AN: Finally, an update! Don't know how much more of this fic there is, but I don't think it's finished yet.


Part 3


Nothing special about a Wednesday night, but Marty comes out of the bathroom in his boxer briefs and cotton t-shirt and the sight of him hits Maggie in the pit of her stomach with hot pins and needles. Her breath catches in her lungs, and her heart clenches in her chest, no different than every time she saw him those first couple years they dated and screwed around in college. They haven't had sex in three weeks, time slipping by unnoticed, both of them too distracted by the kids and work and Rust to complain about it.

Marty gets into his side of the bed and turns out the lamp on his night table, oblivious to that look in Maggie's eye. He turns his head to smile at her and say good night, and she leans over to kiss him, her hand planted on his chest. She tastes his minty toothpaste on his breath. When she pulls back to look at him, their eyes meet, and she wants him as if that affair with the court reporter never happened, as if all the trouble they've had the last year and a half is in the distant past.

He looks at her in the dimness of the half-lit bedroom with pleasant surprise but not quite excitement.

"What?" she says. "You not in the mood?"

"I'm always in the mood," says Marty, smiling. "It's just, I wanted to talk to you."

That immediately puts Maggie's surge of desire on hold. Marty initiating meaningful conversation is still borderline miraculous in her book, and she knows there's no talking to him after sex.

"What about?" she asks, lying on her side facing him, the lamplight behind her outlining her dark head like a halo.

Marty hesitates for a moment, watching her. "Have you had any second thoughts about our agreement? Giving each other permission to fool around?"

"Sure. Plenty of times. But I still think we're better off with the option than we were without it."

Marty sinks down onto his back, head on his pillow, and looks away from Maggie at the ceiling.

She watches him. "Is that all you're bringing up?"

"No," says Marty, eyes searching.

They're quiet for a beat.

"What, Marty?" Maggie says.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Marty tells her. "I don't know how to—what the right words are. 'member you said something about friendship? Like, it could be something attached to family?"

She nods, impressed that he was listening that closely. "Yeah."

"I've been trying to figure out what it is. I don't know why, just something about what you said or the way you said it—and now all this time we've been spending with Rust. It's been on my mind a lot. Friendship. I was thinking about all the buddies I've had through the years, school and the rodeo and the force. I thought I knew what friendship was, I thought I had it, like it was this simple, no big to do. Like, it was always the one uncomplicated thing, you know? Marriage and family and being a parent, that's complicated. I took for granted, all these years, how easy it was to be friends with people."

Maggie's holding up her head in one hand, elbow on her pillow, looking at Marty with the kind of fascination she forgot she could feel toward her husband. "What are you getting at?"

Marty pauses, as if he's working the thoughts around in his head. He looks at Maggie and says, "I don't know if I've ever had the kind of friend who really matters. You know? The kind of friend that makes you feel something. Not just someone you like or someone you have fun with. But someone who's part of you, the way your family's part of you. That's what you meant, isn't it? When you told me there's more to being Rust's friend than dinner?"

Maggie feels her heart soften. She almost smiles, looking at Marty. This is the kind of man she's been desperate to find in him: the kind who hears what she's saying, who takes her seriously. A man who pays attention to his emotional life, not just his sex life.

"Yeah," she says. "Something like that."

Marty looks away from her again. "I don't know, I don't know what the hell I'm saying, I just... I'm spending all this time with Rust, and he's so fucked up, Mags. He really is. He does a good job keeping it together, all things considered, but he needs things... I don't know if we can give him what he needs. I don't know if I can. He's—God, he's so fucking frustrating. Even when he's not being an asshole. He's—"

"Human. Rust is profoundly human. He's not any different than the rest of us, Marty."

Marty shakes his head. "Most people don't have the issues he's got."

Maggie thinks about Rust's daughter and ex-wife and the night, not so long ago, when he told her that he used to have trouble with drinking and drugs. He mentioned he'd spent some time in a mental hospital before his transfer to Louisiana, something to do with the job he'd had before that he didn't want to talk about. None of it surprised her much. She's had patients with the same haunted quality in their eyes and their faces. She's noticed Rust looking a lot better since he started spending more time with Marty and her family, but she catches a glimpse of it once in a while still.

