New Fanfic: Ghosts of Christmas
Dec. 27th, 2013 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
candy_aTitle: Ghosts of Christmas
Fandom: Donald Strachey Mysteries (movieverse)
Pairing: Donald and Timothy
Rating: R
Word Count: About 4,400
References/Spoilers: Spoilers from Shock to the System; spoilers for my stories "Like Water, Like Breath, Like Rain," and "Home Is Where the Heart Is."
Disclosure: I wish they were mine. Alas, they are not, so I'm just taking them out for a spin with thanks to the men who created them and the actors who brought them to life.
Summary: Don feels like he's done more harm than good in recent years. Someone from his past helps him see things more clearly.
Author's Note: This story is set in the same universe as "Like Water, Like Breath, Like Rain" and "Home Is Where the Heart Is". You can read this one without reading those first, but it will make a lot more sense if you've read those.
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GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS
by
Candy Apple
Don was whistling "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as he shuffled boxes around in the attic, pulling out the Christmas decorations. Timmy would be home soon, and they planned on having dinner and trimming the tree. Their schedules had been crazy, and now that Christmas was a week away, the option to procrastinate was over. Timmy would not hear of just letting it slide, and for all his grumbling about going through all this hoopla for a week, Don enjoyed Christmas with Timmy way too much to miss out on any of it.
He tried not to think too much about their unpleasant trip to Maryland to see his family earlier in the year, or the awful consequences it had. His brother and his girlfriend were both in prison, leaving his niece without either of her parents. Even his grandmother's death wasn't just the natural end of a long life...it was a life cut short by the worst kind of betrayal: a murder in the family. Last Christmas, he'd been surprised with a reunion with his grandmother at Timmy's parents' house, and it had been a wonderful Christmas. When Timmy suggested they spend a quiet Christmas at home this year, Don suspected he was trying to be sensitive to Don's feelings.
"Okay, Strachey, suck it up and quit moping," Don said to himself as he tried to ignore the dark thoughts and go back to whistling some cheerful tune. It was short-lived when a carton balanced precariously on top of one of the ornament cartons toppled to the floor and spilled its contents, which seemed to be a bunch of papers in file folders. "Lovely," he muttered, gathering it all up, figuring that he had probably messed up Timmy's meticulous filing system as he piled the papers back in the box. One item caught his eye, and despite his disinclination to snoop through things that were clearly Timmy's, he couldn't help noticing that it was a letter offering Timmy a job. A really good job as chief of staff for a U.S. senator. His stomach churned when he noticed the date. It had come while he was still in the hospital recovering from the rape.
He wasn't sure what upset him more as he tucked it back with the other papers and closed the box: that he had caused Timmy to have to pass up such an opportunity or that Timmy had never mentioned it. If it didn't matter to Timmy, why hadn't he said anything? The fact he'd kept it to himself all this time could only mean that it was a blow to his career, and he didn't want Don to feel guilty about it.
Not quite able to stay in the spirit of unpacking decorations, Don went downstairs and got a beer out of the refrigerator. A Christmas Carol was droning on the television. Some cable network was running a marathon of all different versions of the classic. Don stood behind the couch and took another drink of his beer. The rotund Ghost of Christmas Present was imparting his wisdom to Scrooge. Don smirked humorlessly at a childhood memory...those weren't too welcome because it made him think of the shambles his family was now...largely because of his intervention. When he was a little boy, he called this ghost the "Ghost of Christmas Presents", thinking of him like some kind of supernatural Santa Claus.
The jolly ghost who seemed more like he should be a bartender at a rollicking Irish pub instead of a spirit of the netherworld was now telling Scrooge that each year, he tried to remove causes of human misery, "which explains my little visit to you."
"Yeah, Scrooge, he'd probably visit me, too. I've got a knack for causing human misery." He took another drink of the beer, then set the half-empty bottle on the counter, picked up his car keys and his coat and went out to his car to take a drive.
It was an unpleasant day outside as it began to get dark, a mixture of snow and freezing rain making the driving tricky. A part of him worried about Timmy getting home safely, but Timmy was a good driver and his car was more roadworthy than Don's...he was better off on his own...in so many ways.
Don didn't know where he was driving to, he only knew what he was running from: all the human misery that could be ascribed to him, all the Christmases that sucked because of him. All of that would have been fine if, in the end, his presence hadn't screwed up Timmy's life, too. A high-powered job in DC was what all Timmy's efforts and talent and years of service should have led to. And there it was, but he'd been saddled with Don laid up and traumatized and barely able to get around under his own power. So he'd not only passed it up, but never mentioned it. Now, a couple years later, and he was still in Albany, still working at the state level. Thanks to Don.
When the car sputtered and rolled to a stop as he steered it to the side of the road, he had to laugh humorlessly and shake his head. Maybe it was fitting that one of the causes of human misery should be driving a cause of misery himself. The gas gauge was on empty. Fuck, can't even blame this one on the car. This one is all yours, genius, Don berated himself. He sat there a moment, and then got out of the car. The snow/rain mix had let up, and now it was just cold and blustery and slippery. He walked along the dark, shiny pavement until he found himself on a bridge. Once in a while a car would go by, but there wasn't a lot of traffic. The people who were out and about had things to do, and worrying why some idiot was taking a walk over a bridge on an icy winter night was unlikely to be at the top of their lists.
