Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.
Author's Note: The lyrics are from Jackson Browne's "You're a Friend of Mine". The framework is from the episode "The Crystal Duck", in which Mark's old cellmate, Teddy Hollins finds temporary shelter in the gatehouse, while trying to deal with his crooked parole officer. This first appeared in the "Just Another Round of that Old Song Fic" section of the fifth, and final, STAR for BK zine.
A Friend of Mine
By L. M. Lewis
Striking out? Well count me in,
I'm gonna stand right by your side through thick or thin,
Ain't no doubt, gonna win,
A walk through hell ain't bad compared to where we've been. J. Browne
The last guy Mark expected to find hiding in the bushes at Gull's Way was Teddy Hollins. He was struck speechless, mute, but luckily, Teddy was never at a loss for words.
"Hey, Skid, how's it goin'?" he said, with only a hint of nervousness to his greeting as he stepped out.
Mark looked over his shoulder, panicky, to see if Hardcastle was anywhere in sight. Only then, halfway between embarrassed and relieved, did he turn back to Hollins. He swallowed his first instinctive response—which was 'What the hell are you doing here?', and substituted a simple, disbelieving, "Teddy?"
Hollins grinned. "Long time no see. Maybe longer on my end." Teddy was looking around in wide-eyed wonder. "When I heard what happened I said, 'Teddy, you better get over there and see what's going down.' So it's true, huh?"
Mark broke free from another dangerous moment of stunned silence, grabbed the other man by the elbow and said, "Inside, now," without even giving the question any thought. He only started thinking again—and breathing—once he got Teddy into the gatehouse and the door closed. One more last peek through the window—all quiet on the Hardcastle spread.
He let out a long breath and turned back to Hollins, who was standing there giving him an unusually worried look.
"You okay, Skid?"
"Not if he finds you here." Mark heard his voice rising a little and tried to drag it back down, pitching it intentionally low for maximum penetration. "Do you know who lives over there?" He hooked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the main house.
"Yeah," Teddy nodded. "That Hardcase guy, the one you were always talking about. The judge. That's why I was worried about you. Like I said, I heard what happened."
Mark frowned. He'd half-remembered Teddy saying it the first time, but in his haste to get the guy out of sight it hadn't really registered.
"Whaddya hear?" he asked warily.
Now it was Teddy's turn to look a little embarrassed. He frowned—another unusual expression and apparently one he had to work up to slowly, from lack of practice. A nervous grin finally won out over it. "Aw, you know, just stuff."
"Stuff? Like what stuff," Mark pressed.
Teddy cleared is throat, looked around again, and said, "Nice place." Then he definitely was frowning. "You stay here?" he shook his head.
"Yeah, Ted," McCormick said wearily, "the dungeon is being remodeled."
Hollins' eyes went a little wider again. "He's got one? Really?"
Mark rolled his eyes. "No, he doesn't. I stay here. This is where I stay." He paused, and not sure that he'd made himself absolutely clear, he added, "I do yardwork. Chores. Okay?"
"For Hardcase?"
"Yeah," Mark said. It sounded a little sullen. "It's kinda like work release."
"But you were out," Teddy sounded puzzled. "Six months you were out."
"I'm still out. Look around Teddy, does this look like Quentin?" He realized that the more he hammered that point, the more Teddy might wonder just exactly what the new deal was. He sighed. "Look, I was out, just doing my parole, getting along, and something came up." He winced, wondering how he could describe Flip's death in such an off-handed way after only a few weeks. "I did something kinda stupid."
"How stupid?" Even Teddy could apparently sense the evasion.
"Stupid enough to have gotten me ten years, at least, if I'd gone to trial on it."
Hollins issued a long, low whistle. "Ten, huh?"
"At least, and that would've been if I'd had a reasonable judge." Mark caught himself in a half-smile that took him by surprise. It was a joke, but already an inside one, and he'd be damned if he'd be able to explain it to his ex-cellmate.
"I guess I can see how you'd have to do it, then," Teddy said in a tone that implied no such understanding.
"Yardwork," Mark said firmly, "that's all." He hesitated, and then added, "And, well, once in a while we take care of some loose ends, legal stuff, from his cases."
Teddy was nodding in the kind of unquestioning agreement that, aggravatingly, meant he was just agreeing to go along with what he'd been told. McCormick fumed silently. There was no way to argue with an unspoken assumption.
He gave up. He settled for changing the direction of the conversation. "So you're out, huh? Getting along okay?"
There might have been the slightest hesitation before Teddy nodded more eagerly.
"You stayin' down here in LA? You got a job yet? A place to stay?" Mark was vaguely aware that he was sounding a little like a parole officer himself. He reined it in with a more general-purpose, "You need anything?"
Teddy's gaze had drifted off to the side a bit. Mark thought about it again, for the umpteenth time, how few months it took to get to know someone's body language. This was Hollins' version of evasion.
"Maybe," Teddy swallowed hard, "I maybe could use a place to crash—just for a couple of nights."
"Here?" Mark blurted out, immediately regretting the sound of it. Teddy was sitting there, a hopeful look on his face.
McCormick found his immediate, and completely founded concerns, quickly taking a backseat to Teddy's worries. After all, his parting words to the man, back six months ago in their cell in San Quentin, had been an invitation to look him up if he ever got down to LA. How the hell could you have known this was where you'd be? He still found it mind-boggling, the overwhelming improbability of it all.
"Well . . ." he said. Teddy broke into a half-smile of anticipation. Mark knew he was collapsing fast under the onslaught of the man's hope. "I guess, maybe for a day or two," he edged back carefully to a limited commitment.
Teddy was beaming now, all awkward thoughts about Mark's current situation apparently banished in his relief. McCormick gave that outcome a sideward glance, assuring himself that that hadn't really been part of his motivation—the need to have Teddy see that he really was just a yard man. He hoped no shotgun-riding would arise in the next couple of days. He thought that'd be tough to explain, too.
"You'll have to lie low, though," he said earnestly. "And maybe use the window, the one that doesn't face the main house . . . a ladder, maybe," he said, half to himself.
"Like a tree house. It'll be fun." Teddy said cheerfully. "You'll see."