Seattle, Tuesday
Nov. 23rd, 2021 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
designateddadfriend"Holy shit," Travis said. "I — I mean, holy shit."
"Travis, stop." Vic shook her head sharply at him.
"Right. No. Sorry, I just — holy shit!"
"Trav!"
"Dr. Deluca's brother got --"
"Oh my god shut up!" Vic clapped her hand over Travis's mouth as they went into the station. "You can't just go around yelling stuff like that!"
Travis nodded, holding his exclamations in and nodding politely at Warren as they walked by the reception desk, then dragged her into one of the bunk rooms to properly explode.
"You're telling me that Bishop is on bereavement leave because her girlfriend's brother was murdered by human traffickers —"
"Yes, that's what I'm —"
"-- So Herrera is acting captain —"
"-- Yeah, that's —"
"-- and instead of asking, oh, someone who has worked with all of you for years and just happens to be in town to fill in for her, they're getting someone from another station."
"You're on vacation, Trav."
"And what's more relaxing than working a couple shifts in my hometown?"
"The hometown where people get murdered by human traffickers."
". . . Point." Travis stared at the wall for several beats, then looked back at her. "Is it bad that I'm kind of sad I missed it?"
"Yes." Vic nodded firmly. "That is very, very — really terrible. Yes."
"Yeeeeeah."
The number of things Travis didn't expect when hanging out at his old station was large. His ex walking by on break from volunteering at the hospital down the street? High on that list.
"Emmett!" Travis managed a small smile. "Heeeyyyyyyy."
Emmett looked up with a surprised wave. "Travis! You're back?"
"For the — the holiday. I'm still —"
"Working on the other side of the country. Yeah. Uh, I've heard."
"It — seemed like a good idea at the time."
"You don't like it?"
"No! No. It's great! I'm in charge over there. . . . Kind of because I was the only one working there for a long time. . . . But we just got a new guy, Buck? He's great."
"Buck! . . . You're working with another firefighter and his name is . . . Buck."
"Nickname. But — yes." Travis shook his head. How was this so awkward? He wasn't even into Buck that way. "He's like a puppy. Oh! Also, I have a puppy!"
"That's — that's great, man. Good for you. You —" Emmett cut off as Travis raised his hand, a familiar car pulling up into the station's driveway.
"No no no no no," Travis muttered, and strode over purposefully. "You can't park here! You cannot park here. This is a big 'no parking' zone!"
"Travis," Paul Montgomery said, smiling at his son through the car window. "I'm just stopping by."
"Don't care, Dad!" Travis said. "No parking, no 'stopping by'. If there's an emergency, Andy will run you over with the engine. She's done it before."
"Oh." Paul glanced at the garage doors in front of him. "Well. Your mother just sent these along —"
"Dad!"
"Okay! Okay, Travis, I'm moving it! You don't have to be so dramatic."
'Dramatic'. That was what his father had told him when he'd come out, too. You don't have to be dramatic, Travis. "Right. Travis. Dramatic." He shook his head. "Travis the drama queen."
Paul sighed, glancing away, then looked back at him. Still not moving the car. "Hey, you know, um, could you come over and help your mother and I install security on our computer?"
What. What the fuck was his dad going on about now?
"Craziest thing happened," Paul said, like his son wasn't staring at him flabbergasted. "My Facebook page seems to have gotten hacked. Someone stole my picture."
Oh for — "Did they."
"Yeah, who knows where that's gonna wind up." Paul chuckled uncomfortably. Travis wondered how dumb his dad thought he was.
"This is how we're gonna talk about it?" he asked. "You're gonna make up a lie about why I saw a shirtless pic of you on a gay dating app?"
Paul opened and closed his mouth a few times. "I don't know what you think you saw —"
The klaxon started ringing in the station. Travis wasn't sure if he was more frustrated or relieved. "Whelp! That's the emergency alarm! Good job, Dad, you have ten seconds to move or get run over."
Paul blanched and shifted into reverse as the garage doors started to open. "Travis —"
"Bye, Dad! Guess you're going to have to eat those cookies yourself. Maybe it'll help wash down all that shame!"
Travis jogged back, waving with an angry smirk as his dad hurriedly pulled out of the driveway and down the street, ahead of the wailing engine. Emmett came over to stand next to him, staring.