"Marty," she says. "Is Rust making you feel something?"

Marty looks at her, head nestled in his pillow. He's quiet.

"You don't have to put up a front here. It's just us."

"He makes me feel a lot of things," says Marty, eyes sliding away again.

"You can't say that about any other guy you've been friendly with, have you?" says Maggie.

Marty pauses. "Guess not."

"Is there something else on your mind?"

"I was hoping you had figured him out better than I have. Or at least what to do with him."

Maggie shakes her head after several seconds. "I'm playing it by ear, just like you. You spend a lot more time with him, Marty. I'm sure you know him better than I do."

"I don't know how to be someone's friend, Maggie. That's what I've been trying to tell you. And I sure as hell don't know how to handle Rust Cohle."

"He's getting better," she says. "We must be doing something right."

"Or he knows how to put on a show."

Maggie grins a little. "Some of his pessimism's rubbing off on you, huh?"

Marty frowns. "No. No. Of course, not. I am nothing like him, thank God. I just know he's perfectly capable of behaving himself when he needs to, but on the inside, he's still a morbid, fucked up asshole with a fucked up worldview."

"And yet, you like him," says Maggie, sitting up.

"So do you," says Marty.

She hops onto Marty's waist, straddling him with her knees in the mattress. She leans down to kiss him and says, "He'll teach you how to be his friend. Don't worry about it."

They kiss for a few minutes, open-mouthed and eyes closed, her hands running down his chest and pushing up his t-shirt. She can feel him starting to get hard as he grabs her hips in his hands underneath her camisole. She's already wet.


Rust's drunk. Drunker than he was the first time he had dinner with the Harts. So drunk, he feels like he's going to split clean open down his torso, every bad feeling in him gushing out with his blood and guts. He's been hunched over the bar at some redneck dive for the last two hours, chain smoking, watching the crooked line of shot glasses fog up in front of him. He's had a few beers too, bottles he could easily fling at someone's face if given the opportunity.

Tonight feels like one of those times, right after Sofia died, when he would get wasted in bars like this one and not come home until midnight. He'd find Claire either asleep in their bed or smoking at the kitchen table with a glass of wine, looking over his cold plate of food across from hers like she left it out on purpose. At some point, she started spending more time at her mother's or a hotel or fucking somebody else, who knows. Rust would step into an empty house, find a blank table under the one, lonely light. He'd stare into the refrigerator that had more booze in it than food and remember the jars of mashed banana and peas and apple that they used to keep in the door shelves. Depending on his emotional state, he would stop at the nursery door and just linger there for a few minutes, or he would go in and cry himself into unconsciousness.

He's been trying to decide lately whether or not he should get clean. He's been having a rough week—maybe because of the child murder he and Marty caught on Monday or maybe for no reason at all—and he almost drove out to see one of his dealers but decided against it. Ended up here instead. Now that he's too drunk to drive, he figures he would've been better off getting high at home.

Rust dabs his cigarette butt into the ashtray at his arm and glimpses himself in the mirror partially hidden on the wall behind the bar. He checks his watch, but he's too drunk to make sense of it. At this point, he's going to have to sleep in his truck and hope for the best.

Rust slides off his stool and braces himself against the bar, as he sways on his feet. He leaves a wad of cash for the bartender and makes it to the men's room somehow, feeling the alcohol slosh around in his empty stomach. He takes a piss in one of the urinals and washes his hands, looking at himself in the mirror and nearly resting his face against the cool glass. He feels like hell, knows he's going to puke at some point in the next twelve hours and wake up with a killer headache. Maybe he'll take off work, even though he's done his job plenty fucked up before, too many times to count.

On his way out of the bathroom corridor, he knocks against another man's shoulder. Doesn't mumble an apology until after the guy turns around says a little too loud and aggressive, "Watch where the fuck you're going, asshole."


The phone wakes Marty and Maggie up. Marty reaches for it on his night table, barely conscious, answering after two rings.

"Hello?" he says, eyes still closed.

