#for dealing with my half formed ideas and helping me fond a drection to take them

[captainsuke]

had to make a choice that was not mine (had to say goodbye for the last time)

The first thing he finds, when he’s finally stopped, no more flights no more buses, taxis or any sort of movement, just him and an empty cheap hotel room, what he finds is two hundred grand packed into the bottom of his backpack and he is so mad.

That’s so illegal, he thinks wildly before laughing himself sick. Like he’s not in a foreign country traveling under a passport that’s definitely not bearing his name, like he’s not on the run from the law, like what is one more law broken?

Still. Jesus Christ Deran.

He finds the phone eventually, underneath it all. Stares at it for a long time after. Has to stop himself from hurling it against a wall.

The first time Deran calls, the first time the phone rings, he almost doesn’t answer it.

But he does. Presses the little green button, puts it to his ear and hangs up at the sound of Deran’s voice.

Then immediately regrets it. Then doesn’t. Then does again. Adrian doesn’t know.

The phone sits quiet for an hour, for two. It’s just past lunch time which makes it late in the night yesterday back in Oceanside, Adrian can picture the scene vividly. Deran keeping his insomnia company, smoking and holding his phone tight. Then it rings again.

This time he picks up.

Adrian doesn’t give him time to talk, says some things he doesn’t mean, a lot of things, says all the words that have been brewing in his chest, and Deran stays silent through out his entire tirade.

When he’s done, angrily heaving breaths, Deran just asks are you okay?

“Can you do anything if I’m not?”

Deran’s silent for a long time, long enough that Adrian thinks maybe he’s going to hang up. That he’s finally said the thing that makes him hang up.

But he does answer. Eventually. A quiet broken no.

The truth doesn’t make him feel any better. But it does make him feel something.

He doesn’t hang up next time Deran calls.

The third, fourth, fifth calls go like that, Deran listening to Adrian’s words, Adrian listening to the sound of Deran’s breathing,

The change of breath when something he says lands particularly hard.

The next call, he’s tired, he misses home and his sister and Deran, their house on the beach, their main surfboards leaning up next to each other, Deran’s pile of stupidly expensive skate shoes that they would both trip over at the door.

He’s lonely and tired and he just doesn’t have any stories to tell, can’t think of anything to say, doesn’t want to be the one talking today.

“What’s up with you?”

He swears he can hear Deran shrug even as he says nothing.

“No, come on man, this doesn’t work if it’s just me. It’s not just me, right?”

Deran makes a noise that Adrian hopes is him agreeing, then, finally, he speaks.

“Right, okay, okay, uhh, Pope and J are getting along? I think?”

“That’s… good?” Adrian never had much to do with Julia’s kid; doesn’t have many memories of him from when they were kids and J was toddling around the Cody house, has just the handful of times he’s been around since he came back, since Adrian and Deran got together.

(and fell apart, fuck, they’d never had any time, Adrian thinks, like star crossed lovers if he’s feeling melodramatic, cursed if he’s feeling worse. Their timing sucked from day one but sometimes it seemed like the entire universe was conspiring to make everything turn to shit, to make little mistakes and minor problems into fleeing the country and losing everything. It’s not fair.)

“Man, I don’t even know.” Deran says, but he kind of chuckles afterwards. Like maybe it wasn’t all that bad. Or maybe he’s just laughing because it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, everything just keeps happening and they’re just trying to keep above water now.

After that it’s easier. Or something like easy. Some days Adrian talks about shit he sees, the tourists he’s overcharging to learn how to surf, the little kids that he borrows boards to when the weather gone bad and business is slow. The grandmother a couple of houses down that is always pushing food on him. She calls him Silly Boy with a fond voice, but Adrian doesn’t tell Deran that.

Other days Deran talks around stuff at home. Meanders around topics like he can’t keep his attention on any one thing. Like maybe he’s avoiding topics he thinks Adrian doesn’t want to hear about. Or things he doesn’t know how to talk about.

He says Craig’s gotta dad now, then talks about Renn introducing Nic to the ocean for an hour.

Smurf’s shrine keeps coming back he says, and Adrian remembers the pile of flowers and candles that Deran had stared long and hard at with red rimmed eyes, sitting uninvited on the side walk outside The Drop. Then he spends the rest of the phone call talking about two of his bartenders trying to pretend they’re not dating, when everyone knows they totally are.

“What do people think happened?” He asks one time, what do his friends think, his sister? The guys they’d surf with, Adrian’s regular customers, the random people who’d come up to him sometimes, who liked having a pro surfer give them advice on surfboards. What do they think happened to him?

“Ah. Ha,” It’s a weird laugh, amused, but not in a good way. “Most people think I killed you.”

Oh.

“Wow,” is what he ends up saying. Very carefully doesn’t say you did.

Which.

He doesn’t know how he feels about that. Maybe a week ago he would have said it. When he first got here he definitely would have, would have yelled it, and maybe would have found other words to throw, to hurt.

He’s not sure how he feels about the change. It’s not bad, he thinks. Maybe it’s not bad that he’s not so angry anymore. Even if it leaves only sadness behind.

He misses Deran.