"So . . . that was your dad, huh?" he asked, once the trucks were away and the klaxon shut off again.
"That . . . was my closeted gay dad, yes."
He felt Emmett tense up a bit beside him.
"You know, that's not — being closeted isn't a crime, Travis."
Travis took a long breath in through his nose. "I know."
"Not everyone — knows themselves the way you do."
"Yeah." Travis shook his head, looking over at him. "And not everyone in the closet is stringing along some poor woman who thinks they love her."
Emmett grimaced. ". . . Yeah. . . ."
"And in this case? That poor woman is my mother."
". . . . Okay, but. . . ."
"And I found out by finding his photo on my dating app."
". . . Yep." Emmett nodded with a sigh. "You win, Travis, your dad's a monster."
"Thank you." Travis looked away. Thought of the people who'd murdered Dr. Deluca's brother. "Okay, maybe not a monster."
"Good catching up with you, Trav," Emmett said, and started jogging away. Travis called an awkward goodbye after him, then let himself spend a moment watching the man's form. Just . . . as a treat.
"And to think," he muttered to himself. "I could be in Fandom right now. Where the earth sometimes really does open up and swallow you whole."
It must have been a hell of a situation the team had been called to. Travis managed to vent nearly all his frustrations on the punching bag in the workout room and restack all the hoses by the time the trucks pulled back in. He headed to the kitchen to prep a snack for everyone and looked for an opportunity to pull Vic aside and tell her his latest 'my gay dad' news.
He looked up at her with a smile as she came in, then felt it fall away in shock as he saw the person walking in just behind her.
A person he'd been hoping never to actually see again face to face.
Theo Ruiz had been all smiles himself, laughing at something Vic had probably just been saying, but he froze in the doorway and stared back.
"Hey, Trav, you'll never believe what we just —" Vic stopped, frowning at Travis's expression, then looked back to see what he was looking at. Then just let her eyes flick between the two of them for several moments.
Travis didn't say a word, just shouldered past Theo on his way out the door.
He probably shouldn't be spending so much time at the station when he didn't work here anymore, anyway.
"Travis!" Vic came into the house with a slam when her shift ended. He'd hoped it'd be a busy enough one that she'd be too tired to talk and would go straight to bed, but since when was that Travis's luck? "Trav, hey, what the hell was that? Are you okay?"
"No." Travis put the dishes away in the cabinets with far more force that was necessary. "No, I'm very much not okay, Vic."
"Are you going to talk to me about it? Is — it's not your dad, is it?"
Travis just — just — managed to close the cabinet door without slamming it. "Not everything is about my dad!" He took a long, slow breath. This wasn't Vic's fault. "I just — I never thought I'd have to see him again."
"See —" Vic frowned, one eyebrow quirking up. "See who, the sub? Wait, you know him?"
Travis swallowed, trying to maintain at least some semblance of calm. This was not at all the vacation he'd been hoping for. "He was Michael's captain."
"Michael's —" Vic blinked a few times, realization slowly dawning. "Michael's captain."
"Yeah."
"You're saying the guy subbing for Maya is —"
"He's the man who got my husband killed."
Vic stood there, absolutely still for a long moment. Travis wasn't sure why — Ruiz couldn't have been subbing for very long. Travis had been in and out of the station since he got into town again on Friday, and Maya's girlfriend's brother had only died on Sunday. This was probably Ruiz's first shift at the station.
Just how well did she know this guy?
Then Vic was moving, tucking into Travis's side and just. Hanging on. And Travis reminded himself that not everyone was lying about something. Not everything was some big dramatic reveal. Travis the drama queen, reading too much into every little moment.
Travis the widower, whose heart was already permanently tied up into such tight knots that he wasn't able to find it in himself to love a gentle, beautiful man like Emmett back.
"I'm so sorry, Trav," Vic said softly, rubbing her hand up and down his back. And Travis let himself fold into her. Let himself feel it — feel that deep ache of his loss, the one that never got any better, no longer how many years had passed — for just a minute.
Then swallowed it down again. Because if he let himself go for too long. . . .
He'd never find his way back out.
It hurt every time he woke up. Especially when he woke up after clinging to his best friend, in the kitchen where Michael used to cook them dinner. Travis had to swallow the pain — the grief — down just to get out of bed.
Knowing that the man who'd fucked up so badly it got Michael killed was now working on Travis's team, backing up his people when he couldn't be there himself to fix Ruiz's mistakes?