Don paused and leaned on the railing, looking down into the black, murky water below.
"It's not all it's cracked up to be."
The voice was familiar, but it was impossible. Don was almost afraid to turn his head to the left to the source of the voice. Finally he did. Kyle sat on the railing, his back leaning against the metal girders of the bridge, his feet crossed at the ankles as if he couldn't be more relaxed balanced there above what would surely be a fatal fall.
"You can't be there. You're dead, and I'm obviously batshit crazy."
"Killing yourself. It's not all it's cracked up to be."
"I wasn't going to - "
"When I started playing around with that gun, I wasn't going to either. And then it just happened."
"Are you...real?"
"Depends on your definition of real. You're talking to me, aren't you?"
"Crazy people talk to themselves and imagine people who aren't there. That doesn't tell me much."
"You're not crazy, but you're just as screwed up in the head as you were fifteen years ago."
"Gee, thanks. Did you come all the way back from the other side to tell me that?"
"More or less."
"I must have had more beers than I thought. Or I dozed off and this is a dream. No, a fucking nightmare."
"You can't tell me you never wanted to see me again."
"For years, it was all I wanted. Losing you just about took me out, too. More than that, knowing I never really had you in the first place..." Don looked away from the apparition on the bridge and looked back into the water. "That was worse."
"My suicide wasn't about you. You know, Don, that was always your problem. You took responsibility for everything."
"Another one of my many failings, huh?"
"One of the hardest things I had to instill in some of the men under my command was taking responsibility for themselves, their actions...not blaming the unit or blaming another soldier, or blaming Mom and Dad for not being good parents - whatever thing they'd blame something on." He smiled, leaned his head back, shaking it a bit. "Then there was you. You took responsibility for yourself. That was great. But you took responsibility for most everything else. Even when you got shot, the first thing you said when you came to in the hospital was 'I fucked up.' You didn't fuck up. You were doing your job and some motherfucker shot you."
"I think that's what you told me." Don smiled. He looked at Kyle and wished it didn't suddenly hurt as bad as it had back then. "I keep thinking how many Christmases your family have spent without you, because of me."
"You didn't stick that gun in my mouth."
"I might as well have. I ruined your life."
"I ruined yours, for a lot of years. I didn't think it would, when I stuck that gun in my mouth. I'd had a lot to drink, and I just wanted it all to be over. In one stupid, bird-brained move, I was dead. My mother's practically an alcoholic now...she never could get over it. My dad blamed himself because he wasn't more enlightened about gay people. He died a couple years ago. It was a heart attack, but he was younger than he should have been when he died."
"If you'd never met me, none of that would have happened."
"I pulled that trigger." He sighed and looked out at the water. "If I'd been sober, I'd have never done it. All of it would have been hard, but it would have been worth it." He looked at Don. "You would have been worth it."
"You wouldn't talk to me. You were so angry - "
"I blamed you because it was easy. I did the same thing I was critical of those new recruits for doing. I pushed responsibility for my life, for who I was, for what I did, onto someone else."
"We did it together."
"Well, yeah, we did," he said, flashing Don a devilish grin. Don had to smile, despite the painful nature of their conversation...or the feeling he'd lost his mind because he was having that conversation with his dead lover's ghost. "You weren't alone when we were having sex. We took those chances together. If you blame yourself for what happened to me, then you have blame me for all the unhappiness I caused you all this time."
"My whole family is messed up because of me."
"Your brother likes to hit gay people with baseball bats and his girlfriend offed your grandmother. How is that your fault?"
"I suppose it's not, but I helped put them away. My mother has no sons left now, my niece doesn't have her parents...I'm here with the man I love and my life is going on..." He looked at Kyle. "Sorry."
"Why are you sorry? Because you moved on and you're happy?"
"I left a trail of destruction behind me."
"Look, I don't blame you, so why are you still blaming yourself? I met a great guy and fell in love and then because it was hard, I gave up, like the little pussies under my command that couldn't cut it, couldn't man up and take responsibility for their own lives." Kyle paused. "You need proof, though, don't you?"
"Proof? Of what?"
"Take my hand."
"What?"
"Take my hand," he repeated, a bit annoyed, holding out his hand.
"You gotta be kidding me. What're we gonna do, fly through the night sky so you can show me Christmases past?"
"Do I fucking look like Marley's ghost?"
"That was the woman - the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Thanks a lot. Just trust me."
Don moved a bit closer, then took Kyle's hand, which felt startlingly normal, human, and real, like it had so many years ago when they'd touched. Suddenly, they were standing a distance away from a funeral. Dark-clad mourners clustered around a grave. A nice-looking man in his late twenties moved closer to the rose-drenched casket and touched it, breaking down.
"What is this?"
"Just go have a look. They can't see you."
Don moved among the mourners, feeling surreal, like a live ghost. The headstone at the open grave read, "Gavin John Andrews, 1972-2012".
"I don't understand," Don muttered, surprised when Kyle was at his side.
"You will." He took Don's hand. "Come on, I'll show you."
They were in a prison yard, and Don caught sight of his brother, Mike, wandering around with a couple other inmates.
