For One Night Only

Man in the Mirror
by elfin

It turned into one long fucking night. The meet with Stevens had been planned for eleven – why the hell did drug dealers work such nocturnal hours? He was late, he was spooked. That put us on alert; we assumed he was suspicious of us, assumed someone had dropped the bombshell that he might be dealing with cops. What neither of us had realised, could possibly have guessed, was that he had his own secrets just waiting to come crashing out of the closet, set to ambush what should have been a quiet meet and greet.

Without warning Sonny and I were inadvertently caught in the middle of an age-old feud - ironic, given the state our own partnership was in – and trapped in the middle of a fire fight, separated because unusually we’d both jumped in different directions. Or maybe not so unusually, not considering the way we were. There was shouting, there was shooting. My partner stopped a bullet meant for the bad guys. One minute Sonny was firing his Bren-10 at the bad guys all around us, and the next he was on the ground. I saw him go, saw him fall because I was looking straight at him. I yelled his name, ran the gauntlet from where I was hunkered down behind an empty storage crate to where he lay between a mini-forklift truck and the door of the warehouse, ducked a million bullets to reach him. He was lying on his back, a red rose blossoming on the front of his white shirt, just to the left and up, away from his heart, and he wasn’t unconscious, he was dragging pained breaths in to one healthy lung and by the look of it, by the sound of it, one lung that was collapsing and filling with fluid.

Things might have been wrong between us but it didn’t mean I could watch him hurt for a single second and not hurt myself; he was still my partner. He grabbed and gripped my hand and I let him crunch all the little bones in it as he lay on the ground, gasping, rasping for air and finding his throat filling with blood. I turned him on to his injured side, not bothering to apologise as he screamed in pain. I was just tryin’ to stop his good lung filling up too. I watched as he coughed blood onto the concrete and convulsed, I felt the tremors in his body against my legs where I knelt close to him and I thought I should be begging him to stay alive. But I couldn’t find my voice to say anything and suddenly a rage unlike anything I’d ever felt before bubbled up from somewhere deep inside me and I yelled at him, under the noise of the fire fight still battling on around us, “you shot me in that alley, Sonny! You fucking shot me you miserable fucking bastard....” I don’t know if he heard me, he didn’t let up on the death grip he had on my hand and he looked like he was in more pain than he could deal with. I felt instantly like a bastard; why the hell was this coming back now?! He was lying there, bleeding, shaking, with me yellin’ that I’d trusted him, put my life, my heart, my soul into his hands, that I fucking loved him! He’d betrayed me and how dare he try to die on me before I’d had a chance to punch his lights out for what he’d done and he’d had the time to say how fucking sorry he was.

Backup was Stan and Callie on the roof of the warehouse; they’d called in before the first bullet hit its victim and they’d called the paramedics the moment Sonny had gone down. Stan’s hand landed on my shoulder as I started to hear the sirens over my own shouting and the chaos around us. I didn’t look up, didn’t want him to see the twisted anger on my face, my eyes filled with tears. I didn’t care what had happened to Stevens, his guys and whoever the hell had shot at us. I could only focus on Sonny, at the churn of emotions that made me want to vomit with terror and heartbreak every time I was close to him now. On the ground, he’d lost consciousness. His grip on my hand had just gone, his fingers were limp, caught between mine and I let go, let his hand drop to the concrete in front of him, regretting it the moment I did it, horrified at the sight of it dropping to the wet ground. I reached over him, lifted it again gently and held it, stroking his fingers with my thumb.

It struck me for real that he might well be dying, bleeding out or drowning in it, that I might not have a chance to say everything I wanted to say to his face, to have him listen and apologise because that’s all I wanted. I never intended leaving him, couldn’t – it’d be like ripping out my own heart – but I wanted him to admit he remembered, to tell me how sorry he was and how much it was eating him up inside because I needed to hear it, damn it! I needed him to say it.

I leaned over him, put my face close to his and said, “Sonny? Sonny... you hold on, you son of a bitch, hold on. Don’t you dare – don’t you dare die. Not here. Not now.”

Ten minutes ago – ten long, lousy minutes - we were introducing ourselves to Stevens, agreeing a weight and a price. It was the start of a long, steep rise to the top of this particular ladder, we’d be living and breathing undercover work for months and that was scary as hell because Sonny and I were broken and I didn’t know if he was going to come apart on me or turn back into Burnett and take my brains out at point blank range having forgotten I’m his partner, the single most important man in his world, or so I thought.