That hurt even worse.
Travis eventually dragged himself out of bed. He'd managed to nap the evening away, completely ruining any chance he had of sleeping tonight. Which was fine when he was working a shift and needed to be ready to jump up and run into an emergency at any moment, but when he was on vacation? When all he had to do was wander around the house he used to share with his dead husband, that he now rented to his best friend while he worked on the other side of the country. . . .
Well. It wasn't great.
He was surprised to hear voices on the front porch. He'd expected Vic to be sleeping right now, or maybe out with Andy and Maya, having a girl's night. Not hanging out with someone on the porch, speaking so furtively and urgently. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but he couldn't help but pause by the door, out of view of the window, and listen.
". . . can't seem to make the pieces fit," she was saying. "But I know I trust Travis. I know who he is, and I know how he thinks, and I just don't believe that he could get something so important so wrong."
Travis swallowed. Who was she talking to? Maybe Miller had come over? But then who would be watching Prue?
"So, that's where I'm landing," Vic said. "That's where I'm planting my flag. With him and by him. So, that means that . . . that's it. I'm done wondering about you and worrying about you and . . . I'm just . . . I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop thinking about you. I'm gonna stop thinking about —"
"Please," a voice said, under Vic's as she kept babbling on. Travis knew that voice. That tone. He hadn't heard it in literal years, but he'd known it extremely well, once upon a time.
She was talking to Ruiz.
"-- How you make me f-feel."
She was breaking up with Ruiz.
"You're just making it worse," Ruiz said, his voice faintly broken. (Good. He deserved to be broken.) "I want you to know . . . I need you to know that what happened with Michael. . . . It didn't just destroy Travis. It doesn't just haunt Travis. He's not the only one . . . reliving that day over and over. And, God, I'm . . . I'm not saying it's the same. I can't imagine what he feels, what I made him feel. But that day, it . . . it didn't just destroy Travis."
Travis's chest hurt, and he realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled, and his lungs seemed to crumple into fists, refusing to take any more air in. He remembered it, all too well, when Ruiz — when Theo, his and Michael's best friend — had come to this house. Broken and in tears. When Travis had dragged himself off the floor and flung himself around Theo, hung onto him for dear life, and then asked him what had happened. Asked him to explain what had happened to his husband, because no one else would tell him.
And Theo had said it was a mistake.
That he'd made a bad call.
And Travis had realized that that it hadn't just been an accident or a fire that had stolen Michael from him.
He'd yelled at him. Thrown him out of the house. Refused to look at him at the funeral, refused to listen when people told him he'd been demoted. (He should have been fired. Arrested. Executed for murder —)
He'd done his best to put all of that, to put that hurt of betrayal at least if not the grief behind him, and now here he was, standing on Travis's front porch. With Travis's best friend. A woman who's life had been in his hands when they went out on call today, when Travis had been freaking out over, what. His father's shame?
He realized they'd gone quiet. Had they left? He pulled open the door without thinking about it, only to see Vic snap back, jerk away from where she'd been holding him, cradling that man to her chest, with tears in her eyes.
Theo, at least, had the grace to look ashamed.
"He's the guy," Travis realized. "He's the Running Guy."
The man Vic had been gaga over since the summer. The one she'd never been willing to tell him about.
Had she — had she somehow known?
Travis spun, heading back into the house.
"Travis!" he heard Vic's feet behind him and ignored them. Made a beeline for the back door instead. "Travis! Travis, I didn't know!"
"Except that you did!" Travis spun, staring back at her. "And then you stood there, on my front porch, comforting him because he's sad that he killed my husband!"
Vic didn't say anything. Travis headed out the door, into the night air of the yard.
And his legs went out from underneath him, like they had when he'd first gotten that call. He dropped to the ground, the grass damp from the ever present misting rain of Seattle, and pressed his back against the foundation of the house, where he'd had not neary enough time with the love of his life.
After awhile he heard a car pull out of the driveway. Vic's? Theo's? Had they left together? Had he comforted her while she ached over what she'd done to Travis?
It was petty, he knew. Dramatic.
Travis the drama queen.
He tipped his head back against the wall of the house and cried.
[season four was pretty mean to Travis, yes. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Content note for internalized homophobia and grief. Also, casual mentions of murder and human trafficking. DRAMATIC SHOW IS DRAMATIC.]
