A/N: Title is from the Soundgarden song of the same name, and one of my faves from the 90's! It's track #7 on Dick's Bacchanalia playlist on Spotify. This chapter is from Dick's POV, so potty mouth warnings apply. It's also angsty, but how could it not be? The beginning of this chapter covers the events of the later half of Mac's chapter, but it's how Dick views it. I'm posting this chapter a little earlier than my typical update schedule. The next chapter, however, is still being written, so it might be posted a little later than usual. Or not…We'll see how kind the muse is to me. I hope to go another writing binge and amass another stockpile of chapters for this fic. We'll see…

Chapter 10—Fell on Black Days

"Whatsoever I've feared has come to life. And whatsoever I've fought off became my life. Just when everyday seemed to greet me with a smile, Sunspots faded, now I'm doing time."

-Fell on Black Days, by Soundgarden

****July 10, 2015***

Dick's POV

Dick took a sip of his Guinness and watched Mac make her grand entrance into his favorite drinking establishment. He was enjoying the view as she walked in, seemingly oblivious to his presence. She flopped down in an empty seat catty corner from his post at the massive U-shaped mahogany bar. He noticed her ankle was out of the walking boot, too.

Poseidon's Bistro was his safe zone, but he didn't mind sharing it with her, despite the soul ache seeing her these days caused. It was the ache of knowing yet another way his own flesh and blood marked her for life. Pain, or not, Dick approved of tonight's attire, she was clad in a short, clingy red leather skirt, however, knowing her strict policies on no eating or wearing anything with a face, it had to be fake leather. His dirty mind defaulted to her one exception to the "no eating anything with a face" policy, himself. Dick shook that thought out of his head, it only led to agony, not pleasure, these days. He'd let himself lose the only positive thing in his life, and it was once again due to the specter of Cassidy.

Everything in his life seemed to revolve around the ghost of his brother.

Dick watched as Mac dug out her cellphone and ordered a drink. He had time to study her without getting caught as she fiddled around on her phone, until she came up for air again, and started looking around the busy bar. He flexed out his right hand, a souvenir from his inferior coping skills stemming from that night, it was still a little tender.

He knew the exact nanosecond that Mac finally noticed him. Her surprise was broadcast clearly on her face that could never lie. She seemed to be waiting for someone, and he knew it wasn't himself. Well, lucky him, he'd have ringside seats…to Mac on a date. He just needed some popcorn to compliment the free show. He quickly looked down at his glass, hoping she didn't know he'd spotted her. He acted like his beer was the most fascinating thing in the whole place, and really, these days it pretty much was. It dulled the pinpricks of guilt that had been stalking him for exactly three weeks, and two days.

When he finally risked looking back up at her again, he almost burst out laughing at the guy sitting next to her. He was wearing a butt ass ugly sweater that looked like a leftover costume from That 70s Show. He was one of those ridiculous balding men that populated area bars trying to pick up chicks less than half his age in hopes of finding the next Mrs. Trophy wife. Sadly, they had their pick of women in greater Balboa County. Mac wasn't slapping him into the next room, and she seemed to be interacting with the tool, who wasn't her usual demographic. He quickly amended his original assessment about it being a date. She was obviously doing the spy thing on Ronnie's behest.

Mac was more at home hacking secret databases than fending off advances from creepy guys, but Dick thought she looked the part she was playing at least. Fake it until you make it. That was his motto these days. Honestly, it had been words he lived by longer than he cared to calculate—conceived the millisecond that Cassidy died. Thanks to intensive sessions with Dr. O'Callahan he was faking being a functional person with a life outside the bottle. At this rate he might make it on his 94th birthday, but hell, progress was progress.

The gross dude bought her a drink at one point. He noticed she covertly dug out one of those date rape coasters and performed a test on it before chancing a sip. She always could take care of herself, which just made him want to take over that duty so much more. He so fucking wanted to lock her up in one of those giant plastic hamster balls and keep her safe forever, as he-man macho bullshit as that was.

The person he wished he'd protected her from most was dead, and no matter how many times his shrink told him otherwise, there was always that inner voice, mimicking that of his birther, whispering to him that the cruelty he'd heaped on his brother from babyhood was a major contributor in making that broken kid the monster he became. It was funny, in the tragic sense, how some people rose-up from messy beginnings, like the mighty Phoenix, while other people were knocked down on their figurative asses unable to get up.

