Red Fish, Dead Fish

by Amy Lane

  “Oh wow! Oatmeal!” He grabbed his own Tupperware container from the bag Dave and Alex had left before he pulled up a chair next to Jackson.

  “Did you have some of this?” he asked, shoveling it in. “They make their own spice and fruit packets—they’re amazing!”

  Jackson would have rolled his eyes, but he was, quite suddenly, exhausted. “Sure. Yes. They’re awesome.” He grimaced. “Your mother is here.”

  Ellery shrugged. “She’s expressed a wish to babysit you when I need to go to work.”

  “I’m a grown ma—” Ellery slipped the last spoonful of Jackson’s own oatmeal into his mouth.

  “No,” Ellery said, dropping his voice and leaning close.

  Jackson swallowed, and that was starting to hurt again. “No what?”

  “No. We’re not arguing about everything. Not until you’re better. My heart hurts with being worried. I know you hate hospitals. I know you hate being at home feeling useless. My mother has come here to help you through these things. You need to be grateful, because I’m still working on that marriage proposal, and I’d rather not strangle you before I’m through.”

  Jackson closed his eyes and wondered what kind of nightmare these past days had been for Ellery. “I’m sorry,” he said, eyes burning, throat tight, everything happening so quickly he realized, like through a curtain, how very weak he’d become, not just physically but emotionally as well. “Fine. I’ll get off your back about Lucy Satan and her grand plan.”

  “You can call her Taylor,” Ellery said, pained expression making his forehead furrow.

  “Oh no, Ellery,” Mrs. Cramer said, voice all pleasant as she came back into the room. “That’s fine if he calls me Lucy Satan.” She bared her teeth at Jackson. “It will give us something to do to pass the time.”

  “Hunh.”

  Ellery’s eyes widened in alarm. “Hunh what?”

  “I must be sick. That would have terrified me in real life.”

  Ellery’s strained laugh hurt something that should have been dead or drugged. “Jackson, you know that thing you said to me to get me to let you out of the hospital?”

  Augh! Guilt! “That’s not the only reason I said that,” he muttered.

  Something tense in Ellery’s jaw released, and he looked younger. “I’m glad to hear it. But if you meant that you loved me, that means this is real life. And that you can deal with her. And me. So don’t let fear keep you from doing anything important, okay?”

  More guilt. “I really do, you know,” he said, thinking this was necessary. “Not that I wouldn’t like to get out of here, but even if I can’t, I still mean it.”

  A smile curved at Ellery’s lean mouth. “I sort of thought you did, but it’s nice to hear the words sometime.” He gave Jackson an all too familiar level look.

  Jackson recoiled. “Uh, sometime when you’re looking less like your mother?” he asked, pained.

  Ellery’s turn to recoil. “Deal!”

  Jackson smiled a little, exhausted. “My cat’s okay?” You always had to ask.

  Ellery looked at his mother. “Billy Bob?”

  “Is fine, if—” She sniffed. “—a little rough on hose. And missing you two, of course.”

  Jackson closed his eyes, ready to rest again. He thought about how welcome Billy Bob’s weight would be, his purring steady and even, his shameless bids for affection frequent.

  “When can I go home?” he asked plaintively. “I’ll do anything, just… I want to go home.”

  Ellery’s kiss on the temple was probably more tenderness than he deserved. “I talked to the doctors,” he said. “Your fever needs to break, and your shoulder needs to be clear of infection. They would also like it if you could breathe. So you sleep and practice breathing, and Mother and I will take care of you and the cat. Deal?”

  He didn’t have an ounce of fight left. “Deal.”

  He closed his eyes and dreamed of Billy Bob purring on his chest. He dreamed of waking up next to Ellery, sleepy-eyed and sexed out. Sunshine was pouring through the window above Ellery’s bed, and they had a rare day off and nothing to do but make love and eat.

  He hadn’t spent a day like that with any other lover. Had only spent a few with Ellery. But as he immersed himself in the imaginary feel of Ellery’s skin against his own and the tiny golden dust motes wandering in the sunlight, he thought he very much wanted to.

