I can't believe how close we are to being finished! I've been so proud of this story and so grateful to each and every one of you who have been so supportive of it throughout this time. You guys are awesome 3 And I hope the next few chapters are full of the quality great readers like you all deserve.

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New Jazz Age
Chapter Eleven: Sleeping Dogs Lie

When push came to shove, when York is faced with the inevitable, there is really only one conclusion.

The world moves too slow for his plans.

After living with his life, his dreams, his everything seemingly on pause for months – maybe even years – he has a goal and a plan again. But he can't act on it yet.

Enrollment for classes at the community college don't start for another month, and even then he'll be signed up for the next semester, which isn't until the summer. And that means it'll be a long time before he can consider his odd-jobs business fully encompassing of everything he would like for it to.

Sure, he can do nonspecific jobs until that point. Sure, he can keep doing as he has been doing.

Sure.

But already, York is growing restless with the restrictions. Whether they exist or don't exist.

The free time he has stretches from seconds to hours, and while there's always that booklet North picked up for him at the court house that he could read through and take the permit exam for in the meantime, York doesn't do that exactly either.

York becomes proficient at avoiding the most reasonable course of action over the week after sharing his plans with his partners.

There isn't a day he wastes necessarily.

He does what he has always done – walks around town, talks to people, speaks with some of the businesses he's assisted in the past to get out the word that he's beginning a small start up.

There is even a deal at the printers office that offers to give him a discount on signs and flyers for some odd jobs around the business in return.

Overall, York's day is far from incomplete and far from wasted.

But it all feels a little cheap when he notices his cracked and aged jacket has a hole in its pocket that will need a patch job.

Stopping in his tracks, York thinks about the reality of patching the old leather jacket, glances at the cracks and the breaks.

For the first time almost, he seems to realize just what his jacket looks like to others. What he looks like to others.

And the hyper awareness makes him almost immediately nauseous.

Having combed the entire town, he winds up at the only place he's fully avoided thus far.

It's a bit of an old town cliche. A nearly rundown one floor building painted in chipping red and blue. There's a repurposed school bus painted gunmetal green parked in the front and a half-mast flag flying overhead.

He stops just beside the gate of the VA Center and spends some time staring at that flag.

It doesn't bring tears to his eyes. It doesn't sound like gunshots in his own ears.

It's just… there. Like York.

Just observing the world in memory of the thousands who died in a war for no reason. To all the Brave who didn't make it home.

But it's been almost a year. York, on his slow days, watches the news. He hears that around the country they're starting to raise the flags again at veterans centers all around.

Maybe this one will be raised again soon, too.

Continuing the rest of the way to the center, York isn't surprised but is a little disappointed to find that he's the youngest there by at least two or three generations. He gets a lot of smiles and salutes from men in suspenders with badges pinned to plain white dress shirts. He's greeted by a woman in a beret who seems intent on going back to her chess challenger.

York takes it all in for a little while – awkward in ways he rarely is socially.

Then he goes to the main desk and takes a few pamphlets and a card – a psychiatrist's card. And by the looks of the small stand for them, he's far from the only one to have taken one for himself.

There's a musty couch that York claims for himself and he slowly melts into it, makes himself at home.

Among the fewer, the prouder.


When his eye opens, York is met by Carolina's less than impressed expression.

It's the sort of thing he's getting more and more used to, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing he's yet to determine.

"Morning," he greets. "How'd you find me?"

She gives him a raised brow before swatting his legs off the couch and taking the seat beside him on the couch. "You're shockingly well known around town."

"Happens," York responds somewhat distantly as he scratches at an itch on his neck and looks around the veterans center. He doesn't know how long he's been asleep but he can see that the older crowd of the building before have mostly cleared out and the windows outside show a dulled and darkened light offset by passing headlights.

"Hm," is all Carolina musters in response, seeming to be taking in the building herself. "I never came in here before."

"Me neither," he admits. "But, of course, now it's marked off my list and I've been in all the buildings in this town and almost all the backyards with the number of fences I've been repairing. So I might have to expand my territory some now. Go into the wilderness a bit."

Carolina snorts slightly, shaking her head. "You're so weird."