"Is this Marty?" says a young, female voice. "Marty Hart?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"My name's Lilah. You don't know me, but your friend here told me to call you. He's pretty drunk, and he got into a fight."

"Who you talking about? What time's it?"

"Pretty late. Almost two. His name's Rust? Rust Cohle?"

Marty's brain perks up. He rubs at his eyes and swings his legs over the side of the bed, throwing back his half of the comforter. "Where are you?" he says, voice stronger now but quiet.

"The Hot Tomcat. You know it?"

Marty almost sighs. "Yeah, I know it. Why am I talking to you instead of him?"

"Like I said, he's pretty wasted. He's not feeling too good. He wants you to come get him, if you can."

Marty rubs his face with his free hand. He'd tell this girl to call Rust a cab or take him home herself, if not for feeling flattered that Rust thought to call on him for help. "All right, can you stay with him 'til I get there?"

"Sure, I guess. How long'll it take you?"

"I don't know, twenty, twenty-five minutes?"

"Okay. We'll be waiting for you outside."

"See you soon," says Marty and hangs up. He combs his fingers through his hair, whispering Christ as he looks for shoes and a pair of jeans in the dark.

"Marty?" Maggie says, more asleep than not.

"Be back soon, honey. Rust needs a hand."


The parking lot's near empty when Marty gets to the Hot Tomcat. He sees Rust's truck and parks a couple spaces next to it, then gets out of the car and spots his partner with the girl Lilah. They're sitting on the ground, Rust's head between his knees and his arms criss-crossed over his head. Lilah—twenty-something years old with her red hair in one braid—smokes a cigarette next to him and meets Marty's gaze as he approaches them. She stands up, as Marty reaches her and looks down at Rust with his hands on his hips.

"What happened?" he says.

"I don't exactly know," says Lilah. "There was a fight inside, and the bartender threw him out. I wanted to make sure he was okay, didn't try driving himself home or nothing."

"Rust?"

Rust doesn't move or acknowledge Marty's existence.

Marty crouches in front of him. "Rust. Hey." He taps the other's man's leg. "Come on. Gotta be at work in like five hours, so if you don't mind, I'd like to go home to my bed."

Rust finally drops his arms and lifts his head. His face is bruised, red, and swollen, his mouth bloody in the left corner and in the middle of his bottom lip. His eyes are unfocused, even as he tries looking at Marty right in front of him.

Marty just shakes his head.

"You came?" Rust says.

"No shit," says Marty. He stands up again, and Lilah offers him Rust's keys. Marty pockets them and nods. "You got a safe ride out of here?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says. "I drove myself, and I'm pretty much sober, so."

"Well, thank you for calling me and staying with him. I appreciate it."

She smiles and says, "No problem."

Marty watches her walk across the parking lot and get into a little Volkswagen Beetle. He turns his attention to Rust and leans over to haul the younger man up on his feet, arms tucked under Rust's. His partner leans heavy against him all the way to the car, and Marty tucks him into the passenger seat.

The first thing Rust says once Marty's in the driver's seat is, "'m sorry, Marty."

Marty turns the key in the ignition. "I'm just glad I didn't get a different call, notifying me of my stupid partner dying in a drunk driving accident."

They don't speak on the way to the Hart house. Marty believes Rust's passed out, but as soon as he parks the car in the driveway, Rust straightens in his seat and says, "What are we doing here?"

"This is where I live," says Marty.

"I shouldn't stay here. Maggie and the kids..."

"Are asleep and won't give a shit. I'm not leaving you alone when you're too shitfaced to walk. You might die on accident or something."

For some reason, Marty doesn't even think to put Rust on the living room sofa. He takes him straight to the master bedroom, where Maggie's awake with her lamp on. Marty shuts the door behind him, watching the concern surface on Maggie's face.

Rust plops down on the chair across from Marty's side of the bed, breathing heavy with his eyes closed. Marty kneels in front of him and loosens the knot in Rust's tie, unbuttons Rust's shirt, and Rust takes it off, dropping it and the tie on the carpet. He's wearing a white undershirt.