  He’d have to get better to make that happen.

  Old and Fishy Business

  ELLERY WAS, in fact, a lot like Jackson. He chafed restlessly at hanging around the hospital when only time would make Jackson better, and Jackson was sleeping through most of the time.

  That first afternoon, Jackson had awakened in the throes of a nightmare—something about Billy Bob, but Ellery never asked what. Ellery had been doing paperwork on his laptop, and his mother stood up first, making it to Jackson’s bedside.

  “Wake up,” she’d snapped. “This isn’t good for you.”

  Jackson opened his eyes just enough to focus on her face and then scowled. “Jesus, you’re scaring away the monsters.”

  He went back to sleep after that, and Ellery and his mother took turns over the following days, with Jade and Mike’s help, of course.

  On day two, Tess Dakin walked into his room under her own power, which irritated Jackson no end. Tess had been grateful to both of them—and bruised, and sore, and shell-shocked.

  She’d stood at the doorway of Jackson’s small room and told them about grilling heroin family about the house in Meadowview, and how she’d wanted to get a closer look inside.

  “My fault,” she’d croaked from vocal cords still strained from screaming. “I was more interested in making the bust than doing my job. I knew you were missing. I should have been looking for you, not trying to get the drop on this guy. Letting you wander off like that—not the right thing to do.”

  Jackson had shrugged it off. “Let’s hear it for getting backup,” he told her. “Both of us. It should be a New Year’s resolution or something.”

  She’d smiled bitterly. “If I ever go out in the field again,” she said softly.

  Jackson pinned her with a hard scowl. “I did. I spent a year in the hospital, and I’m active. I was a rookie. You’ve got more grit than I ever had.”

  Her smile was delicate, like a wire butterfly. “I think we’ll call it a tie. But thank you, thank you both.”

  She’d left then, probably to go back to her own room and sleep, and maybe cry, and hopefully to talk to a counselor about what she’d undergone.

  A kindly looking middle-aged man ventured into Jackson’s room about an hour after she’d left and introduced himself as a counselor to crime victims.

  Jackson’s snarl surprised even Ellery. “I’m nobody’s goddamned victim! I’m fucking fine! Go the hell away!”

  Ellery’s mother discreetly stood up and left, talking smoothly to the poor counselor and asking him to maybe come in later. The man laughed and assured her this wasn’t his first barbecue, while Ellery fought the temptation to smack Jackson in the ear.

  “Was that necessary?” he asked, fury coming online for the first time since Jackson had agreed to stay and heal.

  Jackson’s mouth twisted. “So. Necessary.”

  “Jackson, you were—”

  “If you say assaulted, I’m making you leave the room.” His jaw was locked stubbornly, and Ellery let out an angry breath.

  “Jizzed on? Can I say that? You were helpless—”

  Jackson’s mouth worked. “No. Not helpless. I got away. I got home. Tess needs him. There’s no shame. I’ll be okay.”

  Ellery let out a breath and stalked outside the room to where his mother was talking to the nice man with the prematurely silver hair and neat salt-and-pepper goatee. The counselor nodded and gave Taylor his card, then left.

  Ellery shook his head and went to take the card from her.

  “No,” Taylor said, tucking the card in her wallet. “He’s never going to let his
guard down around you. He might not even let his guard down around me. This might have to simmer around in his head for a year before he decides to let it out. But it’s not going to happen while you’re in the room.”

  Ellery let out a sound of hurt. His arm felt fine—the stitches were coming out in a week—but this thought of being exorcised from Jackson’s treatment, that hurt.

  “Pride,” Taylor said shortly. “I know you have it—just not the same kind. He’s tired of you seeing him weak. Leave him alone. Let him be strong. This”—she indicated her chest—“isn’t going away.” She grunted. “But I am. I need to get the hell out of this hospital, and we need reinforcements.”

  Ellery smiled grimly. “They’re coming.” He’d finally given Jade permission to call her brother.

  The next day, the fever broke. Jackson was exhausted, of course, and irritable as fuck—so it was a perfect time for Kaden to come down from the foothills and play rummy with him for two days.