The paramedics turned up in a pool of blue and red. Castillo turned up too but he kept his distance, from me, from Sonny as the medics stabilised him, stuck a needle in his arm, an oxygen mask over his face and pads against the bullet wound to stem the bleeding. I hadn’t done that, and they must have been wondering why I hadn’t done that, why I hadn’t done anything. I was wondering too, taking a couple of uncertain steps away, ready to run but the Lieutenant was behind me and he told me ‘to go with my partner’ in the ambulance. He made it sound like an order and I obeyed it without question. Castillo had been the one who’d stopped me flying apart after Sonny’s ‘death’ and later all the hell I went through, finding out that he was alive. I owed Castillo big time, if he wanted me to be with Sonny now, that’s where I was going to be.

~

The waiting room was dark, hot and sticky; the air conditioning was fucked. The Lieutenant had switched the strip lights off, stopped them burning out our retinas and I was ridiculously grateful for it. I’d spent four hours standing at the window watching the storm that was doing nothing to lower the temperature inside or out. Not ashamed to admit I’d shed a few tears; I was wiped out, exhausted, I had no idea if I was crying them for Sonny or for me. I don’t suppose it mattered. I held my partner’s badge in my palm and stared at it like it was a photograph of a beautiful woman until my legs finally threatened to give out and I crashed in to one of the armless chairs, eyes refusing to close despite the last time I’d slept being over forty-eight hours ago.

Something tapped my hand and when I looked up, Stan was holding out a Styrofoam cup of bitter coffee from the machine in the corridor. I looked at him, nodded, took it and smiled my thanks. His new partner, Callie, was standing on the periphery; she’d been with us a matter of months, nowhere near long enough to understand the nuances of the inter-departmental relationships, the history and the baggage. When things got heavy on the personal side, she tended to step back. I was amazed she hadn’t asked for a transfer to a saner unit; OCB was barely functioning. It was no surprise that when Gina and Trudy pressed their way into the room, she melted into the shadows. They said nothing; touched my shoulder, touched my head, reassured me they were there for me if I needed them.

We’d been here before; with Gina, with Castillo, with Sonny in ironically happier times. My eyes filled again and I wiped them with the back of my hand, sipped the stuff masquerading as coffee and forced my lids shut knowing sleep was as likely to come as world peace. I was still mourning ‘us’, the loss of the greatest partnership, the best friendship, the most powerful relationship of my life. If Sonny died on the operating table, we’d never have a chance to sort things out, to move on from where we were stalled right now. I’d never have a chance to say all the things I’d been biting back since his return to Miami, to Crockett, to me. I’d taken a huge leap of faith by going back out into the field with him at my side, and sometimes I still preferred to have Stan watching my back. I knew that hurt Sonny, knew Castillo was letting me choose sometimes and I know it hurt him too because he loves Sonny, despite everything, despite it all, his love for my partner is unconditional and he’ll never doubt him, not ever. I wish I could feel that, wish I could be that forgiving but it wasn’t Castillo in that alley, looking into the eyes of the man he loves and seeing nothing; no recognition, no hint of the affection that had been there before, just a fake smile and nothing else. Sonny was my partner and it was up to us to work things out. But I needed to give us that chance, and I realised I hadn’t up till now.

He had to make it, he had to live. We had to talk, however painful it ended up being, whatever recriminations and blame that brought to the surface because while I had a lot to forgive Sonny for, there was a reason Castillo was feeling guilt like lead on his shoulders; we’d let Crockett down, left him injured and alone in the hands of the bad guys. He wouldn’t have tried to kill me if we hadn’t left him to sink deeper into his alter ego, the fantasy life he and those around him had literally created. Burnett had always been there, sure, but he was a name, a cover, a creation. When Sonny was injured in the first explosion on the boat, Burnett was given life like a modern day Frankenstein’s monster. Only that wasn’t right, was it? Because the monster was the innocent victim created by the crazy scientist or in Sonny’s case, drug dealing scum. Thing is, I don’t think it had crossed Sonny’s mind that we even had a part to play in what happened. He blamed himself for everything that had happened, everything that he’d done as Burnett.