Marty stops and waits for Rust to finish undressing, but Rust just sits there with his eyes shut, his mouth pursed and his face tight. It looks like he's in pain, and Marty wonders if he got more hurt in that fight than he's letting on. From what Marty can tell, there's no damage to Rust's body, just his face, but he could be wrong.

"Rust?" Maggie says, her voice gentle in the silent house.

Rust cracks his eyes open, stands up, and goes into the bathroom, closing the door.

Marty and Maggie hear him throwing up not a minute later. It goes on for a little bit, and they wait for it to stop, assuming he doesn't want them to hover. Marty looks over his shoulder at Maggie, sitting on the floor, and says, "He's drunk. Got into a fight at some hole in the wall bar. He asked somebody to call me to pick him up."

Maggie looks past her husband at the bathroom door. "Did something happen to him recently?"

"Not that I know of. I'm telling you, Maggie, the man's got issues."

They hear the sink running, after a quiet pause.

Rust appears and leans against the bathroom doorjamb, looking miserable and disoriented. His eyes are unfocused. He doesn't look at Marty or Maggie directly.

She gets out of bed and approaches him, laying her hand on his forehead like he's a child and she's checking him for fever. He's warm and clammy. She can smell the alcohol and cigarette smoke on his skin and his breath and his clothes. She presses two fingers to the side of his neck, taking his pulse—an instinct she can't explain. It's normal.

"I shouldn't be here," Rust mumbles, sounding less than fully conscious. "'m sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Maggie says. "You're always welcome here."

She sits him down on the foot of the bed. Marty's on his feet again, watching them.

"I'm going to bring him some water," she tells him, on her way out of the bedroom.

Rust leans forward with his elbows on his knees and buries his face in both hands. Marty sits next to him on his right, pressed against him, and lays a hand on Rust's back. He starts rubbing it a little, up and down.

Maggie comes back with a glass of water and sits on Rust's left, passing it to him. He drinks without protest and gives the glass back to her empty.

"Rust," she says. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He hesitates, then shakes his head.

"You mind if I look you over, just to make sure you're okay?"

Again, he pauses, then croaks out, "Go ahead. I'm fine."

Maggie puts the glass on her night table and gets on her knees at Rust's feet with one of her nurse's flashlights. She checks his pupils first, then lifts up his undershirt and presses her fingers into his flesh in several places. Belly, ribs, sides. He's not bruised, and nothing feels broken.

"That hurt?" she says.

He shakes his head, but then again, he's drunk and male. She's also sure he's got a high tolerance for pain. He could be lying, but there's no visible sign of damage, so she decides to leave him be.

Maggie meets Marty's gaze, and he says, "How do you want to do this?"

She glances at Rust, then back at Marty. "He can stay here with us? If you're okay with that."

Marty looks at Rust, who's got his eyes closed again and seems to be focused on breathing or maybe just not passing out where he sits. Marty nods.

They take off his shoes, belt, and pants, and he lets them only because he's too far gone to fight kindness and too ashamed to be an asshole. They lay him down in their bed, right in the middle, and he rolls onto his left side like he instinctively knows that's the only way they'll have enough room. Marty lies down behind him, and Maggie gets in on the other side of the bed, turning out her lamp. It's past three o'clock now, the darkest hour of night.

The three of them are silent and still for a few minutes, snug in a row. Maggie tries to go to sleep on her back, arm resting along the edge of the mattress. Marty's on his side, back to back with Rust, trying too.

She feels it first: Rust trembling. She doesn't need more than a couple minutes to figure out that he's crying, soundless and barely breathing. She turns toward him onto her side and can almost feel the heat and moisture coming off his face. She's inches away from him, but can't see him in the dark.

"Rust?" she says, unsure what to do. "What's wrong?"

He sniffs but doesn't speak.

Maggie hears Marty rustle on the other side of the bed, rolling over to pay attention. She rests her hand on Rust's hard, sinewy shoulder.

"What's wrong?" she whispers. "You can tell me. It's okay."

Rust sniffles again, sucks in a breath. After a long time, he says, "I miss Sofia."