And some people jumped from 12 story buildings.

Dick wanted so fucking much to be one of those people who rose-up; but that was such a hard first step to take.

Dr. O'Callahan had been earning every penny he paid her. He was making a small step towards healing, he didn't wake up "cured"—like that would ever happen, he knew that wasn't how it worked—but he was creeping towards the realization he needed to let himself off a figurative hook, or three.

Mac had absolved him, maybe he could absolve himself?

The 70s reject kept pawing Mac, and Dick waged an internal war about whether he should go over there and knock the dude back to his favorite decade. He knew that wouldn't be viewed as heroic in her eyes and Mac was doing a great job of handling the guy on her own. He sucked down another beer as he watched those disgusting hands continue to grope the one woman he loved but couldn't allow himself to have. His blood to alcohol ratio wasn't the only one climbing, Mr. Handsy was also downing his drinks like he was preparing for the apocalypse.

The dude finally lurched his way to the restroom, and Dick watched Mac surreptitiously take his antiquated phone and start working her hacking mojo on it. She hid her hands and the phone under the bar's overhang, but he knew what she was doing, he'd bared witness to that many times over during their label-less relationship.

For some reason, and there really wasn't time to analyze motives, he pulled his attention from Mac, and looked over to his left. The balding one was making his unsteady way back to his seat, and his MIA phone. It was Mac's brief flash of panic that made him decide to run interference. Before common sense had the chance to kick in, he was grabbing the dude's wrinkly arm.

"Whaaat?" The guy slurred.

"You look like a surfer," Dick lied. "I often like to boogie board at night. Could you tell me how to get to Dog Beach?" He sucked at coming up with things on the spot, reason 47 why this sleuthing stuff was best left to pixy spies and Navy fly boys. However, he wanted to convey a CIA type message to Mac, to remind her of the good times they had before he was a dick to her. Pun totally intended! He even used her preferred terminology for body surfing, as distasteful as that was for him. She would've been proud.

The guy mumbled that he didn't surf, and to go fark himself, or something like that. He yanked his twiggy arm out of Dick's grasp and staggered on.

Dick's heartrate slowed down once he saw Mac had finished her phone spying and had put the flip phone back in its original location. Not that the aging playboy wannabe could've hurt her, she was scrappy as hell and well-versed in kick boxing, but it wasn't a risk he'd ever take. She covertly gave him a thumb's up, and he nodded back at her. Saving that hot, red pleather covered ass was the least he could do for her. He had nothing else to offer. It was pretty fucking ironic that he couldn't save his own psychological/figurative ass, but he would always be the first in line to save her literal ass.

The bartender put another Guinness in front of him, and he steadily worked his way through it as he watched the Warren Beatty wannabe try to impress Mac. The wrinkled dude didn't know she was unimpressible, but she was doing a serviceable job pretending otherwise.

He became aware of a building need to heed nature's call, but he didn't want to leave his front row seat to Mac's foray into the seedier side of the PI biz. He felt like her bouncer, her protector even if that chance in real life had slipped by due entirely to his own insecurities.

She didn't show any signs she was about to close down the PI shop and extract herself from the clutches of the polyester Romeo. Time kept ticking by and his bladder got more and more impatient. He'd long ago broke the fucking seal, well before Mac had entered the premises. He gave holding his alcohol-soaked bladder the old college try, but it turned out to be as big of a failure as going on a bender the night before finals. He finally made a run for the restroom—literally—after telling the bartender he'd be right back.

When he sat back down, the first thing he noticed was that Mac was gone, and he felt a tinge of regret. He'd wanted to…well, he hadn't dived that deep into his psyche yet. He just knew continuing to cut her out of his life wasn't sustainable. Of course, the decision was hers if she wanted to listen to his rambling about what a dumbass he was, and how he wasn't cured but maybe Dr. O'Callahan had been earning the zillion dollars an hour he'd been paying her to make him closer to the normal side of the fence. As close as he'd ever get, of course, and being raised by a narcissist and con man (his birther and sperm donor respectively) didn't tend to yield those results without a shit-ton of intensive intervention. Add in a murderous brother with a list of crimes three miles long who killed himself rather than face consequences, well, yeah, progress could be measured in centimeters, but still, he had hope that he'd get there one hundredth of a meter at a time. Dick would take whatever scraps Mac would deign to throw his way, he was too beer stein is half empty these days to think they could go the route he wanted (all-in), but maybe with time they could achieve a proximity thereof.