This was going to destroy us if we didn’t talk it out, forgive each and other and consign it to the past with all the rest of the shit we’d been dealt over the years. I had no doubt it was something we could work out – we’ve got so much history, Sonny and I, we love one another; like friends, like brothers, like... it was complicated and everything was messed up now. We were partners, and that was the most complicated word I’d ever known; the definition had become blurred for us a long time ago until I had no idea anymore what it meant.

That was the wait. Over two hundred and forty minutes, before a man in a red-splashed white coat looking as exhausted as I felt stepped through the double doors at the end of the dark room and looked at us. “He’s stable.” Stable was good. Stable was a relief like storm clouds moving off. “The bullet entered his shoulder, clipped bone and tore open a lung. We’ve stitched him up, got him on a respirator for the time being but I’m confident he’s going to make a full recovery.” Castillo asked the inevitable, and when the surgeon nodded he put his hand on my shoulder and he might well have reached for my hand. I was going to see my partner, I was going to be with him while he healed; message received and understood, Lieutenant.

I sat on the edge of Sonny’s bed and like I had done out on the docks I picked up his hand and held it, stared at the thick tube snaking out of his mouth and the sterile dressing covering half of the left side of him. I could hear Castillo and the doctor somewhere behind me, talking quietly about Sonny’s condition. I could see Sonny’s condition. His forehead was damp with sweat; he was pale, almost white, lips blue where they were parted around the breathing tube. His temperature was up, heart rate down, blood pressure down. It would all stabilise, his surgeon reassured us, overnight his vitals should improve, approach more normal levels. He was sedated and it would be for a few days until the tear in his lung had started to heal and they would consider taking him off the respirator and letting him wake.

The surgeon left. Sometime later a nurse came in and checked his vitals and the tubes and wires. Then Castillo came closer, touched his lips to Sonny’s hot forehead, and said something quietly that I either didn’t catch or couldn’t understand. To me he said, “Stay with him,” and I nodded, surprising myself by meaning it, by wanting to stay. After he left, I let go of Sonny’s hand and pulled a chair up to the bed. Then I closed my eyes and when I finally fell asleep I dreamt in red.

~

I lived three days between the hospital and OCB. I thought it would be Castillo’s disapproving stares that sent me scuttling back there but whenever I was away from the place I found myself wanting to be back, sitting at Sonny’s bedside. I wanted to be the first thing he saw when he woke, wanted to make that statement – look what I do for you, Crockett, you owe me!

But as the hours dragged on, as the days ticked through, I watched the nurses and Sonny’s doctor check his vitals, check his wound, check the machinery helping stabilise his condition; I watched them treat him with the utmost care and dignity and slowly but surely the same thing that had happened way back when Sonny had first returned to us happened again: anger faded to love. I’d cared for Sonny a lot longer than I’d been wary, scared of him even. I love his passion, his dedication and kinda selfishly his devotion to me. Our partnership is the closest in the department, the closest I’ve ever come across. They say a partnership is like a marriage without the sex – usually without the sex; I’d met a few partners who were bangin’ one another. We weren’t that much of an exception.

One morning had Sonny picked me up in that white dream machine of his and said to me, ‘I was thinking about you last night,’ and for the rest of the day those words rattled around inside my head. It was a late night following a raid on a club downtown – we arrested seven guys and three gals for dealin’ and spent until three a.m. languishing in jail to keep our covers solid. By the time we stepped out into the unbelievable, breath-taking heat of a summer night in Miami we were both fried and wired. Outside my place I invited him in and he took me up on the offer of a shower and a nightcap. My shower has a head the size of a plate and the power of a fusion reactor; the shower on the St Vitus has a head the size of a saucer and the splutter of an ancient car battery. When he stepped out of the water I threw a towel and a straight bourbon at him; he dropped the towel, threw back the liquor, and the way he looked at me.... Christ, I knew what was in his eyes, knew what he’d meant by what he’d said that mornin’, and I knew why I hadn’t been able to get those words out of my head all day. All that tension that had been sizzlin’ away between us from the moment we’d met at a fated bust suddenly exploded in the heat. He wrestled me through to the bedroom and we hit the mattress like two horny teenagers, hands and teeth and tongues exploring, drivin’ each other crazy. Didn’t matter what we were, it only mattered who we were and I ended up comin’ like a freight train, all over his hand as I sucked on his tongue and felt the vibrations of the noises he was makin’. He came hard too, rubbin’ against my balls which felt like the most erotic thing on the whole damn planet, told me it hadn’t been that good in years and I believed him because I knew what he meant; we trusted each other implicitly. We loved one another, knew one another; knew who we really were. And that made it good. It made it great.