"Why is he here? What is this?"
"He's doing life for murder. The guy whose funeral we saw? Your brother and his buddies went after him with a baseball bat one night behind their favorite watering hole. Your brother's blow fractured his skull, and he died from bleeding on the brain. You didn't come to your Grandmother's funeral, no one ever found out that Mike and Lori committed the crimes they did, and so one night when Mike and his buddies got a little buzzed after a ball game, they went after Gavin."
"What about Lori, and Chelsea?"
"Chelsea's fine. Being raised by a murderer, because no one knows that Lori poisoned your grandmother."
"You're saying if I hadn't gone home for Grandma's funeral - "
"Gavin Andrews would have died. As fate would have it, you did, so let me show you something else."
Don was surprised to find himself standing in a small living room, festively decorated, watching the dark-haired man he'd seen at the cemetery holding a baby, while another nice-looking blond man approached them, kissing the dark-haired man and offering his finger to the baby, who gripped it and made one of those weird little noises babies make.
"Gavin and his partner got married and adopted a child. They're celebrating their first Christmas as a family this year."
"Because I went to Maryland?"
"Yeah, so because the people in your family who committed crimes are in the slammer, and your idiot brother bashed your head in instead of Gavin's, and because Tim shot him before he could finish the job, this family are together and happy and that baby has a future with parents who love her."
"I can't believe this is real. I must be cracking up."
"You're a detective. When this is over, I know damn well you'll run checks on all these people, verify what I'm showing you."
"I was thinking about that."
"Of course you were." Kyle smiled, and Don chuckled. He'd almost forgotten about how bright Kyle's smile could be, and his snarky sense of humor. "Come on, we're not done."
Don felt his stomach drop. They were in a large, posh office, and Timmy was on the phone, giving instructions to someone on how to handle the press regarding some sensitive issue for "the senator". Given the view out his office window, he was in DC.
"That's where he'd be without me. This isn't really a great argument for my impact on Timothy's life. What job does he have, anyway?"
Don watched as Tim shoved some papers in his briefcase and then grabbed his coat.
"Chief of Staff for Senator Ron Dandridge. One of his dad's cronies."
"The guy who wrote the letter," Don muttered.
"What letter?" Kyle asked.
"I thought you knew everything."
"If I knew, I wouldn't ask, would I? What letter?" Kyle repeated, sounding annoyed.
"It's the reason I went for a drive in the first place tonight. I found this letter offering Timothy the job in Dandridge's office. I was in the hospital..." Don paused. "A couple years ago, this case I was on..." He couldn't look Kyle in the eyes and admit what had happened. All this time later, and saying the words were still hard, humiliating.
"I wish I could pay those motherfuckers a visit they wouldn't forget," Kyle said, taking Don's hand, squeezing it.
"You know what happened to me but you don't know about the letter?"
"The letter happened to Tim. Those assholes attacking you, happened to you. I know what's happened to you. I've never been all that far away."
Don looked at him for a long moment, letting that idea sink in. Then he answered the question.
"The letter came offering Timmy the job while I was in the hospital, and he never told me about it. He didn't want me to feel guilty for ruining his life, too."
"Well, here's your chance to see what course his life could have taken without you there to fuck up his career, since you think that's what you've done."
"They're talking about Dandridge as a presidential candidate. Timmy could have been part of his team...ended up in the White House."
"He could have," Kyle said, nodding. Don was surprised they were standing by the side of a busy highway. It was the same kind of mix of snow and ice that had slicked up the roads in Albany when he'd started out on his bizarre holiday outing. "Keep your eye on that black car."
"The Beemer?"
"Yeah, Tim's making good money these days, without you holding him back."
"That's him?"
"Yeah, that's him."
Don watched as the black car moved faster than Timmy usually drove. He moved right along, but he wasn't big on speeding or on weaving in and out of traffic the way he was now.
"He's late - he's supposed to meet Dandridge at a convention center. The good senator forgot his notes for his speech, and he doesn't have long."
In a matter of seconds, the horror unfolded. Tim's car hit a slick spot and he lost control, and the spinning black BMW that Don had, a moment earlier, seen as a symbol of Timmy's success without him, started a pile up of cars that crushed it from multiple directions until the whole horrible swirling mass of crashing metal finally came to a stop.
"Timothy!" Don cried out, running toward the wreckage. He was a little surprised Kyle wasn't stopping him as he climbed over tangled metal, passing other moaning or unconscious drivers trapped in their cars until he got to the heart of the pile up.
There was no question Timmy was dead. His beautiful blue eyes stared lifelessly in Don's direction, but saw nothing. Blood drizzled from a wound somewhere in his blood-matted hair, but the crush of the metal against his body and the trickle of blood out of the corner of his mouth were likely signs of the real cause of his death.
"A lot of DC luminaries will attend his funeral and talk about what an amazing guy he was. The superficial social-climbing fucktard he's dating will put on a good show of grief while he scopes out the crowd of political hot shots for Tim's replacement. When Dandridge runs for president, and wins, he'll fund some big initiative for AIDS research and call it the Timothy J. Callahan Research Fund. So Timothy will be a big success in DC without you."
"You've got to let me stop this!" Don shouted through his tears.