Misses the quiet shyness that only he got to see. Misses the way he’d hold his head, mouth twisting into a cocky grin, eyes searching for Adrian’s because Deran always wanted Adrian to be watching. Fuck, he misses his quiet frustrated sighs. God, how can Adrian miss the look on Deran’s face when things got too much? The careful blank expression and forced stillness, fuck, he misses the bad as much as the good.

“Today is the worst.” Deran announces at the start of one call, sounding funny, like he’s speaking face down on a bed, but there’s the sound of him shifting constantly, his breath making small noises of hurt.

“You okay?”

“Some asshole prepper named Thor broke like half my ribs, so congratulations I hate those movies now too.”

“I don’t know, I kind of liked those movies,” Adrian retorts just to hear Deran make an offended noise. “All that long blond hair.”

“Yeah, well this guy was a cueball, plus he’s my cousin, well, Pope’s cousin, so there’s that.”

“Wow, okay, what?” The Cody’s don’t have family. It’s one of the weirdest thing about their fucked up family lore. Old lady Smurf just appearing out of no where, all of her sons without fathers, just another way to keep them stuck to her. (She’s dead, he tells himself, like crossing himself, sometimes he just has to say it out loud. Smurf is dead. It still doesn’t feel real.)

“Yeah they’re fitting right in, they might actually have shittier genes than us.”

“What happened?”

“Hit me with his fucking car.”

“Are you okay?” Adrian worries and Deran laughs with a hitching breath.

“Hey, you know me, I hood surfed that bitch easy.”

“Yeah? How’d you break the ribs then?”

Silence

“Didn’t stick the landing?” Adrian teases.

“Not even a good attempt man.” There’s humor in Deran’s voice at least.

“Gotta work on that.”

Deran laughs his wounded laugh and Adrian’s hands ache where they’re wrapped around the phone.

Adrian can hear a baby crying in the background, making it hard to hear the words Deran’s mumbling in his ear.

“Deran where are you?”

He doesn’t answer but there’s the sound of a door sliding open, then closed, and Adrian can hear the ocean in the background instead of a baby’s cry.

Deran doesn’t say anything.

“You should go home.”

Deran clears his throat with a swallow that sounds wet and Adrian hates that he made that happen. He’s not an idiot. Adrian didn’t look back when he walked away from Deran leaving him at the pier. But he did when he was in the car, when they drove away and all that was in the rear view was a man curled in on himself on the ground with shaking shoulders. He knows he’s not the only one that died a little that last night in Oceanside. No matter how angry he is at Deran at any time Adrian hates when he cries. Probably hates it more than Deran himself hates it. And fuck he hated crying. When he’d been a kid he’d hold his breath til he was red in the face just trying to stop hiccuping breaths from exposing him. Not that it mattered, Deran’s face is the type that all but shouted from the rooftops if he was even adjacent to tears.

“I’m making Craig pay for all the big brother bullshit I’ve had to do for the last ten years.” Deran says instead.

Adrian lets him have his deflection. Tries not to think about their house sitting empty and abandoned, while Deran couch surfs or – god forbid – moves back into his bar’s crawl space.

Not often, but sometimes it’s a lot of silence and very few words. But those words carry a lot more weight.

Adrian watches the waves rolling in, brightly colored swimsuits bobbing in the blue, phone to his ear as he listens to that familiar breathing, the wind and the crashing of waves half a world away.

“I miss you.” It’s said now, out loud with no chance of taking it back. “Even when I hate you, I miss you.”

Adrian can hear the slosh of liquid, Deran swallowing, the clink of glass against glass.

“I know I tried to say it, but I never said it.” Adrian says, even now skirting around the real words. (I love you)

Deran doesn’t say anything for a very long time, just the two of them listening to each other’s wet breathing, pretending that they’re both holding it together. When Deran does speak his voice cracks.

“I want you here, I don’t, I can’t -” Deran cuts off like he’s choking. “I keep forgetting you’re not coming back.”

Adrian doesn’t think that’s what he was going to originally say, but he lets it go. There’s things he’s tried to say, words that circle around in his head but catch in his throat. They’ve never been much good at talking, these past months is probably the most they’ve spoken since they were idiot kids wanting to spill every thought and secret to the other. As though if nothing was between them, nothing could tear them apart.

Their style of comfort - their type of communications - has nearly always been in presence and touch; Adrian with his never ending patience, his ready comfort that tied no strings, and Deran always in Adrian’s corner, always standing behind him, ready with words and fists.. They really had made a great pair, even if time had torn them apart, turned those kids into something almost unrecognizable.

Adrian leans back in his deck chair, bites into brightly colored fruit that’s even sweeter than it’s bright skin would suggest. Juice runs down his fingers and in the background kids scream and squeal as waves break against them. He’ll have to go back to work soon, feeling drained and washed out, conversations like this don’t belong in a bright day, with the heavy air and warm sun. Adrian would kill to be back on his shitty couch, Deran’s head in his lap, but the thought just makes him ache.

He has to go back to work.

There’s still questions he tries to ask.

When-? Will-? Can I ever come home?

But not everything is easier to say like this. So, yet again, things go unsaid.