Then that fucking yacht blew up, everything went to hell and I didn’t know if I’d ever trust him like that again.

How long Castillo had been standing behind my shoulder? Something made me turn and he was standing there.

It was late on the third night. Sonny’s surgeon was talking about letting him wake in the morning and I still hadn’t sorted through the waves of emotion that had been rolling over me. For more time our Lieutenant stood as still as a statue watching Sonny in his imposed sleep. Then he spoke in that quiet voice, the one that can be heard over the loudest noise, and he said,

“Was it worse when you thought he was dead… or when you knew for a fact that he wasn't?”

Then he left. Bastard. He’d timed it perfectly. And I knew what he was tryin’ to do. When that boat had blown it had taken everything I had, everything I gave a damn about. Course not findin’ a body meant I’d still hoped, every minute, every hour, every day, that somehow he’d made it, he was still alive and he’d turn up somewhere. And turn up he did. Nothin’ could have been worse than people tryin’ to get me to believe he was dead and to accept it. Except maybe the look in the Lieutenant’s eyes after Sonny had bashed Stan across the head and made a break from OCB just when we thought he’d come back to us. The idea of livin’ the rest of my life without him had sometimes made it impossible to breathe, impossible to take a single next step. But he had come back, had proved himself to us, saved my life. And I’d spent a couple of months trying to work through my anger, my mistrust, my suspicion that at any second he was gonna turn that deadly piece of his on me and pull the trigger.

Sometimes I’d look at him and know he could see it in my eyes and he’d look hurt for a second before shutting away his own disappointment in me – in us. He was always so open, so honest with me, never able to hide anything but never wanting to. All that had changed and we were keeping stuff from one another, important stuff. We needed to talk. I’d got Sonny back from the dead. I wanted things back to what they had been. Shuffling forward to sit on the edge of the chair, I reached and hesitantly took Sonny’s hand for the first time since the first night. I squeezed it gently and told him he was going to be okay, we were going to be okay.

~

I was with him when he woke up. It was mid-afternoon and I’d spent the morning at OCB trying to track down the shooters who’d crashed our party four days earlier and put my partner in the hospital. The ballistics reports were due back but I knew they’d stopped drip feeding Sonny the anaesthetic that had been keeping him unconscious and I didn’t really want him to wake alone if I could help it and not for the reasons I’d decided on that first night. I was there for just a few minutes before his eyes opened, widened a second later in panic, and he took me utterly by surprise by trying to pull the breathing tube from his throat. I yelled for a nurse and together we held and calmed him down while a doctor took the tube out of his throat. I backed up slightly to give the doctor and nurses space, and the next thing I knew Sonny was pushing himself up and coughing up blood onto the white sheets. I went cold on the inside, suddenly scared that actually everything wasn’t as simple as the surgeon had made out, that there was something wrong beyond the injury caused by the bullet through his shoulder. But the doctor reassured Sonny that the blood was just coming from his healing lung as well as scrapes made by the tube coming out; there was nothing to worry about and although he wasn’t speaking to me I felt utterly relieved.

The trauma of waking up wiped him out and before we were left alone he was asleep again. I left him to go in search of caffeine and almost walked into Castillo out in the corridor. He was holding a manila envelope which he handed to me. “Ballistics report on the bullet from Sonny’s shoulder.”

Finally I could focus my anger on someone other than my partner. I started to open the envelope but Castillo stopped me. “The bullet came from your gun.”

What? “What?”

“Ballistics matched the bullet with your gun.” I stared at him, thinkin’ this was some weird kinda joke. “You were both caught in the cross fire, bullets flying from everywhere to everywhere.” No. “You didn’t mean to shoot him.” God, no. I didn’t.... “He just caught one of your bullets.” I shot my partner. That was some ironic karma and it made me nauseous. “He isn’t going to blame you for this, Rico.”

