There were a few moments of silence. "All right, I've told you about my past, it's your turn now Rick."

Rick took a deep breath as he turned around on the sofa to face Horatio. "I was an accident."

Horatio frowned. "I'm sure that's not true, Rick."

Horatio watched as 'he' held up his hand silencing him. Rick gave him a sad smile. "It is true, Horatio. I have an older brother, Josh. He took after my mom in appearance while I got the short end of the stick and took after my father. Josh is roughly seven years older than I am… or rather than you are now."

Rick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He seriously did not need to go into one of his ranting sessions. Which is usually what ended up happening whenever he thought about his brother for any length of time. Instead, he got up and picked a family portrait off of the bookcase. A smile formed on his face when he began to think about his mother.

Once he was sure that he could talk without snapping somebody's head off, Rick began to speak once more. "My mother and I were always close."

The brunette noticed that Rick was getting tense. "What was her name?"

The redhead smiled. "Carolyn." Rick took a deep breath and slowly let it out before he continued. "She was always there for me. But for some reason, I always seemed to be in the doghouse with my father and I never could figure out why. I mean, I got good grades, never got into any trouble at school, always did my chores on time. Josh always called me a Goody Two Shoes." Rick replied, rolling his eyes at that. "It wasn't until I turned eight that I figured out the reason why that was the case and after that, my father never let me forget it either."

"What happened?"

Rick snorted as the events of that day came to his mind. "It seems so stupid now after all of these years. It took one little trip to the park for everything to go south so quickly." He stared at the almost full glass of whisky on the coffee table in front of him before he picked it up taking another sip out of it. He didn't like the way it tasted, but he needed all the help he could get to get him through telling this story though in a way it wasn't nearly as bad as Horatio's past.

"I had gotten straight A's on my report card that day, and Mom had asked me what I wanted to do. My request was simple. I wanted to go to the park. Josh was mad at me because he had wanted me to ask for a new bike." Rick snorted at that. "He never could get straight As."

"Please continue." Horatio encouraged, not having a clue how this was connected to the story but he was sure that Rick had a reason behind telling him this and that the other man would get to the point soon.

"Anyways, as requested Mom took me to the park and Josh tagged along. He had gone off to do his own thing and I was just wandering around. Eventually, I came across a small stick that I picked up. After shaking off all the ants that were crawling along it, I began to imaging that I was in the middle of a swordfight. The next thing that I knew, Josh appeared out of nowhere and jerked the stick out of my hand."

"Then what happened?"

"He dared me to jump out of a swing while I was swinging in it. I refused at first, but he just wouldn't give up."

Rick risked a glance over at Horatio. His eyebrows had shot skywards as if he had an idea of where this story was going.

"Yes, you're probably on the right track. Mom was talking with one of my friend's mom at the time, so she didn't realize what Josh was up too until it was too late. He triple dog dared me, and after promising that he would leave me alone if I jumped out of the swing, I did it. So, of course, not only did I end up fracturing my humerus, but I also ended up breaking my ulna as well."

Horatio winced. He wasn't a stranger to broken bones, but thankfully he had never had a compound fracture. A single one hurt bad enough. Horatio couldn't even begin to imagine how much worse multiple broken bones hurt. "Then what?"

"Mom, took me to the hospital, of course." Rick took a deep breath as he rubbed his left arm. "They set both bones and put the cast on as well as my arm in a sling. I…" The redhead shook his head and took another swallow of the whiskey before he continued. "When we got home from the hospital, my father was so furious that he told me, and I quote, 'You were an accident. We had planned on only having one child.' He went so far as to tilt his head towards Josh who was just standing there watching on in shock."

He ignored the growl coming from his body. "That's not all that was said either. He went on to add 'In fact, I was planning on taking your mother on a very special trip for our anniversary that year, but we couldn't go. Care to guess why? She couldn't get the necessary immunizations that she needed in order to go because we discovered that she was pregnant with you.'"

"That bastard," Horatio growled out. "He had no right to say that. No right at all."

Horatio's reaction earned a raised eyebrow, though given the information that he had just learned it wasn't all that surprising. The other man had issues with abuse cases, physical or mental it didn't matter.

"As I got older, the comments and the like just got worse. Actually it was part of the reason why I ended up finally getting the tattoo. I had a friend draw it for me since I can't draw to save my life."

Rick smirked when he saw Horatio frown. "My father was a Church of Christ preacher. He always saw wolves as evil so when he realized that they were my favorite animal; he made it a point of always quoting Bible verses to me. His favorite was Matthew 7:15."

Rick stood up, scowling his features and began talking in a deep voice. "'Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.'"

Once he had finished, Rick sat back down on the couch. "It was hypocritical if you ask me."

"Why is that?"

Rick slowly shook his head, frowning as he did so. "In public, he presented himself as this humble man of God. When we were at home, he was the exact opposite. I made the mistake of pointing it out to him once and he accused be of being under the influence of Satan. Go figure."

Horatio frowned. "You're not telling me everything, are you?" He asked, remembering what Delmare had said earlier as he looked down at the photograph that Rick had taken off of the bookshelf. He closed his eyes as he thought, before opening them and looking over at Rick. "Do I remind you of your brother?"