Dare to fucking dream!

Dick took a big sip of his beer, wishing it would wash away his introspection. He had been drowning in that for the past 3 weeks, and it wasn't a good look for him. His beer needed all his remaining attention. It deserved that much.

Logan chose that moment to plop his military self onto the empty stool next to him.

"So, why was Mac muttering that she needed a new job as she was storming through the lobby? Or do I even want to know?" Logan said, skipping the greetings and salutations.

"Ask Ronnie. She was doing the pixie spy's bidding. Some reject from a bad B movie was putting the moves on her. I think he's gone now, probably went home to do damage control with his better half. Where the hell were you? I thought you'd be here a couple of hours ago, dude."

"Mama Leone's, we had a lasagna emergency."

"Is that what you kids are calling it these days?"

"Jest if you want, but Veronica never jokes about those meaty, cheesy layers."

Dick shook his head. He didn't wax poetic about pasta. Logan ordered some frou-frou daiquiri, and the bartender poured Dick another beer without him having to ask.

They drank their frosty cold beverages as Logan recapped his evening out with his inferior half. Finally, after saying everything there could possibly be about Italian food and other innocuous subjects, Logan pursed his lips and took a deep breath. Dick braced himself for whatever Lieutenant Emo was going to say.

"So, how's Mac? Did you guys talk much between her honey trapping assignment?"

Dick wasn't sure what he thought Logan was going to say, but he expected something harder charging than that, and he said as much to the dude.

"I always have to brace myself when I bring her up these days, you get poutier than Trina when she doesn't get her way."

"I do not sound like Trina!" Dick grumped and stuck his tongue out. He took umbrage at Logan's comparing him to Trina, Logan's uber spoiled older sister, a stereotypical daddy's girl, of course the (now dead) dad in question was later proved to be a murderer who liked teen girls. "And I do not pout." It was Dick's turn to purse his lips. He considered following it up with a good foot stomp. He was not a pouty girl, thank you very much. "And speaking of the fairer gender, which of us is drinking a girly drink?"

"Veronica likes Guinness, too" Logan said, irrelevantly. He followed that up by taking a dainty sip of his frozen green drink.

"We didn't talk," Dick admitted. "She was on the other side of the room fake flirting with that 70's reject. If we had talked, what would I even say to her? I'm sorry my brother fucked your life up. Oops, my bad. Okay, we're all good now!" He paused a beat, before adding "why am I starting to think this whole honey trap thing was a set up on your part?"

"You're just suspicious natured," Logan proposed, responding to the second question first. "As for what to tell her, just say you needed some time to process, now you've had it, and you miss her. Easy breezy. I've just solved your problem. You're welcome." He reached over and tried to grab Dick's hand, but he quickly pulled it just beyond reach.

"Stop trying to hold my hand!"

"Relax. You're not my type," Logan said, "I was just trying to see your knuckles."

"They're fine, the bruises are almost gone," Dick replied. His bedroom wall couldn't say the same. "That's a start I guess," he admitted. "But it's not that simple."

"Do you really have to complicate things?"

"Yes," Dick said. "I owe her more than just sorry I freaked out. Let's be naked friends again. I couldn't handle yet another thing Cass did, especially since it was something he did to her, but it was…" He stopped right there, not wanting to go further. It always got awkward talking to Logan about that, after what his brother did to Ronnie, but he also wasn't overflowing with people to talk to these days, at least not people he didn't pay by the hour to listen to him.

"And you kept freaking out, ignoring all her texts, calls, emails. So, why suddenly are you talking about tucking your tail in and talking to her again? What changed?" Logan asked.

"We were in the same room tonight?" Dick phrased it as a question, but it was the answer and the whole answer, and nothing else. He paused and tried again to explain. "We were in the same room, and I need to be breathing the same air as her again. I need to fucking breath again. I literally haven't breathed in three long-ass weeks."