Like I blamed him for Lauderdale. Did he mean it to be that implicit? I just... lost it.

“Fuck, Lieutenant! You weren’t there! He looked me in the eye – my own partner! He looked me in the eye and he raised his gun and he fired. Point-blank range! You think I’m wrong to blame him?”

I didn’t expect him to shout back – I can’t recall him ever raising his voice – but I didn’t expect him to smile either. “About time.” I stared at him, still seein’ red. “It’s about time you got angry. Get angry with Sonny, stop tip-toeing around him. Shout, scream, rant, rave, but have it out with him. Fix this between you because it’s tearing you both apart.”

“He’s lying in a hospital bed because of me.”

“And you could have been lying in a morgue because of him. Four nights ago was an accident, Burnett shot you deliberately. You’re angry with him, understandably. He’s anxious, waiting for you to bring it up, waiting for it all to shatter. Don’t think just because he doesn’t remember he isn’t feeling guilty.” I suddenly found myself fighting back tears. Why the hell hadn’t Sonny said something? For the same reason I hadn’t? Because we’re too scared that bringing the subject up would destroy us. “He loves you, Rico. He won’t walk away from you just like you won’t from him.”

~

Three days later

I didn’t stay away from the hospital, I just made sure I was there at night, when Sonny was sleeping, but made sure he knew I’d been there. I worked during the day, grabbing a couple of hours’ sleep at my partner’s bedside. He was making a speedy recovery and they were talking about releasing him. If they didn’t, it wouldn’t be long before he busted himself out, I knew he must be bored stupid during the day and I felt guilty for leaving him to it but I didn’t want to talk it all through in the hospital. Besides, Gina and Trudy and Stan were keeping him occupied some of the time. Even Callie had gone to visit once or twice. I think in the past she was the type Sonny might have gone for, before Catlin. There was just zero sparkage between them and I think Stan was grateful for that. We all were.

It was a Saturday. I slept in late and went for a swim in the ocean, returning to my department-owned beach house, my cover address, to slice some fruit and pretend at living a normal life for just a couple of hours. I was just dressing after a long shower when someone knocked on the door. My hair dripping wet, I fastened a couple of buttons on my shirt and crossed the kitchen, opening the back door and staring at my partner standing there in the bright sunshine. He was dressed in white linen pants and half-wore a dark blue shirt, one arm in, one arm out strapped up and wrapped up in a sling. His sunglasses were pushed up on his head, holding back his wayward hair and he looked as if he’d just run a marathon.

“Hi.”

“Sonny....” Something caught my eye behind him, out on the road, and I realised that his white Ferrari was parked behind my Caddy. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes – Stan had returned it to the harbour, I knew he had, I’d checked. “Man, how the hell did you get here?”

“How the hell do you think?” He was still smiling.

“Tell me you didn’t drive! How can you drive? You can’t drive a stick shift with one hand.”

“No. But she does fifty in first gear.” The smile slipped just a fraction and he glanced at his temporarily out-of-action arm. “So... is this what they call poetic justice?”

Instantly I felt guilty. “Oh, hey...”

But he shook his head. “Gonna at least let me in, Partner?”

I stepped back, and he walked in like he’d never been there before. I didn’t even know why he’d knocked, he had a key. Maybe he just didn’t feel welcome anymore. It made me sad to think that. I got us a couple of cold beers, fetched him a couple of Tylenol and we went out to sit on the steps that led down to the beach.

“I’m sorry, Sonny.” I meant it.

“Oh, man... don’t. Please.” He swallowed the pills dry and took a slug of his beer.

“I shot you.”

“I caught a bullet that you fired at the bad guys. I shot you. Point-blank. I looked you in the eye and fired.” I saw his eyes fill. “Rico.... I’ve tried to say sorry so many times, I’ve lost count. But it’s not enough, you know? It never seems enough, it always sounds so inadequate. I have no idea why you’re still my partner, how you can stand to be anywhere near me.”

I’d been asking myself the same thing over and over since he came back. But the truth is, when I thought he was dead I couldn’t imagine stepping back out onto the streets with anyone else at my side. And when I knew he was alive, when he was back, under investigation by IAD, losing himself in drink on the boat, I worked with Stan and every single time I looked around I expected to see Sonny at my back, no matter how much that sometimes scared me.