"You don't have to stop it. It never happened, Don. Just like Gavin Andrews didn't die, and your brother's girlfriend is in the joint for killing your grandmother, and your niece is being raised by loving parents who will bring her up right. All you have to do is go home."
Things seemed to spin for a moment, and they were back on the bridge where they'd started, this time, Kyle standing by his side, leaning on the railing, looking into the water.
"If I go home, Timothy will be there, alive, okay?"
"He's fine. He's a little pissed at you for pulling the decorations half in and half out of the attic and then disappearing and not answering your cell, but he's very much alive."
"What about you?"
"I'm still very much dead," he replied, laughing.
"It's not funny."
"Maybe not, but there's nothing you can do about me, Don."
"Are you okay? I mean, where are you most of the time?"
"You have to wait until you get here to know how things work. I guess you'd say there are some trade secrets I'm not able to share with you. But I'm okay."
"I have to go," Don said, unable to wait any longer to see Timmy and to reassure himself that the dead, lifeless eyes he'd seen were just a vision or some sort of sick, waking dream, and not real.
"Yeah, I know. I do, too." Kyle moved forward and Don was surprised to feel his embrace. He returned it, and it felt familiar and good in one way, and oddly uncomfortable in another. Despite all the years past he'd dreamed of a moment like this, there were only one set of arms he wanted around him now, and his mind, and his heart, were there. As if sensing all that, Kyle stepped back. "Call Tim to bring you some gas. He'll be fine, don't worry." Don thought he could see a little moisture in Kyle's eyes, and he wondered if ghosts could cry.
"I forgot about the gas," Don said.
"The devil is in the details. Merry Christmas." Kyle started backing away, and Don thought he seemed less...substantial now. Less material and more like an illusion.
"Will I ever see you again?" Don asked, but Kyle didn't answer. He just smiled one last time as he faded into the shadows of the night.
Don dug frantically in his pockets until he found his phone and dialed the home number.
"Where are you?" Timmy's frustrated voice came over the line. "I've been calling your cell for an hour or better!"
"Sorry, honey. I got tied up on a case," Don said, slumping against the bridge railing with relief a the sound of Timmy's voice. "I love you, sweetheart."
"Nice try." Then there was a little chuckle. "I love you, too. Are you headed home?"
"I would be if I had any gas."
"You're joking."
"I wish I were."
"Okay. Where are you?"
"I'm on the Moon Road bridge."
"You were visiting Dorothy and Edith? The gifts are still in the foyer - I thought we were going to deliver those together."
"We are. I didn't come out here to see Dorothy and Edith...can you just bring me some gas? I really want to be with my baby tonight, not out here by myself."
"I would have brought you the gas, even without the butter up job."
"Yeah, but that always puts you in a better mood," Don countered, and Timmy laughed.
"You'll have to work hard to make this up to me when you get home."
"I love it when you threaten me like that," Don joked.
"I'll get some gas and be right there."
"Love you," Don repeated.
"I love you, too...you know, we could put off the decorating just one more night."
"Just be sure the mistletoe is up."
"Since when do we need that?"
"It just adds to the fun."
********
When Tim pulled up behind Don's car, he was surprised to see him pacing nervously in front of it, rather than taking shelter inside it. As soon as he cut the engine and got out, Don raced toward him, grabbing him up in the kind of embrace he'd felt when he'd been gone to a convention for three nights rather than just showing up with some gas.
"I love you, Timothy," Don gasped, his breath warm against Tim's ear.
"I love you, too, honey." Tim hugged back, tightly, but he was worried. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Don said, pulling back, positively beaming at him. "Absolutely everything in my world is perfect."
"Good. Mine, too, now," he replied, relieved Don was in one piece even if he was still puzzled why he'd been so hard to reach for a while. "You're shivering. Why are you standing around out here?"
"I don't know. I was just anxious for you to get here, I guess."
"Let's get some gas in your tank and go home."
"I got plenty of gas in my tank for you, sweetheart," Don said, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Honestly, sometimes I wonder about you," Tim teased as Don unscrewed the gas cap and he inserted the gas can's nozzle into the tank's opening.
"Just do that to me when we get home, and I'll be a happy man."
"You're sick," Tim replied, laughing and shaking his head.
"That's why you love me," Don retorted, wrapping his arms around Tim from behind. "Yeah, that's it, wiggle it around in there."
"Oh, my God." Tim was laughing out loud now. Though it was a bit harder to put the gas in the tank, Tim persisted until it was done, then turned around and pulled Don into his arms and kissed him long and deep as the snow started falling around them.
"Merry Christmas, my love."
"Merry Christmas, beautiful."
"See you at home."
********
Don stood there, watching Timmy hurry back to his car, pausing to put the gas can back in the trunk before getting behind the wheel. Don closed his eyes a moment, trying to purge the image of Timmy behind the wheel of that other car, lifeless. Then Timmy hung out the window and hollered at him.
"Get in your car, Donald!"
"Right, the car. Be careful, sweetheart," he called back as he got into his car. Timmy started out and Don turned around and followed him home. For a moment he thought he saw Kyle's reflection in his rearview mirror, smiling, but when he focused, it was his own face he saw and the backseat was empty.