"You used to. However, now that we've actually had to take the time to get to know each other, I can honestly say I like you a great deal more than him."

Horatio raised an eyebrow at that. "What do you mean by that?"

"For one thing, you tell it exactly how you see it. You don't fucking agree with someone because it will make your life easier in the long run. Honestly, that's the one thing I did like about you long before I actually got to know you. But you are right in the fact that I didn't tell you everything."

At that, Rick, who had most of his glass of whiskey left, took a deep breath before he downed the rest of the amber liquid. "I haven't told anyone this before.

"Several years ago, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer." Rick shook his head. "She didn't even smoke. The first time, she beat it and went into remission. I used that opportunity and, with her support, I moved here to Miami. The next couple of years things were going great. I liked the weather here, didn't have to put up with my father's crap anymore, was on the promotion grid, the list could go on and on…"

"So what was it that happened to cause it to change?"

Rick smiled at the other man. "As observant as ever, Horatio. You're about to be the only person to ever get the complete story. Not even Rose knows everything about what happened."

He took a deep breath before slowly letting it out. "Then, just as suddenly, things changed. The following year, everything went to hell in a handbasket. While I was on the promotion grid to Lieutenant, along with you, I received word that the cancer had not only returned but it had spread. My father wanted me to quit my job and move back home. At the time, I couldn't quit and I told him so. I did volunteer to come home as much as I could. Mom, as usual, understood where I was coming from and supported me. Josh, on the other hand, took my father's side. It didn't help matters that he had already transferred back to Alabama from California. He was an accountant."

"So what happened?" Horatio asked. He liked the senior Stetler less and less the more he learned about the man.

"My father all but disowned me then and there. Here are his exact words. 'Don't bother. We know how you feel about us, so don't bother speaking to this family ever again'."

"Then, not only did you end up beating me out of the promotion to Lieutenant, but on that same day I received a call from one of my aunts. She was my mom's oldest sister and she was asking me why I had missed the funeral since everyone knew that the two of us were close. No one had called to tell me a damn thing. It turned out that my father had told anyone that asked that he called to tell me about the arrangements and I had hung up on him."

"My aunt was horrified to hear that not only did I not know anything about the arrangements that I didn't even know that Mom had passed away."

Horatio opened his mouth before he closed it, not really knowing what to say. He didn't want to open his mouth and say something that would be taken the wrong way, especially when he was already feeling some effects from the drink. That surprised him, because it normally took Horatio at least five glasses before he normally felt the signs. He shrugged, lifted his glass, and downed the rest of the liquid.

Both men just sat there, digesting the information that they had just learned about each other. Eventually, the silence began to get to Rick. He stood up, excused himself, and took both of their glasses into the kitchen where he proceeded to wash and dry them. When was finished, he returned to the living room where he found Horatio out like a light.

Rick didn't even have the energy to smirk. He knew that Horatio was going to have it rough in the morning. Hell, he got drunk off of Nyquil. He sighed, tilting his head up in the direction of his ceiling. "You must be really amused right about now. Either you have a really strange sense of humor, or you really just hate me."

He walked over to the front of the couch and stared down at himself. Horatio had not only passed out on the couch but he was now lying sprawled across it. Rick brought his hand up to his face and slowly dragged it down. He looked at the distance between his sofa and the staircase. "Just had to make things difficult, didn't you." He muttered under his breath.

He reached down and grabbed the other man's arms and tried to pull him up and realized that he was wasting more energy in trying to pull the other man's dead weight onto his feet. Sighing, he perched himself on the arm of the sofa as he tried to think of an easier way of getting Horatio to his feet.

It took him a few minutes of just sitting there thinking, before he had one of those eureka moments. Rick hopped off of the couch's arm and grinned. Kneeling down on the floor, he reached up and pulled Horatio's right arm around his shoulder and scooted out as he stood up pulling Horatio upright with him.

By the time he had the two of them standing, Rick was breathing hard from the effort of lifting his dead weight off of the couch. He hadn't realized how heavy he could be, and Rick was glad that he tended to stay away from alcohol.

"Just remember this. Tomorrow, when you wake up with the worst headache imaginable, this was your idea and yours alone." He muttered before he turned the two of them around so that they were facing the staircase. He stared at the steps for a few minutes before he sighed. This was one of those times that he wished that he wasn't taller than Horatio because then it might have had an easier time getting the other man upstairs if that had been the case.

It took him another ten minutes for Rick just to get the two of them upstairs. When he finally reached 'his' room, he maneuvered the other man over to his bed, placed him on it and then pulled a blanket out of his closet.

Then, after wiping the sweat from his face, he pulled a pair of boxers out of his dresser drawer and disappeared down the hall. He ran hot water into the tub and eased himself down into it where he soaked his sore and protesting muscles. Only when the water started to cool down did he ease himself into a sitting position. He closed his eyes as he washed.

When he was done, Rick pulled on the boxers before he disappeared into the kitchen where he retrieved a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water that he set on the nightstand beside the bed where Horatio was. He even opened the child proof lid and just set it on top to keep anything from getting to the medicine. Then, after checking to make sure that the other man was still breathing, he rolled the brunette onto his side. Rick then turned and headed across the hall to his spare bedroom where he crawled into bed. It had been a very tiring day and it didn't take very long for him to get to sleep.

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