Central Park was on fire, the green burning up in the blaze of gold and red. The days were crisp and clear, but the wind was getting colder.
Law was back to Harvard, and he'd never admit it but he missed his dog. Rocinante heard him baby-talk to Bepo via his dog camera once or twice.
He also missed Rocinante, but that was more or less easily remedied. Law would just call him on Facetime, and they'd talk and talk as Rocinante made bad dinner or munched on good takeaway, and then Law'd go back to studying without ending the call, and Rocinante would watch him as he scribbled down his notes and pored over his books, and Law would look up at his laptop screen from time to time, as if to check that Rocinante was still there.
It was a very poor substitute for all the years Rocinante missed, but he was grateful. He'd tell Law so, and Law would blush something terrible and start stammering, and Rocinante would quietly laugh at him and call Bepo over to, "Say hello to the dogfather!"
Law also missed his boy, and — well. There was nothing to be done about that, what with at least four more years Law had to study at Harvard for his chosen career, and with the way Law's boy was. Sometimes Rocinante wished he could take Law's hurting heart out of his chest, and put inside his own old, callous one, but alas, things didn't work that way. This was something Law had to handle on his own; make his own choices, deal with his own fuckups, cry his own tears.
That, too, was a part of growing up. So maybe Rocinante still had the chance to be a good quasi-parent to the kid, by keeping his fucking nose out of his kid's own fucking business.
He did also revel in his other parently duties, like teasing and embarrassing Law to the point where he started to sputter and stutter. He would never forget the fateful night when Law's red, punkish fellow student came in to borrow his notes in the middle of another teasing session. Rocinante had the joy of witnessing their amicable conversation, generously interspersed with snarls and insults and further spiced up with Law's emotionally disheveled state, that eventually evolved into a huge, loud fight.
Rocinante watched on and sighed in delight, his cheek in his hand. His baby bunny was fighting other kids, like the child he still was. Rocinante was painfully glad Doffy didn't manage to snuff that out of him.
Law kicked the tragically-noteless red punk out of his room and flopped back down on his chair, breathing hard and looking like an angry hamster.
"I love you, Law," Rocinante said.
Law's eyes got very wide. They always did, no matter how many times Rocinante told him now. Then he just — went limp on his chair.
"I love you too, Roci," he said, "more than anyone or anything in the world."
"Lies," Rocinante leisurely said, watching Law's eyes get huge and round again, "you love your dog more than anyone or anything in the world. Did you think I didn't hear? 'Ooooh, who's a cute cloud, do you miss daddy? Yes? Yes, you miss your daddy! Daddy misses you too!'"
"No! Stop it! I said no such thing!" Law screeched, redder than any tomato Rocinante had ever seen in his life.
"Aw, c'mon, don't be shy, it's cute," Rocinante goaded him.
"I'm not cute! Argh!"
Law religiously avoided saying the five-letter D word out loud like it would come at Rocinante and bite him on the butt. It was hella cute, too, like so many things about the kid; that naïve belief that keeping mum about the issue would somehow keep it buried.
The problem with drugs was that a drug addiction did not stay buried. It would hide out and lay low and then it would crawl out of its grave, like a zombie, and bite into Rocinante's body and brain.
With things like that, it always stayed fresh, that grave. Nothing could change that, not Law's naïve avoidance, not Rocinante's many cigarettes in the night, not even all the Bepo scratchies in the world. It would wait for Rocinante until his last day, that grave, and only then it would finally close its maw on his cold, dead body.
Rocinante expected nothing less. It wasn't his first time, after all — and it wasn't his first addiction. This one was a breeze compared to the other one.
But Rocinante wasn't going down without a good fight and a wide grin. After all, wasn't he Doffy's brother?
There was still no news about Doffy.
"Maybe he's really dead," Law told him over Facetime, his eyes shadowed. He, too, had spent enough time in the Family to know Doffy wasn't.
"You know how he is," Rocinante said, "he won't risk trying anything with the police still on the lookout like that. I reckon he's long out of the country anyway, building his new empire in Mexico or someplace like that. He's probably even enjoying it; he did always like a challenge. I doubt you'll ever see his face again."
Rocinante wasn't so sure about himself. Rocinante wasn't so sure how it made him feel, so after the call he diligently started on that research paper on emotional intelligence he had been putting off reading for a few days in favor of training Bepo to wait before eating, teaching him tricks, and giving him scratchies.
The paper didn't help much, like all the dozens of papers and books before. Sure enough, it helped him better understand his own emotions; it just never told him what to do about them. Maybe it really was time for some actual therapy.
Central Park was burning down, and the wind was getting colder. It would pet Rocinante's neck with soft, gentle fingers, and then, it would come flinging cold knives at his face.
Rocinante watched Bepo get all friendly with a fat sausage dog, a forgotten cigarette in his hand. His first one in two days now. For some reason, he really wanted to smoke today.
A kid briefly ran into him, a snot-nosed, punkish brat not yet in his teens. He knocked the breath out of Rocinante, and disappeared in the crowd without so much as saying sorry.
Rocinante felt cold.
He whistled at Bepo and went down on his knee to scratch him behind the ears. Bepo smiled at him, tongue lolling out of his mouth. There were golden leaves in his snow-white fur.
"Good boy, Bepo," Rocinante said mechanically, "who's a good boy?"
Bepo agreeably barked.
Rocinante got up.
He hesitated.
He slowly put his hand in his pocket.
Sure enough, there was a note inside.
There were three very short words on a small, wrinkled piece of paper, three not-really-words in Doffy's whimsical handwriting.
"nest f3 ok"
So that's how it is, huh? Rocinante thought with a rueful grin. Doffy, you cheeky bastard.
He didn't expect to feel so relieved.
So that was what defeat felt like. Well, at least defeat was a form of stability, in a way.
Rocinante didn't really remember how it all started, that thing Doffy and he had going on. There must have been something that first made Doffy look at him in that strange, strange way, but try as he might, Rocinante couldn't for the life of him remember just what he did so very wrong to make Doffy want him that way, back when he was fourteen and Doffy's silent, useless shadow.
In hindsight, though, Rocinante must have always known how it would end.
Sorry, Law, he thought. Looks like I won't be able to be there for you, baby bunny.