Don looked forward then, not back, as he focused on the joy of another Christmas with the love of his life, and many more Christmases to come.
Fandom: Donald Strachey Mysteries (movieverse)
Pairing: Donald and Timothy
Rating: R
Word Count: About 4,400
References/Spoilers: Spoilers from Shock to the System; spoilers for my stories "Like Water, Like Breath, Like Rain," and "Home Is Where the Heart Is."
Disclosure: I wish they were mine. Alas, they are not, so I'm just taking them out for a spin with thanks to the men who created them and the actors who brought them to life.
Summary: Don feels like he's done more harm than good in recent years. Someone from his past helps him see things more clearly.
Author's Note: This story is set in the same universe as "Like Water, Like Breath, Like Rain" and "Home Is Where the Heart Is". You can read this one without reading those first, but it will make a lot more sense if you've read those.
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GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS
by
Candy Apple
Don was whistling "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as he shuffled boxes around in the attic, pulling out the Christmas decorations. Timmy would be home soon, and they planned on having dinner and trimming the tree. Their schedules had been crazy, and now that Christmas was a week away, the option to procrastinate was over. Timmy would not hear of just letting it slide, and for all his grumbling about going through all this hoopla for a week, Don enjoyed Christmas with Timmy way too much to miss out on any of it.
He tried not to think too much about their unpleasant trip to Maryland to see his family earlier in the year, or the awful consequences it had. His brother and his girlfriend were both in prison, leaving his niece without either of her parents. Even his grandmother's death wasn't just the natural end of a long life...it was a life cut short by the worst kind of betrayal: a murder in the family. Last Christmas, he'd been surprised with a reunion with his grandmother at Timmy's parents' house, and it had been a wonderful Christmas. When Timmy suggested they spend a quiet Christmas at home this year, Don suspected he was trying to be sensitive to Don's feelings.
"Okay, Strachey, suck it up and quit moping," Don said to himself as he tried to ignore the dark thoughts and go back to whistling some cheerful tune. It was short-lived when a carton balanced precariously on top of one of the ornament cartons toppled to the floor and spilled its contents, which seemed to be a bunch of papers in file folders. "Lovely," he muttered, gathering it all up, figuring that he had probably messed up Timmy's meticulous filing system as he piled the papers back in the box. One item caught his eye, and despite his disinclination to snoop through things that were clearly Timmy's, he couldn't help noticing that it was a letter offering Timmy a job. A really good job as chief of staff for a U.S. senator. His stomach churned when he noticed the date. It had come while he was still in the hospital recovering from the rape.
He wasn't sure what upset him more as he tucked it back with the other papers and closed the box: that he had caused Timmy to have to pass up such an opportunity or that Timmy had never mentioned it. If it didn't matter to Timmy, why hadn't he said anything? The fact he'd kept it to himself all this time could only mean that it was a blow to his career, and he didn't want Don to feel guilty about it.
Not quite able to stay in the spirit of unpacking decorations, Don went downstairs and got a beer out of the refrigerator. A Christmas Carol was droning on the television. Some cable network was running a marathon of all different versions of the classic. Don stood behind the couch and took another drink of his beer. The rotund Ghost of Christmas Present was imparting his wisdom to Scrooge. Don smirked humorlessly at a childhood memory...those weren't too welcome because it made him think of the shambles his family was now...largely because of his intervention. When he was a little boy, he called this ghost the "Ghost of Christmas Presents", thinking of him like some kind of supernatural Santa Claus.
The jolly ghost who seemed more like he should be a bartender at a rollicking Irish pub instead of a spirit of the netherworld was now telling Scrooge that each year, he tried to remove causes of human misery, "which explains my little visit to you."
"Yeah, Scrooge, he'd probably visit me, too. I've got a knack for causing human misery." He took another drink of the beer, then set the half-empty bottle on the counter, picked up his car keys and his coat and went out to his car to take a drive.
It was an unpleasant day outside as it began to get dark, a mixture of snow and freezing rain making the driving tricky. A part of him worried about Timmy getting home safely, but Timmy was a good driver and his car was more roadworthy than Don's...he was better off on his own...in so many ways.
Don didn't know where he was driving to, he only knew what he was running from: all the human misery that could be ascribed to him, all the Christmases that sucked because of him. All of that would have been fine if, in the end, his presence hadn't screwed up Timmy's life, too. A high-powered job in DC was what all Timmy's efforts and talent and years of service should have led to. And there it was, but he'd been saddled with Don laid up and traumatized and barely able to get around under his own power. So he'd not only passed it up, but never mentioned it. Now, a couple years later, and he was still in Albany, still working at the state level. Thanks to Don.
When the car sputtered and rolled to a stop as he steered it to the side of the road, he had to laugh humorlessly and shake his head. Maybe it was fitting that one of the causes of human misery should be driving a cause of misery himself. The gas gauge was on empty. Fuck, can't even blame this one on the car. This one is all yours, genius, Don berated himself. He sat there a moment, and then got out of the car. The snow/rain mix had let up, and now it was just cold and blustery and slippery. He walked along the dark, shiny pavement until he found himself on a bridge. Once in a while a car would go by, but there wasn't a lot of traffic. The people who were out and about had things to do, and worrying why some idiot was taking a walk over a bridge on an icy winter night was unlikely to be at the top of their lists.
