving them the stupid Milk Bones Fro picked out, and they were just happy, and I thought, Byers did that, he saved them and let them be happy. They were puppies, Johnny, they're supposed to be happy, not... But I knew we couldn't keep them, and I still wanted something to keep from it, and I just thought… I thought maybe you had enough love that you could save me, too." It came out in a rush. "And you did. You had enough love for me, too. It… amazed me, really. It still does. You saved them, then you saved me."
John smiled. "We saved them together. You wouldn't leave without them."
"Nobody was trying to kill me."
"You're still not fooling anyone, Ri. I've seen you with a gun on you. You may freeze, but you don't give up. You wouldn't have given them back either, and I knew that. Nothing on earth could have made me do that to you."
Eventually, Ringo smiled. "So we keep doing it. We keep telling the story."
"Do we?" Byers raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. I think we do. There's—Without it, you're not you anymore. I never asked before, because I knew that. And I won't make you give that up, now, either." He smiled again. "Nothing could make me do that to you, either."
John reached up and played with the lock of blond hair in front of his face. "Thank you, Ri. I'm glad you're not angry anymore. It really worried me."
Ringo grabbed his hand. "Just—Just one thing, Johnny."
"What?"
"Just try to be careful, okay? Please?"
John did laugh finally, though it hurt. "Yeah. Okay."