"Travis, stop." Vic shook her head sharply at him.
"Right. No. Sorry, I just — holy shit!"
"Trav!"
"Dr. Deluca's brother got --"
"Oh my god shut up!" Vic clapped her hand over Travis's mouth as they went into the station. "You can't just go around yelling stuff like that!"
Travis nodded, holding his exclamations in and nodding politely at Warren as they walked by the reception desk, then dragged her into one of the bunk rooms to properly explode.
"You're telling me that Bishop is on bereavement leave because her girlfriend's brother was murdered by human traffickers —"
"Yes, that's what I'm —"
"-- So Herrera is acting captain —"
"-- Yeah, that's —"
"-- and instead of asking, oh, someone who has worked with all of you for years and just happens to be in town to fill in for her, they're getting someone from another station."
"You're on vacation, Trav."
"And what's more relaxing than working a couple shifts in my hometown?"
"The hometown where people get murdered by human traffickers."
". . . Point." Travis stared at the wall for several beats, then looked back at her. "Is it bad that I'm kind of sad I missed it?"
"Yes." Vic nodded firmly. "That is very, very — really terrible. Yes."
"Yeeeeeah."
The number of things Travis didn't expect when hanging out at his old station was large. His ex walking by on break from volunteering at the hospital down the street? High on that list.
"Emmett!" Travis managed a small smile. "Heeeyyyyyyy."
Emmett looked up with a surprised wave. "Travis! You're back?"
"For the — the holiday. I'm still —"
"Working on the other side of the country. Yeah. Uh, I've heard."
"It — seemed like a good idea at the time."
"You don't like it?"
"No! No. It's great! I'm in charge over there. . . . Kind of because I was the only one working there for a long time. . . . But we just got a new guy, Buck? He's great."
"Buck! . . . You're working with another firefighter and his name is . . . Buck."
"Nickname. But — yes." Travis shook his head. How was this so awkward? He wasn't even into Buck that way. "He's like a puppy. Oh! Also, I have a puppy!"
"That's — that's great, man. Good for you. You —" Emmett cut off as Travis raised his hand, a familiar car pulling up into the station's driveway.
"No no no no no," Travis muttered, and strode over purposefully. "You can't park here! You cannot park here. This is a big 'no parking' zone!"
"Travis," Paul Montgomery said, smiling at his son through the car window. "I'm just stopping by."
"Don't care, Dad!" Travis said. "No parking, no 'stopping by'. If there's an emergency, Andy will run you over with the engine. She's done it before."
"Oh." Paul glanced at the garage doors in front of him. "Well. Your mother just sent these along —"
"Dad!"
"Okay! Okay, Travis, I'm moving it! You don't have to be so dramatic."
'Dramatic'. That was what his father had told him when he'd come out, too. You don't have to be dramatic, Travis. "Right. Travis. Dramatic." He shook his head. "Travis the drama queen."
Paul sighed, glancing away, then looked back at him. Still not moving the car. "Hey, you know, um, could you come over and help your mother and I install security on our computer?"
What. What the fuck was his dad going on about now?
"Craziest thing happened," Paul said, like his son wasn't staring at him flabbergasted. "My Facebook page seems to have gotten hacked. Someone stole my picture."
Oh for — "Did they."
"Yeah, who knows where that's gonna wind up." Paul chuckled uncomfortably. Travis wondered how dumb his dad thought he was.
"This is how we're gonna talk about it?" he asked. "You're gonna make up a lie about why I saw a shirtless pic of you on a gay dating app?"
Paul opened and closed his mouth a few times. "I don't know what you think you saw —"
The klaxon started ringing in the station. Travis wasn't sure if he was more frustrated or relieved. "Whelp! That's the emergency alarm! Good job, Dad, you have ten seconds to move or get run over."
Paul blanched and shifted into reverse as the garage doors started to open. "Travis —"
"Bye, Dad! Guess you're going to have to eat those cookies yourself. Maybe it'll help wash down all that shame!"
Travis jogged back, waving with an angry smirk as his dad hurriedly pulled out of the driveway and down the street, ahead of the wailing engine. Emmett came over to stand next to him, staring.
"So . . . that was your dad, huh?" he asked, once the trucks were away and the klaxon shut off again.