Don paused and leaned on the railing, looking down into the black, murky water below.
"It's not all it's cracked up to be."
The voice was familiar, but it was impossible. Don was almost afraid to turn his head to the left to the source of the voice. Finally he did. Kyle sat on the railing, his back leaning against the metal girders of the bridge, his feet crossed at the ankles as if he couldn't be more relaxed balanced there above what would surely be a fatal fall.
"You can't be there. You're dead, and I'm obviously batshit crazy."
"Killing yourself. It's not all it's cracked up to be."
"I wasn't going to - "
"When I started playing around with that gun, I wasn't going to either. And then it just happened."
"Are you...real?"
"Depends on your definition of real. You're talking to me, aren't you?"
"Crazy people talk to themselves and imagine people who aren't there. That doesn't tell me much."
"You're not crazy, but you're just as screwed up in the head as you were fifteen years ago."
"Gee, thanks. Did you come all the way back from the other side to tell me that?"
"More or less."
"I must have had more beers than I thought. Or I dozed off and this is a dream. No, a fucking nightmare."
"You can't tell me you never wanted to see me again."
"For years, it was all I wanted. Losing you just about took me out, too. More than that, knowing I never really had you in the first place..." Don looked away from the apparition on the bridge and looked back into the water. "That was worse."
"My suicide wasn't about you. You know, Don, that was always your problem. You took responsibility for everything."
"Another one of my many failings, huh?"
"One of the hardest things I had to instill in some of the men under my command was taking responsibility for themselves, their actions...not blaming the unit or blaming another soldier, or blaming Mom and Dad for not being good parents - whatever thing they'd blame something on." He smiled, leaned his head back, shaking it a bit. "Then there was you. You took responsibility for yourself. That was great. But you took responsibility for most everything else. Even when you got shot, the first thing you said when you came to in the hospital was 'I fucked up.' You didn't fuck up. You were doing your job and some motherfucker shot you."
"I think that's what you told me." Don smiled. He looked at Kyle and wished it didn't suddenly hurt as bad as it had back then. "I keep thinking how many Christmases your family have spent without you, because of me."
"You didn't stick that gun in my mouth."
"I might as well have. I ruined your life."
"I ruined yours, for a lot of years. I didn't think it would, when I stuck that gun in my mouth. I'd had a lot to drink, and I just wanted it all to be over. In one stupid, bird-brained move, I was dead. My mother's practically an alcoholic now...she never could get over it. My dad blamed himself because he wasn't more enlightened about gay people. He died a couple years ago. It was a heart attack, but he was younger than he should have been when he died."
"If you'd never met me, none of that would have happened."
"I pulled that trigger." He sighed and looked out at the water. "If I'd been sober, I'd have never done it. All of it would have been hard, but it would have been worth it." He looked at Don. "You would have been worth it."
"You wouldn't talk to me. You were so angry - "
"I blamed you because it was easy. I did the same thing I was critical of those new recruits for doing. I pushed responsibility for my life, for who I was, for what I did, onto someone else."
"We did it together."
"Well, yeah, we did," he said, flashing Don a devilish grin. Don had to smile, despite the painful nature of their conversation...or the feeling he'd lost his mind because he was having that conversation with his dead lover's ghost. "You weren't alone when we were having sex. We took those chances together. If you blame yourself for what happened to me, then you have blame me for all the unhappiness I caused you all this time."
"My whole family is messed up because of me."
"Your brother likes to hit gay people with baseball bats and his girlfriend offed your grandmother. How is that your fault?"
"I suppose it's not, but I helped put them away. My mother has no sons left now, my niece doesn't have her parents...I'm here with the man I love and my life is going on..." He looked at Kyle. "Sorry."
"Why are you sorry? Because you moved on and you're happy?"
"I left a trail of destruction behind me."
"Look, I don't blame you, so why are you still blaming yourself? I met a great guy and fell in love and then because it was hard, I gave up, like the little pussies under my command that couldn't cut it, couldn't man up and take responsibility for their own lives." Kyle paused. "You need proof, though, don't you?"
"Proof? Of what?"
"Take my hand."
"What?"
"Take my hand," he repeated, a bit annoyed, holding out his hand.
"You gotta be kidding me. What're we gonna do, fly through the night sky so you can show me Christmases past?"
"Do I fucking look like Marley's ghost?"
"That was the woman - the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Thanks a lot. Just trust me."
Don moved a bit closer, then took Kyle's hand, which felt startlingly normal, human, and real, like it had so many years ago when they'd touched. Suddenly, they were standing a distance away from a funeral. Dark-clad mourners clustered around a grave. A nice-looking man in his late twenties moved closer to the rose-drenched casket and touched it, breaking down.
"What is this?"
"Just go have a look. They can't see you."
Don moved among the mourners, feeling surreal, like a live ghost. The headstone at the open grave read, "Gavin John Andrews, 1972-2012".
"I don't understand," Don muttered, surprised when Kyle was at his side.
"You will." He took Don's hand. "Come on, I'll show you."
They were in a prison yard, and Don caught sight of his brother, Mike, wandering around with a couple other inmates.
"Why is he here? What is this?"