  Taylor pronounced Kaden a superlative human being, and Ellery wasn’t sure what she planned to get him and his family for Christmas, but he warned Kaden: it was going to be big.

  Anyone who could deal with Jackson when he was sick, bored, fractious, and trying like hell not to be needy deserved a fucking medal. Those were Taylor Cramer’s exact words.

  On day six he was discharged.

  Taylor stayed at Ellery’s, using his console computer and apparently reconnecting with her plans for world domination. Also, Ellery would wager, going through Jackson’s pictures with Jade and Kaden, deciding which ones to have reprinted and framed so he could put them up when they got back from Boston after Thanksgiving.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay here instead?” his mother had asked the day before. Yes, Jackson had improved, but he was gaunt and haggard, and there’d been a reason Ellery had tried to get him to see the counselor. “Traveling is exhausting, you know.”

  “Not the way he’ll do it—he can probably fit four days’ worth of clothes in a duffel bag. If he even has them to pack. No. He’s lived in Sacramento his whole life. The first time he’d ever been on a plane was when we went to San Diego in September. I want him to see… outside. Other.” Ellery shuddered. Maybe if Jackson saw outside the state, he’d remember he was outside the room in Meadowview or, God, please, outside the hospital itself.

  He claimed he wasn’t a victim.

  Ellery didn’t understand how he could even see enough of himself to know if it was true.

  His mother touched his elbow, hand gentle. “I’ll let you call this one. He’s got four days at your house with me. If he hasn’t killed me by the time I head back for Boston, we’ll call it a success.”

  His pocket buzzed then, and he didn’t recognize the name. “Mother—I need to take this—”

  She waved him on imperiously, like it was her idea.

  “Ellery Cramer, Esquire. How can I help you?”

  “Oh God—he’s right.”

  The voice was unfamiliar and quiet, like the person speaking was sick or frightened.

  “Who’s right about what?”

  “The guy… the guy at the house. In Meadowview. He… he said you’d sound scary.”

  Ellery felt a shaft of hope. “AJ?”

  “Yes, sir. You remember me?”

  “Jackson said he’d help you. I, uh, I’ll be honest. I didn’t think we’d hear from you after that.”

  AJ’s half laugh was a weak and broken thing. “I didn’t either. But the cops took me to the hospital, and I got through withdrawals. And then… that was it. I was just sort of….” His indrawn breath sounded shaky. “So they let me out in my old clothes, and I realize I can’t get into my apartment, and I sold most of my stuff for smack, and I’m not addicted anymore, and this is supposed to be my second chance. I mean, my body is over it, but my… my….” He was openly sobbing now. “I had this card in my jacket pocket, Mr. Cramer. It was the only goddamned thing I had.”

  Ellery frowned. “Which hospital?”

  “Med Center. I’m over on Parker now—I just started walking. There’s a pay phone here since, you know, cell phone plan gone.”

  Ellery took a deep breath. “So, uh, if you turn around and walk back to Med Center, I can buy you a meal,” he said. “And I can get you into a month-long program.” He thought of Jackson’s plans for his duplex, which, by all accounts from Mike, was actually close to livable. “I can even get you into a house and pull some strings for a job.”

  “Will… will I get to see Jackson? You’re offering a lot of nice things, Mr. Cramer, but what I really need—”

  “Is a friend.” Ellery was as gentle as he could be, but he was no match for Jackson. “He’s the reason I’m at Med Center. You can come visit before I take you to rehab.”

  “It’s a deal. I’ll be there in half an hour. I promise.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Ellery said grimly. He rang off and turned back into the room. “Jackson, did you put on your human suit yet?”

  Jackson had been staring off into space pensively, like he was unhappy with the world. “That depends. Any more shrinks?”

  “No—but I do have someone who needs you to be a grown-up. Remember that kid on the floor at Meadowview?”

  Jackson straightened up in bed, only wincing a little as he repositioned his shoulder. “AJ?”

  “Yeah. He needs an actual stint in rehab and not just medical withdrawal. I’ll take him to rehab, but he wants to talk to a friend.”