"The weirdest," York agrees.

They fall silent together, looking at the flyers and posters and the ancient television propped in the corner. It doesn't take long for York to lean toward Carolina and rest his ear against her sharp shoulder. He starts to wonder if womens suits will bring back giant shoulder pads in the future – they're bound to be more comfortable.

"It's awful," Carolina cuts through the surface. "All the sacrifices of all the generations… and this is the only way it seems to have affected this little town at the heart of the country. People have no idea what we've seen. Or what we've fought after we've come back." Her lips press together and form a thin line. "There's no heart to this building for a reason."

"I don't know if there should be," York says lowly in response. "I kinda think it's a sentiment anyone interested in walking through those doors has in common."

Carolina lowers her head, eyes to the floor. "I don't think I ever told you I'm sorry about what happened to Delta," she says lowly.

York remembers the car and the endless roads, the last minute radio announcement about the bomb dogs barking. All hell breaking loose and the ringing in his ears as he was drug away from shambles and carnage.

"He wasn't the only one to die," York says quietly. "But he's the one I miss." His eye darts toward Carolina, assessing her reaction. "Guess that makes me a pretty shit person, huh?"

"Not at all," Carolina replies softly.

She flitters back and forth for a moment. There's a touch of hesitation to her action, but it only makes it that much more powerful and shocking when she manages to reach over to him with both arms and pull him into a hug.

"I'm… We are all so lucky in this world that you lived that day," she says, causing York's eye to widen further. "And, damn it, I don't know what I have to do or say in order for you to know that truth down to your bones, and I know I've been the number one reason things have gotten so complicated for the three of us lately, but I promise you and North I will fight and work and do everything I possibly can to make you realize you mean the goddamn world."

Slowly, York slips his hands under her arms and pulls Carolina into his own hug. His eye screws closed and he digs his chin into the nook of her shoulder.

"You know, I don't think you've complicated things so much as finally made us bring everything to the surface lately," York informs her. "So don't worry you're pretty red head about that. We couldn't keep living with our demons if we didn't start acknowledging them. I definitely couldn't have."

Without saying anything, Carolina hugs him tighter.

"Which reminds me," York says, pulling away a bit in order to reach into the pocket of his jacket and producing the psychiatrist's card he picked up before. "I didn't just come here for a nap."

Curiously, Carolina raises her brow but she ends the hug fully in order to reach for the card and read for herself. Her green eyes dart quickly over it a few times before she looks to York a bit surprised.

"You're really going?" she asks. "You'll meet with someone?"

"Yeah," York replies. "But I'm not grabbing it just for me." He leans against his knees, fingers lacing together. "Lina, I had a conversation with your brother the other day and it's really got me thinking… There's no shame in getting help, right? Especially for this kind of stuff."

"Of course," Carolina responds without a moment's hesitation.

"Then I think it's obvious that all three of us need to do it," York announces. "None of us were alone on the battlefield, right? It's the only reason we made it out of there… So what is it about coming home that makes everyone think that we need to start doing things alone."

She stares into his eye quietly, thoughtfully.

"Okay," she agrees.

"Okay," he says back.

She takes his hand in hers and pecks his cheek before pulling them both to their feet. "Let's get home. North and Theo are in charge of dinner so who knows what we'll be forcing ourselves to eat."

"Hopefully pizza," York jokes, earning a teasing elbow to his ribs. "But while we're on our way back, I do think we need to start talking about this dog business again…"

"There is no dog business," Carolina laughs, leading them out the door. "Stop saying that, especially in front of Theo."

"You think there's no dog business," York sings a bit, nearing their car.

"York," Carolina tries to warn, but it seems halfhearted.

She probably knows deep down that they fell in love with one stubborn bastard at the end of the day.

And that's enough to make York smile.


York comes home to the smell of something distinctively tomatoy and there's clattering in the kitchen with the small chatter that was indistinguishable from it.

It feels so real and so natural but he's still taken aback enough that he leans back against the doorframe a bit and looks at the lit house around him while Carolina kicks off her heels and shrugs off the jacket of her suit.