"He's doing life for murder. The guy whose funeral we saw? Your brother and his buddies went after him with a baseball bat one night behind their favorite watering hole. Your brother's blow fractured his skull, and he died from bleeding on the brain. You didn't come to your Grandmother's funeral, no one ever found out that Mike and Lori committed the crimes they did, and so one night when Mike and his buddies got a little buzzed after a ball game, they went after Gavin."
"What about Lori, and Chelsea?"
"Chelsea's fine. Being raised by a murderer, because no one knows that Lori poisoned your grandmother."
"You're saying if I hadn't gone home for Grandma's funeral - "
"Gavin Andrews would have died. As fate would have it, you did, so let me show you something else."
Don was surprised to find himself standing in a small living room, festively decorated, watching the dark-haired man he'd seen at the cemetery holding a baby, while another nice-looking blond man approached them, kissing the dark-haired man and offering his finger to the baby, who gripped it and made one of those weird little noises babies make.
"Gavin and his partner got married and adopted a child. They're celebrating their first Christmas as a family this year."
"Because I went to Maryland?"
"Yeah, so because the people in your family who committed crimes are in the slammer, and your idiot brother bashed your head in instead of Gavin's, and because Tim shot him before he could finish the job, this family are together and happy and that baby has a future with parents who love her."
"I can't believe this is real. I must be cracking up."
"You're a detective. When this is over, I know damn well you'll run checks on all these people, verify what I'm showing you."
"I was thinking about that."
"Of course you were." Kyle smiled, and Don chuckled. He'd almost forgotten about how bright Kyle's smile could be, and his snarky sense of humor. "Come on, we're not done."
Don felt his stomach drop. They were in a large, posh office, and Timmy was on the phone, giving instructions to someone on how to handle the press regarding some sensitive issue for "the senator". Given the view out his office window, he was in DC.
"That's where he'd be without me. This isn't really a great argument for my impact on Timothy's life. What job does he have, anyway?"
Don watched as Tim shoved some papers in his briefcase and then grabbed his coat.
"Chief of Staff for Senator Ron Dandridge. One of his dad's cronies."
"The guy who wrote the letter," Don muttered.
"What letter?" Kyle asked.
"I thought you knew everything."
"If I knew, I wouldn't ask, would I? What letter?" Kyle repeated, sounding annoyed.
"It's the reason I went for a drive in the first place tonight. I found this letter offering Timothy the job in Dandridge's office. I was in the hospital..." Don paused. "A couple years ago, this case I was on..." He couldn't look Kyle in the eyes and admit what had happened. All this time later, and saying the words were still hard, humiliating.
"I wish I could pay those motherfuckers a visit they wouldn't forget," Kyle said, taking Don's hand, squeezing it.
"You know what happened to me but you don't know about the letter?"
"The letter happened to Tim. Those assholes attacking you, happened to you. I know what's happened to you. I've never been all that far away."
Don looked at him for a long moment, letting that idea sink in. Then he answered the question.
"The letter came offering Timmy the job while I was in the hospital, and he never told me about it. He didn't want me to feel guilty for ruining his life, too."
"Well, here's your chance to see what course his life could have taken without you there to fuck up his career, since you think that's what you've done."
"They're talking about Dandridge as a presidential candidate. Timmy could have been part of his team...ended up in the White House."
"He could have," Kyle said, nodding. Don was surprised they were standing by the side of a busy highway. It was the same kind of mix of snow and ice that had slicked up the roads in Albany when he'd started out on his bizarre holiday outing. "Keep your eye on that black car."
"The Beemer?"
"Yeah, Tim's making good money these days, without you holding him back."
"That's him?"
"Yeah, that's him."
Don watched as the black car moved faster than Timmy usually drove. He moved right along, but he wasn't big on speeding or on weaving in and out of traffic the way he was now.
"He's late - he's supposed to meet Dandridge at a convention center. The good senator forgot his notes for his speech, and he doesn't have long."
In a matter of seconds, the horror unfolded. Tim's car hit a slick spot and he lost control, and the spinning black BMW that Don had, a moment earlier, seen as a symbol of Timmy's success without him, started a pile up of cars that crushed it from multiple directions until the whole horrible swirling mass of crashing metal finally came to a stop.
"Timothy!" Don cried out, running toward the wreckage. He was a little surprised Kyle wasn't stopping him as he climbed over tangled metal, passing other moaning or unconscious drivers trapped in their cars until he got to the heart of the pile up.
There was no question Timmy was dead. His beautiful blue eyes stared lifelessly in Don's direction, but saw nothing. Blood drizzled from a wound somewhere in his blood-matted hair, but the crush of the metal against his body and the trickle of blood out of the corner of his mouth were likely signs of the real cause of his death.
"A lot of DC luminaries will attend his funeral and talk about what an amazing guy he was. The superficial social-climbing fucktard he's dating will put on a good show of grief while he scopes out the crowd of political hot shots for Tim's replacement. When Dandridge runs for president, and wins, he'll fund some big initiative for AIDS research and call it the Timothy J. Callahan Research Fund. So Timothy will be a big success in DC without you."
"You've got to let me stop this!" Don shouted through his tears.