  Jackson’s eyes—that amazing, clear, and stunning green—brightened for the first time in over a week. “Sure. Yeah. Did you tell him about the duplex?”

  “I thought you could,” Ellery said. He swallowed and tried not to let his face go gentle. “I figured you could talk to him about other things.”

  Jackson didn’t grimace, and he didn’t shudder or roll his eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Okay. I can do that.”

  “Good.” And since Ellery was on a roll, something else had happened when he’d gone into work two days before. “And don’t forget to tell him he’ll be sharing the duplex with heroin family. They’ll be out of jail right before Christmas. Claudine will get the guest bedroom, I guess, and the boys can bunk it in the main bedroom and the couch. Just prep him. The Celia Rivers Halfway House is going to be very full.”

  “I’m not calling it that,” Jackson said darkly. “It’s going to be the Toni Cameron Halfway House or nothing.”

  “Sure,” Ellery agreed. “That’s actually a really nice idea.”

  Jackson’s mouth quirked. “I get them from time to time.”

  Indeed.

  AJ seemed shaky when Ellery took him for food, shaky and desperate. Clean and sober, he was everything Owens had loved to kill—pretty, bright, lost. Ellery told him he’d been lucky—and that taking a second chance proved he was smart.

  “I never felt smart before,” he said, eating pudding like it was an Olympic sport. “Maybe I’ll just keep being smart.”

  When Ellery took him up to Jackson’s room, he asked the obvious. “What’s he in for? Did he get shot or something?”

  “Pneumonia,” Ellery said, because that had been the official diagnosis. “Exhaustion. Heart failure. Infection. All sorts of bad things.”

  “That’s funny. It sounds like real life tried to kill him.”

  Yeah, that was a laugh riot. “Well, the bad guy helped too.”

  “Ain’t that always the way. I guess it pays to be ahead of real life if you can, so the bad guys have to work harder.”

  Ellery laughed a little. “That is very wise.”

  He enjoyed the young man’s company, and when he opened the door to Jackson’s room and shooed the boy in, Jackson’s eyes lit up gently.

  Ellery left them to talk while he set up AJ’s recovery. When he came back, they were both red-eyed and sober.

  But that night and the next morning, as Jackson prepped to leave, Ellery detected a note of peace in him that hadn’t been there before.<
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  When they got Jackson home, he went directly to the bedroom. Taylor rolled her eyes, probably thinking he was pouting or faking sleep.

  Ellery suspected the truth.

  When he walked into the bedroom an hour later, Jackson was lying on his side, still petting his cat. Billy Bob was drooling and sprawled in the middle of the bed, and Jackson was telling him silly things. “You know, like maybe somewhere out there, you’ve got kittens. You ever think of that? You ever hit any leopardesses? Any bobcats? ’Cause there might be a cat for this kid. I’m just thinking, you no-thumbs motherfucker, if you were going to spread Billy Bobs all throughout the land, this kid could use a cat. Besides, I know you don’t think about Albert the German shepherd anymore, but I bet he’s pining for you. Another cat might ease his broken heart, you know?”

  Billy’s response was to purr some more, and Ellery sat down next to Jackson.

  “Talking to the cat?”

  Jackson gave him a glare with some unexpected heat. “Do you know something?”

  “What?”

  “Your mother is here.”

  “I am aware.”

  Jackson rolled his eyes. “She’s going to be here for four more magical days.”

  Ellery grunted. Yes, yes his mother was going to be in his guest room for four more magical days. She was going back to Boston three days before Jackson and Ellery were leaving. They would have a big dinner two nights later at Jade and Mike’s with Kaden, Rhonda, and the kids, and get on a plane the next morning. “I am aware.”

  Jackson shook his head. “No, no, you’re not aware. You are most obviously unaware of how much this is not a happy thing.”

  Ellery frowned. Jackson and his mother had worked on the halfway house idea, they’d come to terms with Jackson’s finances—and yet another car, which might have blown Jackson’s mind, but Ellery frankly thought it would be his mother’s excuse to subsidize a dealership or something.

  “I thought you and my mother were getting along,” he said, puzzled.