"That . . . was my closeted gay dad, yes."
He felt Emmett tense up a bit beside him.
"You know, that's not — being closeted isn't a crime, Travis."
Travis took a long breath in through his nose. "I know."
"Not everyone — knows themselves the way you do."
"Yeah." Travis shook his head, looking over at him. "And not everyone in the closet is stringing along some poor woman who thinks they love her."
Emmett grimaced. ". . . Yeah. . . ."
"And in this case? That poor woman is my mother."
". . . . Okay, but. . . ."
"And I found out by finding his photo on my dating app."
". . . Yep." Emmett nodded with a sigh. "You win, Travis, your dad's a monster."
"Thank you." Travis looked away. Thought of the people who'd murdered Dr. Deluca's brother. "Okay, maybe not a monster."
"Good catching up with you, Trav," Emmett said, and started jogging away. Travis called an awkward goodbye after him, then let himself spend a moment watching the man's form. Just . . . as a treat.
"And to think," he muttered to himself. "I could be in Fandom right now. Where the earth sometimes really does open up and swallow you whole."
It must have been a hell of a situation the team had been called to. Travis managed to vent nearly all his frustrations on the punching bag in the workout room and restack all the hoses by the time the trucks pulled back in. He headed to the kitchen to prep a snack for everyone and looked for an opportunity to pull Vic aside and tell her his latest 'my gay dad' news.
He looked up at her with a smile as she came in, then felt it fall away in shock as he saw the person walking in just behind her.
A person he'd been hoping never to actually see again face to face.
Theo Ruiz had been all smiles himself, laughing at something Vic had probably just been saying, but he froze in the doorway and stared back.
"Hey, Trav, you'll never believe what we just —" Vic stopped, frowning at Travis's expression, then looked back to see what he was looking at. Then just let her eyes flick between the two of them for several moments.
Travis didn't say a word, just shouldered past Theo on his way out the door.
He probably shouldn't be spending so much time at the station when he didn't work here anymore, anyway.
"Travis!" Vic came into the house with a slam when her shift ended. He'd hoped it'd be a busy enough one that she'd be too tired to talk and would go straight to bed, but since when was that Travis's luck? "Trav, hey, what the hell was that? Are you okay?"
"No." Travis put the dishes away in the cabinets with far more force that was necessary. "No, I'm very much not okay, Vic."
"Are you going to talk to me about it? Is — it's not your dad, is it?"
Travis just — just — managed to close the cabinet door without slamming it. "Not everything is about my dad!" He took a long, slow breath. This wasn't Vic's fault. "I just — I never thought I'd have to see him again."
"See —" Vic frowned, one eyebrow quirking up. "See who, the sub? Wait, you know him?"
Travis swallowed, trying to maintain at least some semblance of calm. This was not at all the vacation he'd been hoping for. "He was Michael's captain."
"Michael's —" Vic blinked a few times, realization slowly dawning. "Michael's captain."
"Yeah."
"You're saying the guy subbing for Maya is —"
"He's the man who got my husband killed."
Vic stood there, absolutely still for a long moment. Travis wasn't sure why — Ruiz couldn't have been subbing for very long. Travis had been in and out of the station since he got into town again on Friday, and Maya's girlfriend's brother had only died on Sunday. This was probably Ruiz's first shift at the station.
Just how well did she know this guy?
Then Vic was moving, tucking into Travis's side and just. Hanging on. And Travis reminded himself that not everyone was lying about something. Not everything was some big dramatic reveal. Travis the drama queen, reading too much into every little moment.
Travis the widower, whose heart was already permanently tied up into such tight knots that he wasn't able to find it in himself to love a gentle, beautiful man like Emmett back.
"I'm so sorry, Trav," Vic said softly, rubbing her hand up and down his back. And Travis let himself fold into her. Let himself feel it — feel that deep ache of his loss, the one that never got any better, no longer how many years had passed — for just a minute.
Then swallowed it down again. Because if he let himself go for too long. . . .
He'd never find his way back out.
It hurt every time he woke up. Especially when he woke up after clinging to his best friend, in the kitchen where Michael used to cook them dinner. Travis had to swallow the pain — the grief — down just to get out of bed.
Knowing that the man who'd fucked up so badly it got Michael killed was now working on Travis's team, backing up his people when he couldn't be there himself to fix Ruiz's mistakes?
