“You already give a damn,” Zane chanced.
Ty merely smiled, his lips twitching as if he was trying not to. Zane grinned and stole a kiss.
“Shut up,” Ty muttered before jabbing Zane in the ribs gently and rolling out of his grasp.
Restraining the urge to yank Ty back into his arms, Zane instead let go and just lay there watching him. Ty sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then cocked his head and stared at the far wall thoughtfully.
“What are you afraid of?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.
That silence extended as Zane struggled with what to say. “Not being there,” he finally murmured.
Ty turned his head slightly to look back over his shoulder. “Not being where?” he asked in confusion.
Zane looked haunted. “I wasn’t there when Becky was killed. I wasn’t there when my first partner went stupid and drove home drunk. And I lost them both.”
“Yeah?” Ty responded unsympathetically. “I was there when my partner was shot and killed,” he said quietly. “I even took the bullet just like he did,” he said as he pointed to the spot low on his abdomen where a scar told the story of a through and through. “Still didn’t do him a damn bit of good. Just ’cause you’re there, doesn’t mean it’s any less tragic.”
Zane closed his eyes and shrugged a little. “If I’d been there, I might have been able to do something. But I wasn’t, and I lost them.”
“And if you’d been there,” Ty said softly, “I would have lost you.”
Zane slowly opened his eyes to look at Ty’s back as his breath caught. “I’m not letting you walk away again,” he said to him thickly without thinking about it first.
Ty gave a lopsided shrug and then nodded, not turning to look back at Zane. “It’s debatable, who walked away,” he said softly.
Zane drew in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “We ...
couldn’t have done this then. We didn’t know....”
Ty nodded thoughtfully as he finally turned to look Zane over, but the look on his face clearly said that he might disagree.
“How?” Zane asked, tilting his head to one side.
“How what, Chief?” Ty asked softly.
“How would it have worked?”
Ty pursed his lips and shrugged again. “Same way it is now, I guess,”
he answered, displaying the sort of nonchalance with which the Ty of old had always handled emotional situations. “Except without the drinking and drugs and copious amounts of anonymous sex, I’d imagine,” he added with a c**k of his head.
Zane’s lips twitched. “Anonymous sex? I thought you knew all those women.”
“Well, I did after a few minutes,” Ty pointed out with a hint of a blush.
A smile broke free. “You did better than I did, then,” the other man muttered, though he wasn’t at all self-conscious about it.
“I don’t wanna know,” Ty said immediately, closing his eyes and shaking his head.
Zane chuckled and swiped playfully at Ty’s arm. “Come here,” he said again. “We can sleep until Henninger calls.”
“You sleep, I’ll wake you up during the middle of a dream,” Ty promised crankily.
“You were having a bad dream!” Zane insisted.
“You know what I ain’t afraid of?” Ty asked. “Bad dreams!” He swatted at Zane’s grasping hand and then began crawling toward him slowly.
“Dreams mean I’m sleeping, and sleeping means I ain’t laying awake trying to get to sleep. Understand?” he asked as he got right in Zane’s face and brushed his nose against Zane’s.
“I understand,” Zane repeated dutifully, rubbing the tip of his nose against Ty’s before lifting just enough to press a soft kiss against his lips.
“First night I slept without passing out drunk in four months was that night at your place,” he said, his voice barely audible.
Ty closed his eyes and sighed quietly, deflating a little just before he clambered to the side and flopped down beside Zane.
Zane knew Ty didn’t want to hear it. But he’d said it to him anyway; the closest he could come to communicating how much he felt he needed his partner. He shifted and lay along Ty’s side, letting his eyes close while he just focused on feeling him close.
Ty’s arm snaked around him, pulling him closer. “After this case is over,” he said quietly as he stared up at the ceiling and idly twirled a lock of Zane’s hair, “promise me you’ll get help.”
Zane inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I promise,” he whispered.
Ty merely nodded his head almost indiscernibly and continued to play with Zane’s hair. “So, what exactly was the point of waking me up and picking a fight?” he asked finally.
“Hmmm?” Zane grunted. He knew full well what Ty was asking about. For now, Zane was just pleased to have the cranky, gruff Ty back. He could relate to him. This Ty didn’t scare him and make him feel incredible, baffling emotions he’d tried to shut away.
Ty rolled his eyes and shook his head again. “Asshole,” he accused almost fondly. He was unable to stay quiet for long. “I mean,” he said pointedly, “I know why I poke you. But where’s the fun in poking me? Why start arguments just for the sake of fighting?” he demanded.
Zane opened his eyes. He considered teasing, but thought it might be bordering on cruel at this point. “You’re more yourself now than you’ve been since I saw you again,” he said seriously.
Ty blinked up at the ceiling. “What the hell?” he finally asked.
Raising an eyebrow, Zane raised his head and rested his chin on Ty’s chest as he looked up at him. He didn’t answer, though.
Ty narrowed his eyes again and sighed heavily. “You’re trying to drive me crazy, aren’t you?” he finally asked.
“Depends, I guess,” Zane said. “If it helps you shake off that damn conditioning, I’ll do whatever I have to.”
Ty cocked his head and frowned. “Conditioning,” he muttered.
“ ‘Proper behavior’?” Zane said, sounding like he was parroting from a doctor. “All those things the shrink told you were the right things to do when you actually felt emotions?”
Ty’s eyes narrowed even further and he growled softly in the back of his throat.
Zane considered carefully what to say. “There’s a piece of you missing. Or that you’ve buried. One that I think we’re going to need for this case.”