“I trust you.”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t. Not like you used to and you shouldn’t. Half the stuff I can’t remember, half I don’t want to. That night in the alley... I really don’t want to see it every time I look at you the way I know you see it when you look at me. But I’ve been tryin’ to remember.” He hesitated, “I’ve been seeing a shrink, a private one, not one connected with the department. She told me it might never come back but I’ve been tryin’. I figure, if I remember it I can deal with it, make it not happen again.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I do know it. It’s our fault it went so far. We should have pulled you out, we should have known it wasn’t you, that something wasn’t right. I should have believed in you.”

“You did.” He pushed his fingers into his eyes. “You came after me. I shot you and you still came back for me, you came to the lighthouse.”

“You remembered me, that night.” Sonny nodded. “You deliberately missed.”

“I just remember feeling... connected to you. There were snippets, of my old life coming back to me like there are now of that time.” He looked at me and I knew what was coming. “I am so, so sorry. You’re the last person in the world I would want to hurt. Whatever I need to do, whatever you need from me, tell me because otherwise we’re going to lose each other and I can’t, Rico... I can’t lose you.” The desperation on his face, the plea in his eyes.... I had to let go of my anger, of this thing that had been threatening to break us. I was sitting out there on the steps of the small beach house I lived in thanks to a job I had, a job I was devoted to, thanks to Sonny. Years ago he’d taken so much crap from me, believed in me when I’d given him zero reason to, vouched for me, lied for me, killed for me, and gone into battle almost every day since with me at his side. I had to forgive him because as much as he owed me, I owed him right back.

I sighed, shook my head and smiled wanly at him. “I had this whole speech prepared.”

Sonny waved his beer in the air before tipping it to his lips. “You should say it. You have to say it, get it out in the open.”

I wasn’t sure I could, wasn’t sure it was still inside me. I closed my eyes and went back to the first time I laid eyes on him across a drugs deal, the first time I spoke to him was after his fist had hit my jaw. But as usual I came forward to the night in that alley in Lauderdale when he shot me, remembering the ice in his eyes; not a hint of recognition. He walked up to me, stopped just in front of me, the joy – that absolute joy that clutched at me – followed by cold terror as he raised his gun and fired. It hurt like hell, in more ways than one. And a chill ran down my spine. Suddenly I was on my feet, hands thrust in my pockets, pacing down the three steps to the sand then back up them, stopping.

“Everything we were, Sonny! You and I we’ve been way more than partners! I thought... whatever happened, whatever went down, we’d be there for one another.” I looked down at the steps beneath my feet, not daring to look up, not wanting to see the expression on his face, in his oh-so-expressive eyes.... “When you flipped you took me with you. Before that, I’d have done anything for you, anything. I’d have died for you. I’d have built that wall with you. But you... you fucking shot me, man! And I... I fucking loved you.”

“Loved?” There were tears in his voice.

I took a deep breath and lifted my head. “Love. I love you. But I’m as lost as you are.” I crouched down, inches from him. His eyes were dry but his heart was in them. “I don’t know what to do, how to get passed this. I’m sorry I shot you, I’m sorry I yelled at you as you lay there bleeding....”

A smile touched his lips and I saw a shine to his eyes. “You yelled at me when I was bleeding?”

“You don’t remember that?”

“No.” He moved his head once. “I just remember the pain like someone set my shoulder alight. You were yellin’ at me?”

“Yeah. Don’t ask me why it all came out then but it did and it’s all I did, held your hand and ranted on....” He laughed softly. “Then we got to the hospital and I realised maybe, maybe you might die and the last thing you’d heard from me....” I trailed off as he shifted forward on the step, leaned forward and touched his forehead to mine.

“I love you, Rico.”

I lifted my head, bringing us almost mouth to mouth. We both hesitated, noses brushing. We’d done this once before but only once, and a lot of shit had happened between us since then. But nothing had changed, not really. Under it all we were the same, just a few new nightmares and a whole lotta new baggage.

“Wanna?” he asked me in a voice no louder than a whisper. Yeah, I did, and that surprised me, surprised us both no doubt.

“Wanna take it slow this time, Sonny.”

I felt his hand on my shoulder, fingers touch my neck. “Sure thing, Partner.” It was going to take time, but we’d be okay eventually, eventually we’d be back in sync.

Fin