The sound of his voice, raw and strangled, guts Maggie. She moves in close to Rust and wraps her arm around his shoulders, hand cradling his head. He curls his arm around her waist and clutches her, crying into her chest and the curve of her neck. Shaking.

Maggie can't see her husband, but after a few minutes, she can feel him tucking in behind Rust, his arm stretching out to drape over Rust's waist and Maggie's. She doesn't know how much time passes until Rust finally stops crying, but at some point, she feels his breathing begin to even out and his body relaxing.


The alarm clock goes off at six thirty. Marty shuts it off where it sits on his night table and rolls onto his back, his eyes still closed. The warm body pressed along his left arm and side doesn't move. A few minutes pass, before Marty cracks his eyes open and turns his head to look at Rust.

If you would've told him six months ago that he'd have another man in his marriage bed—and not just any man but his weird, possibly mute, asshole partner—Marty would've slugged you.

But he lies there thinking about it for a little while and decides that he doesn't mind, except for how cramped it is in a queen-sized bed with two men and a woman. That thought alone makes him wonder who the hell he is now.

Maggie shifts and stretches, parts of her sore from holding onto Rust in the same position for three hours. He's dead asleep, but his arm's still limp around her waist, his hand warm on her hip now as she lies next to him on her back. It's been so long since she shared a bed with a man besides Marty, since she had a different man's arm around her, and in her whole life, she's never experienced it with a man she wasn't fucking. It surprises her how nice it feels. She can't think of one woman she knows who would believe her, but she's not any more inclined to have sex with Rust now than she was before. Maybe it's because she's a monogamist at heart, maybe it's because she knows Rust doesn't like sex, or maybe it's just because for the first time in her life, she's friends with a man who actually appreciates her friendship. Whatever the reason, the hope that Rust sleeps with her and Marty again slips through her sleepy brain unchecked and unapologetic.

She forces herself to sit up and takes a minute to finally get on her feet. She finds Marty at least half-awake on his side of the bed when she heads for the door. "I'm going to make breakfast," she murmurs, keeping her voice low. "You stay with him."

Marty nods.

Maggie leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.

For a while, Marty just lies there next to Rust and stares at the ceiling, listens to the quiet of the house. His daughters are asleep; they'll have to be coaxed out of bed by their mother and hurry to get ready for school. She'll drop them off and start her shift at the hospital eventually, and Marty will either go to the CID office alone or call in with some bullshit excuse about coming late because of a family thing.

He doesn't want to leave Rust alone. He could, in theory, drive his partner around as they try to actually work, but he doesn't see the point in making Rust go anywhere when he's still drunk and sick. Marty's sure that Rust has worked in states significantly worse than the one he's in now, but it makes no difference. Marty won't be someone who endorses Rust's self-abuse.

Maggie comes back in with coffee, just one mug. She sets on Marty's night table, and the smell of it dissolves whatever sleepiness was still clinging onto him. She glances at Rust, who hasn't stirred at all.

"You going to work?" she asks Marty.

"Maybe, eventually," says Marty. "I'm going to call him in sick and play it by ear. When's your shift?"

"Nine to five. The girls carpool to dance after school. I'll pick them up on my way home."

Marty's looking up at her. "What do we do with him?"

She shrugs one shoulder. "You make sure he takes it easy and sobers up. I'll make a plate for him, in case he wants to eat later. We'll have to see what he wants to do... I don't like the idea of him alone in his house tonight."

"Me neither," says Marty and looks in Rust's direction.

Maggie leans down and presses a kiss to Marty's forehead. "Thank you," she says. "For being good to him."

He's too surprised to smile at her, watching as she slides back out of the room. Once she's gone, Marty sits up and takes a look at the digital clock: 7:09.

He sips on his coffee. Just the way he likes it: hot, black, one sugar.

Rust sucks in a breath and jerks awake without warning, like maybe he was having a bad dream his brain needed to snap out of. His arms flail, and he whacks Marty, looking around the room like he has no idea where he is.

"Hey, hey, hey," Marty says, getting out bed and standing back because he knows well enough to be cautious around the other man when he's intoxicated, scared, and disoriented. "Rust. Calm down. You're okay."