"Metaphorically," Logan automatically corrected. "You'd be dead otherwise."

"I haven't metaphorically breathed, then. Happy?" Dick amended.

"Did Hallmark offer you a job writing greeting cards?" Logan ploughed on.

"The offer's pending, I'm sure."

"Chicks, man…" Logan said, letting his voice trail off.

"Yeah, chicks." A half smile appeared as Dick thought back to when Mac attempted to cure him of calling women "chicks."

Logan took a final sip of his drink and signaled the bartender for another round.

Dick glanced over at the clock across the room. It was getting late now, but it didn't really matter. He was depressingly unencumbered, no dog, no girlfriend, surprisingly not even a cat. No one cared what time he came home, or if he even came home at all. He didn't even have a friend with benefits anymore. Mac had been a friend, the benefits were fucking amazing, but he'd tossed her away. The joke was on him though. She never truly fit the category of friends with benefits, because that label didn't fit when you were heart inside out, head over ass in love with said naked friend.

He still wasn't sure at what point his feelings had shifted, but in the end what did it matter anyway? What was the point of having a friend with benefits (a naked friendship), if you were just going to accidentally fall in love with them? What was the point of anything? Dick was coming up blank on all fronts.

After the new beer arrived, and Dick took a couple inches off the top, he girded his loins, and inquired how things were going with Ronnie. At least there was one happy couple in his narrow orbit, something he could aspire to one day in the distant future.

He pushed away the depressing thought that girding was the only thing that had been happening to his loins in 3 weeks and 2 days. He took an additional gulp of beer.

"Bobcat is pretty simple. I give her lasagna, she gives me sex, and there you have it." Logan said. "We've finally figured out the secret to getting along."

"It only took you what, 12 years to figure it all out?"

Logan just shrugged, and then flashed him a weird look. Dick knew there were several things Logan was omitting in his answer, but it wasn't their relationship woes inspiring this get-together, for once. "What?" He asked in response to his friend's expression.

"You can have the couch," Logan offered, eyebrow raised.

"The couch?"

"You keep sucking those down."

"I'm fine," Dick said. "We're in a bar. That's what you're supposed to do, drink. The bar is conveniently located in a hotel, in case you forgot, I can just get a room upstairs. No big deal." That was probably a good idea since he wasn't in driving shape anymore. He had passed that three beers ago.

"Veronica won't mind if that's what you're worried about. After her Mama Leones fix, she'd agree to anything right about now."

"That's power that shouldn't be wasted, my friend." Dick said. The on me was heavily implied in his tone.

"Don't lose any beauty sleep worrying about me, you need all of that you can get these days." Logan rejoined. "My considerable powers won't go to waste."

Two hours, four more beers, and 2 more frozen green girly drinks for Logan later Dick found himself on the couch in the apartment Logan and Veronica were cohabiting in whenever Lieutenant Emo was stateside.

He used to be much better at the art of all day drinking. He used to be much younger, too. There was a correlation there, he was starting to realize that it was a younger man's sport, even though at the ripe "old" age of 27 he was hardly stepping foot into middle age territory, the fact remained everything was easier at 18, except losing his brother.

Grief kicked you in the balls at any age.

Veronica was holed up in her bedroom when they arrived at casa de Mars y Echolls. Logan steeled himself for the task and headed back into their love den, to talk to the woman of the house. A few minutes later she stormed out, muttered a few things he really didn't catch, and then unceremoniously threw two sheets, a blanket, pillow, and a towel. They landed in a heap next to him. Dick was starting to doubt those powers Logan said he held after plying Ronnie with emergency lasagna, perhaps they weren't as omnipotent as he'd thought.

"Thank you," Dick replied to his gracious hostess.

Pony, their big ass white and brown mutt dog, ambled after his mistress, and as Ronnie had turned tail and headed back to the bedroom, her good deed accomplished, the dog came up to him to give him a sniff inspection. It was short-lived, so apparently, he passed muster. The dog headed back around towards the master bedroom. It was a smelly, dumb beast, but kind of cute. He had been starting to soften his stance on getting a dog, but it would have to be a big dog, like a Pit Bull, or a Hooch dog from the movie Turner and Hooch, a big, wrinkly master of chaos and destruction, who showered everyone with love and drooly kisses. No yappy chihuahua need apply.