He rings Deran one night – his night – when the walls are closing in, when the noises of tourists get drunk in the streets makes him want to curl up and die, or go out there and get drunker and do something real fucking stupid.

“I’m sorry, you know? I know, I, I fucked up this time.”

“Don’t, you know, just don’t with that shit.” Deran’s voice starts sharp then goes thin and small. “If anything, you know it was me, I fucked up. “

It’s easier, which is fucked up Adrian knows – he knows – but it’s easier to talk like this, where the only hard part is the days when things have gone wrong, when Deran’s voice is strained and hurt, Adrian aches with loneliness so hard that he feels physically destroyed, and Adrian has to curl around the phone in his hand to stop himself from buying a plane ticket and forcing Deran to come be with him.

“You’re not the only one that fucked up this time.”

He wonders where Deran is, the nights Deran rings he can hear the bar, or a brother, or something that he can recognize. All he can hear now is the generic sound of traffic, Deran’s shoe scuffing against the ground in a continuous rhythmic noise, maybe the murmur of voices in the distance.

“I think you’ve got some credit in the fucking up department.” Deran’s tone goes dry, like he thinks the idea that Adrian should take any of the blame is hilarious.

“That’s not how it works, Deran.”

Adrian hears the distinct bark of Pope’s voice, the words lost though the angry tone remains. Deran sighs but doesn’t answer his brother.

“Try and get some sleep Adrian,” he says.

As Deran hangs up, Adrian can hear the snarl of words not meant for him, the maybe sound of a scuffle. He doesn’t sleep for a long time, but he doesn’t go out. Doesn’t do anything stupid. That’s got to count for something.

Sometimes it’s just Deran talking shit, half formed sentences and thoughts and all Adrian needs to do is make the occasional hum and Deran will keep talking, and for awhile Adrian gets to feel like maybe it’s not all bad. But sometimes he says something important in the constant stream of words.

“Wait, did you, are you saying I could come home?”

Deran’s silent for a very long time. Like maybe he didn’t mean to say anything.

“Deran. Talk to me. Tell me.” Adrian takes a deep breath, tries not to feel anything. “Even if it sucks, you gotta tell me.”

Deran stays silent for a little while longer, but Adrian knows Deran needs time; he doesn’t know how to say things sometimes, it’s half their problems, their inability to say the things they think.

“Okay,” Deran finally says with a shuddering breath. “You’re right. It’s weird, Oceansides weird now, man. A whole lotta Smurf’s old contacts have been coming out. Since she, you know, since she’s been gone.”

Adrian makes a noise to let him know he’s still listening, hating the way Deran’s voice hesitates unsure talking about his mother. He doesn’t know what exactly went down when Smurf died. Not exactly. Knows just enough to know it was bad. Really bad. That Smurf had gone out of her way to fuck up her kids just that little bit more on her way out. Part of him wants Deran to feel like he can talk about anything with him. The rest of him wants to never hear her mentioned again, unless its a plan to dig her up and set her on fire for all the shit she’s put all them all through. For the shit that’s still tearing them apart even now she’s gone.

“People we never even knew existed. And they want, you know, the usual bullshit, money, favors, chance to say they screwed over the Cody’s.” He sounds bitter as he says it, like he’s continuously disappointed by the criminals he deals with.

“Deran.” Adrian says, trying to pull him back to focus, Deran will bitch about assholes for hours if he got started.

“There’s this fed.” Deran blurts out. “Crooked as fuck, dirty, you know? But he says. He says your deal should have stuck, like you held your end, feds should have held up theirs.”

“What’s he want?” Adrian asks, because they always want something, and he might not be able stop Deran from doing something stupid, but he can at least know what the cost was.

“Same shit, I guess.” Deran answers.

“Deran…”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I don’t know what he wants. How long it’ll take.” Deran says it like he doesn’t care, like it doesn’t matter what the crooked fed asks for, like it was a done deal as soon as he knew what sort of currency was required.

It reminds Adrian of a conversation weeks ago, a short one where Deran’s voice had been half slurred with alcohol or lack of sleep (or both)

You don’t know what I’ve done, I’ve done things. Way I am now, you don’t want me anywhere near you.

And he didn’t have anything to say to it back then, doesn’t know what to say now. He doesn’t know how he feels about the fact that part of him screams I don’t care! that whatever Deran’s done doesn’t matter to him.

He’s fucked, he’s known that since he was fifteen and the two of them had nursed bloody noses and black eyes behind the bleachers at school, fucked since Deran had leaned over his bar and said you made it clear you didn’t want to hear from me with a smile on his face, like it was okay if the past was all they ever got to have.

It’s been half a year and Deran left him to fend for himself in a foreign country and Adrian still wants to know how he’s doing, still wants nothing bad for the idiot, wants to go back to those nights when Deran was relaxed enough to let Adrian wrap his arms around him, to curl around him til there wasn’t any space between the two of them.

Something that feels like it could be hope starts growing, like the unfurling petals of a flower slowly blossoming in his chest.

Adrian’s so fucking gone on this idiot that the only thing that makes all of this remotely okay, is that maybe – just maybe – Deran’s just as lost on him.