By the time York remembers himself, Carolina's giving him a look so he makes quick work of his boots – kicking them against the wall the shoe rack leaned against and shrugging his own jacket off one sleeve at a time.

He realizes, a bit idly, that it's the first time in a while that it's not him that's making dinner.

"You should really think about getting a table," Theo is in the middle of saying as York and Carolina enter the kitchen. He turns and looks at them, smile small but genuine. "Hey! You found him!"

"He sticks out like a sore thumb if you know where to look," Carolina says with a shrug. "That spaghetti?"

York pads across the tile and looks at the island where North is stirring sauce into a bowl of noodles. Immediately, York feels offended. "You can't cook spaghetti for me. I'm half Italian. I'll have a responsibility to complain about it."

"You better not," North says, looking up with brows high. "I didn't make it."

Even more surprised, York puts his hands on his hips and smirks at Theo. "You're a chef now? There any talents you don't have?"

"I can't talk everyone into getting us a dog," Theo laments.

"No worries, buddy, we'll wear them down on that one," York assures him, ignoring how he's almost immediately elbowed by Carolina in the ribs. "Hey, watch it, I'm still a little stiff."

"Work hard today?" North asks, though as usual small talk strains him in unusual ways – his brow furrowing and unsure if he's doing it right.

It's the little quirks like that that truly make York enamored with him.

"Slept hard," York admits. "I think I'm contorted a bit."

"What're you sleeping on? Benches?" North asks, growing almost more comfort in taking a more patronizing tone. "Pretty soon I'm going to run out of evidence for the secretaries at the school and they won't believe you're not a homeless guy wandering around collecting cans every day."

"That wouldn't make much money around here. I mean, where's the closest recycling plant? Couple towns over? Counties? It might not even be in this state," York postulates.

Apparently not allowing York to continue in his sarcasm, Carolina steps forward and answers for him. "He actually went and made friendly with the veteran's center in town," she explains.

North looks almost impressed, though York can't imagine why. "Really? I've seen that place a few times. Didn't think to stop by it, though."

"Well, maybe we should all consider it," Carolina says. "Now hurry up, I'm hungry and Theo's hard work smells way too good to continue resisting."

Beaming, Theo rushes to get some plates. "Can we save some and take it to Ellison later? He complains about the hospital food a lot."

"Ellison complains about everything a lot," Carolina responds. "But sure, I'll see what we can manage."

York stands back and just observes their strange little family, breathes it in. It's still so hard to realize just how real it is. Even with North offering a plate right in front his face.

"You with us?" North asks, brow furrowing slightly in concern.

"Always," York answers, taking the plate.


North doesn't have to order him out onto the porch that time. York makes it out on his own with a few beers from the fridge.

Theo and Carolina are gearing up to visit the hospital again, packing away leftovers and chatting like the siblings that York suspects that they've never been before. They haven't asked yet if North and York are coming, and York suspects the question answers itself in some ways.

It takes a little more than ten minutes, but North opens the door and looks out onto the porch where York is sitting. His eyes settle quickly on his partner and York greets him with a wave of an open beer.

"We should really look into whether or not it's legal to have an open container in public on this street," North points out, walking over to him and taking one of the beers from the table beside York and taking a seat.

"I'm sure it isn't. But, remember, I'm friendly with all our neighbors. We can get away with a few more offenses," York says, looking toward his beer. "You're welcome."

North pops open the beer and takes a drink. "You had us worried for a few hours there. Would you mind not disappearing like that again?"

"No promises," York replies only half jokingly. When he sees that there's a dissatisfied frown on North's face. "I'm trying to get better. Like, I'm working on it. And things." He looks at North more accusingly. "I'm trying to make it so all of us are going to work on getting better."

Finger tapping on the armrest of his chair, North presses his lips together. "Is that directed at me?"

"I think we all have a fair share of problems," York says pointedly. "If I have to stop being a right mess, you have to make the effort, too."

Sighing, North leans back into the chair. "Well… shit," he sighs.

"I hear ya," York laughs raising the can of beer toward North.

North clinked his own can against York's. "To the hard part, then," North sighs.

"To the hard part," York agrees, and they take a drink.