"You don't have to stop it. It never happened, Don. Just like Gavin Andrews didn't die, and your brother's girlfriend is in the joint for killing your grandmother, and your niece is being raised by loving parents who will bring her up right. All you have to do is go home."
Things seemed to spin for a moment, and they were back on the bridge where they'd started, this time, Kyle standing by his side, leaning on the railing, looking into the water.
"If I go home, Timothy will be there, alive, okay?"
"He's fine. He's a little pissed at you for pulling the decorations half in and half out of the attic and then disappearing and not answering your cell, but he's very much alive."
"What about you?"
"I'm still very much dead," he replied, laughing.
"It's not funny."
"Maybe not, but there's nothing you can do about me, Don."
"Are you okay? I mean, where are you most of the time?"
"You have to wait until you get here to know how things work. I guess you'd say there are some trade secrets I'm not able to share with you. But I'm okay."
"I have to go," Don said, unable to wait any longer to see Timmy and to reassure himself that the dead, lifeless eyes he'd seen were just a vision or some sort of sick, waking dream, and not real.
"Yeah, I know. I do, too." Kyle moved forward and Don was surprised to feel his embrace. He returned it, and it felt familiar and good in one way, and oddly uncomfortable in another. Despite all the years past he'd dreamed of a moment like this, there were only one set of arms he wanted around him now, and his mind, and his heart, were there. As if sensing all that, Kyle stepped back. "Call Tim to bring you some gas. He'll be fine, don't worry." Don thought he could see a little moisture in Kyle's eyes, and he wondered if ghosts could cry.
"I forgot about the gas," Don said.
"The devil is in the details. Merry Christmas." Kyle started backing away, and Don thought he seemed less...substantial now. Less material and more like an illusion.
"Will I ever see you again?" Don asked, but Kyle didn't answer. He just smiled one last time as he faded into the shadows of the night.
Don dug frantically in his pockets until he found his phone and dialed the home number.
"Where are you?" Timmy's frustrated voice came over the line. "I've been calling your cell for an hour or better!"
"Sorry, honey. I got tied up on a case," Don said, slumping against the bridge railing with relief a the sound of Timmy's voice. "I love you, sweetheart."
"Nice try." Then there was a little chuckle. "I love you, too. Are you headed home?"
"I would be if I had any gas."
"You're joking."
"I wish I were."
"Okay. Where are you?"
"I'm on the Moon Road bridge."
"You were visiting Dorothy and Edith? The gifts are still in the foyer - I thought we were going to deliver those together."
"We are. I didn't come out here to see Dorothy and Edith...can you just bring me some gas? I really want to be with my baby tonight, not out here by myself."
"I would have brought you the gas, even without the butter up job."
"Yeah, but that always puts you in a better mood," Don countered, and Timmy laughed.
"You'll have to work hard to make this up to me when you get home."
"I love it when you threaten me like that," Don joked.
"I'll get some gas and be right there."
"Love you," Don repeated.
"I love you, too...you know, we could put off the decorating just one more night."
"Just be sure the mistletoe is up."
"Since when do we need that?"
"It just adds to the fun."
********
When Tim pulled up behind Don's car, he was surprised to see him pacing nervously in front of it, rather than taking shelter inside it. As soon as he cut the engine and got out, Don raced toward him, grabbing him up in the kind of embrace he'd felt when he'd been gone to a convention for three nights rather than just showing up with some gas.
"I love you, Timothy," Don gasped, his breath warm against Tim's ear.
"I love you, too, honey." Tim hugged back, tightly, but he was worried. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Don said, pulling back, positively beaming at him. "Absolutely everything in my world is perfect."
"Good. Mine, too, now," he replied, relieved Don was in one piece even if he was still puzzled why he'd been so hard to reach for a while. "You're shivering. Why are you standing around out here?"
"I don't know. I was just anxious for you to get here, I guess."
"Let's get some gas in your tank and go home."
"I got plenty of gas in my tank for you, sweetheart," Don said, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Honestly, sometimes I wonder about you," Tim teased as Don unscrewed the gas cap and he inserted the gas can's nozzle into the tank's opening.
"Just do that to me when we get home, and I'll be a happy man."
"You're sick," Tim replied, laughing and shaking his head.
"That's why you love me," Don retorted, wrapping his arms around Tim from behind. "Yeah, that's it, wiggle it around in there."
"Oh, my God." Tim was laughing out loud now. Though it was a bit harder to put the gas in the tank, Tim persisted until it was done, then turned around and pulled Don into his arms and kissed him long and deep as the snow started falling around them.
"Merry Christmas, my love."
"Merry Christmas, beautiful."
"See you at home."
********
Don stood there, watching Timmy hurry back to his car, pausing to put the gas can back in the trunk before getting behind the wheel. Don closed his eyes a moment, trying to purge the image of Timmy behind the wheel of that other car, lifeless. Then Timmy hung out the window and hollered at him.
"Get in your car, Donald!"
"Right, the car. Be careful, sweetheart," he called back as he got into his car. Timmy started out and Don turned around and followed him home. For a moment he thought he saw Kyle's reflection in his rearview mirror, smiling, but when he focused, it was his own face he saw and the backseat was empty.
Don looked forward then, not back, as he focused on the joy of another Christmas with the love of his life, and many more Christmases to come.