That hurt even worse.
Travis eventually dragged himself out of bed. He'd managed to nap the evening away, completely ruining any chance he had of sleeping tonight. Which was fine when he was working a shift and needed to be ready to jump up and run into an emergency at any moment, but when he was on vacation? When all he had to do was wander around the house he used to share with his dead husband, that he now rented to his best friend while he worked on the other side of the country. . . .
Well. It wasn't great.
He was surprised to hear voices on the front porch. He'd expected Vic to be sleeping right now, or maybe out with Andy and Maya, having a girl's night. Not hanging out with someone on the porch, speaking so furtively and urgently. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but he couldn't help but pause by the door, out of view of the window, and listen.
". . . can't seem to make the pieces fit," she was saying. "But I know I trust Travis. I know who he is, and I know how he thinks, and I just don't believe that he could get something so important so wrong."
Travis swallowed. Who was she talking to? Maybe Miller had come over? But then who would be watching Prue?
"So, that's where I'm landing," Vic said. "That's where I'm planting my flag. With him and by him. So, that means that . . . that's it. I'm done wondering about you and worrying about you and . . . I'm just . . . I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop thinking about you. I'm gonna stop thinking about —"
"Please," a voice said, under Vic's as she kept babbling on. Travis knew that voice. That tone. He hadn't heard it in literal years, but he'd known it extremely well, once upon a time.
She was talking to Ruiz.
"-- How you make me f-feel."
She was breaking up with Ruiz.
"You're just making it worse," Ruiz said, his voice faintly broken. (Good. He deserved to be broken.) "I want you to know . . . I need you to know that what happened with Michael. . . . It didn't just destroy Travis. It doesn't just haunt Travis. He's not the only one . . . reliving that day over and over. And, God, I'm . . . I'm not saying it's the same. I can't imagine what he feels, what I made him feel. But that day, it . . . it didn't just destroy Travis."
Travis's chest hurt, and he realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled, and his lungs seemed to crumple into fists, refusing to take any more air in. He remembered it, all too well, when Ruiz — when Theo, his and Michael's best friend — had come to this house. Broken and in tears. When Travis had dragged himself off the floor and flung himself around Theo, hung onto him for dear life, and then asked him what had happened. Asked him to explain what had happened to his husband, because no one else would tell him.
And Theo had said it was a mistake.
That he'd made a bad call.
And Travis had realized that that it hadn't just been an accident or a fire that had stolen Michael from him.
He'd yelled at him. Thrown him out of the house. Refused to look at him at the funeral, refused to listen when people told him he'd been demoted. (He should have been fired. Arrested. Executed for murder —)
He'd done his best to put all of that, to put that hurt of betrayal at least if not the grief behind him, and now here he was, standing on Travis's front porch. With Travis's best friend. A woman who's life had been in his hands when they went out on call today, when Travis had been freaking out over, what. His father's shame?
He realized they'd gone quiet. Had they left? He pulled open the door without thinking about it, only to see Vic snap back, jerk away from where she'd been holding him, cradling that man to her chest, with tears in her eyes.
Theo, at least, had the grace to look ashamed.
"He's the guy," Travis realized. "He's the Running Guy."
The man Vic had been gaga over since the summer. The one she'd never been willing to tell him about.
Had she — had she somehow known?
Travis spun, heading back into the house.
"Travis!" he heard Vic's feet behind him and ignored them. Made a beeline for the back door instead. "Travis! Travis, I didn't know!"
"Except that you did!" Travis spun, staring back at her. "And then you stood there, on my front porch, comforting him because he's sad that he killed my husband!"
Vic didn't say anything. Travis headed out the door, into the night air of the yard.
And his legs went out from underneath him, like they had when he'd first gotten that call. He dropped to the ground, the grass damp from the ever present misting rain of Seattle, and pressed his back against the foundation of the house, where he'd had not neary enough time with the love of his life.
After awhile he heard a car pull out of the driveway. Vic's? Theo's? Had they left together? Had he comforted her while she ached over what she'd done to Travis?
It was petty, he knew. Dramatic.
Travis the drama queen.
He tipped his head back against the wall of the house and cried.
[season four was pretty mean to Travis, yes. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Content note for internalized homophobia and grief. Also, casual mentions of murder and human trafficking. DRAMATIC SHOW IS DRAMATIC.]