Rust's eyes track across the bedroom, wide and startled, as he half-sits up in the middle of the bed. That curl of hair at the front of his scalp droops over his forehead. His expression's another one Marty's unused to seeing: like Rust Cohle showing up where Crash is supposed to be, in the middle of some terrifying, violent, and gruesome scene. Or in the middle of a bad drug trip, when he's got no one with him who gives a shit and has to ride it out alone. The Rust Cohle who maybe existed before his daughter's death and his broke down marriage and four odd years of undercover narco work, complete with drug-induced brain damage and a million bad choices, obliterated him like an atomic bomb. Rust before he started reading that philosophy shit.

"Where am I?" Rust says, tongue too slow with the words. "What did I do?"

"You're in my bedroom," says Marty. "At my house. I picked you up at the bar, remember? You've been asleep about four hours. You were drunk as shit, so you probably still are."

Rust doesn't reply, as he settles down, looking around the room like it's not real. Like maybe he's hallucinating the whole thing. "What time is it?" he says.

"After seven. And forget about going to work, because you're in no condition. I'm going to call you in sick and make something up about taking a half day for the kids. You sober up later, maybe we can hunt down what's-her-name in Kinder."

"Alice," Rust croaks. "Willoughby. Alice Willoughby, the babysitter."

"Yeah, her. Now, why don't you lie back down and get some more sleep. I'll be here whenever you wake up."

"Was Maggie—?"

"Yeah, she's here. We've both been here the whole time."

Rust collapses on the bed, head in the imprint of his pillow, and shuts his eyes. He looks ashamed.

Marty steps up to the side of the bed and says, "Hey. You don't gotta feel bad, all right? It's fine. Neither one of us wanted you anywhere else."

"This is so fucked," Rust says.

"No, Rust, it's not. It's friends helping you out. Just be grateful and accept it."

Rust's quiet for a moment. "I'm grateful."

"You gonna freak out if I get back in with you for a while?"

Rust doesn't answer right away. He shakes his head, without looking at Marty.

Marty slips back under the comforter, sitting up with his pillow between his back and the headboard. He drinks his coffee in silence, listening for the sound of his children or his wife's voice. He doesn't hear anything.

Setting the half-empty mug on the night table, Marty says, "If you want to get wrecked on a weeknight, that is your business. I'm not going to pretend I haven't done it before myself, albeit in a hell of a lot better mood. But if something's wrong with you, you need to tell me. You're my partner. And you ain't going home to someone else and telling them."

"There's always something wrong, Marty," says Rust, sounding worn out and resigned. "You want a guy who's got himself together, you better ask Quesada to kick my ass out."

Even if Rust pulled this shit every week, Marty wouldn't do that. He doesn't want to imagine where Rust would end up if he left the job and disconnected from Marty and Maggie now. Besides, as ridiculous as it is, Marty likes him too much to let go.

He drinks more coffee, then says, "Just talk to me. Would you? At least let me know when you feel like shit, so I can invite you over."

"I'm not your God damn charity project," Rust says, his voice flat. "I'm not your brother, I'm not fucking your wife, I'm just the guy you work with, and I got no business bringing my personal bullshit around your kids."

"We're not trying to help you out of pity, damn it. We care about you. I care about you. I'm asking you to let me."

Rust doesn't say anything at all, lying on his side with his back to Marty.

Marty feels stupid for a minute, leaning toward embarrassment. What the hell's he doing in bed with a man, anyway? What the hell's he doing letting his wife get so close to his partner, and what's he doing having these kind of talks, doing this kind of shit for Rust Cohle?

Then, Marty gets off that train of thought. There's no one here to judge him, and the way he was living before wasn't doing anyone good. If he can fuck around on his wife shamelessly and count that part of his private life, he can sure as hell cozy up to Rust and pretend like he's not that kind of guy to the rest of the world.

Marty slides down into the bed and rolls over toward Rust, hooking his arm around the leaner man's waist. He feels Rust tense up just for a few seconds but neither one of them pulls away.

"What're you doing?" Rust says.

"You're hurtin," says Marty.

Rust doesn't argue with that.