Dick couldn't help noticing he'd been softening a lot of stances the past few months. He refused headspace to the common denominator of those softening stances, however. His brain was overcrowded with thoughts these days, there wasn't room for more.

He spread out the bottom sheet out over the length of the tan sofa, placed the pillow on top and laid down. He grabbed the blanket and covered himself with it. The TV continued to drone on in the background and he didn't feel like expending the energy to grab the remote off the coffee table and turn it off. He liked background noise these days, it helped chase some of his loneliness away. He and silence had never really been friends.

Dick closed his eyes and waited for sleep to embrace him.

And he waited, and waited, and waited some more. He tossed, turned, and thrashed around on the couch. It was comfortable enough as a couch, but as a bed it sucked. It felt like a spring was poking his back. He shifted to his other side in a vain attempt to avoid the spring. One of the cushions seemed to have lost some of its stuffing, it had probably become a chew toy for Pony. Dick sighed and turned his head towards the flickering TV set. It was omitting the only light in the small living area.

There was a rerun of Hollywood True Crime Stories on, but he wasn't paying any attention, it was mainly just noise pollution, until the monotone narrator started laying out the tragic demise of a movie icon turned predator of teen girls. He fumbled around, feeling for the idle remote nesting on Ronnie's battle-scarred coffee table. Dick pressed the big button on the top, which he presumed was the power switch, the voice over guy turned off mid-sentence, leaving the name Aaron Echolls unfinished, like everything else about that asshole's life, except pain and scars. He left plenty of both of those behind.

Dick didn't need to see any more of that show, especially being under the same roof as the subject's son. Surprisingly that sensationalistic shit show had never profiled his own murderous family, but he suspected that was only because the Casablancas name lacked the requisite Hollyweird appeal. However, there were several other crime "entertainment" shows that had profiled his family tree. He'd broken more than one television after disagreeing with the creative direction a show took with regards to the crimes committed by his sperm donor and little bro, and had more than one bleeding, fractured knuckle to show for it.

Eventually, his mind went into a low simmer, and combined with all the beer he'd imbibed that day sleep finally claimed him. He woke up several hours later to a pounding head, a slurping sound near his ear, and wetness on his cheek.

"Go away," he muttered, one hand shoving away whatever was licking his face, the other hand brought up the sheet to wipe off all the slobber.

"Aw, Pony likes you," Logan said, in a way too annoyingly cheerful tone. "You hungry? We brought you breakfast."

"We?"

"Pony and me. While you were snoring and drooling on the couch, we took our morning walk, and then picked up carry-out from the Speckled Hen Café. Coffee will be ready soon."

The dog continued giving Dick kisses, undeterred by him trying to shove him away.

"Pony, leave our guest alone," Logan called out from the kitchen where he was dishing out everyone's breakfast.

"No, it's fine," Dick said, resigned to the fact that dog seemed content with his current activity. "The sad thing is that's the most action I've gotten for a long time."

Listening to his master, Pony quit showering Dick with licks, and wandered into the kitchen.

"I know, I know, it's been a long three weeks, and two days," Logan said.

"Three days," Dick corrected. "It's now three weeks and three days." He could probably have calculated it down to the hours and minutes too if he'd been so inclined. He slowly sat up, closing his eyes as the pounding headache ramped up at the movement, before settling back down again.

Logan entered the living room carrying a steaming mug of coffee, a plated omelet, and a bottle of Ibuprofen which he handed over to Dick before going back into the kitchen to dish up his own meal. He returned a short time later and the two guys sat on the couch eating. Pony bounded out of the kitchen and stationed himself nearby to clean up any possible food spills. Dick figured that method of cleanup was more effective than a vacuum. Cuter, too.

Dick palmed a handful of the pain reliever, chasing it down with the hot coffee, burning his mouth in the process but not really caring. "Where's the pixy spy?" he asked.

"It's Saturday, so of course she's at the office."

"I thought she was avoiding me." Dick said. He popped a bite of his sausage and cheddar omelet into his mouth.

"That's just a bonus. I think she's probably interrogating Mac about last night's agave luring and drafting up a big, itemized bill to give to the client."

"Agave luring?" Dick asked after he finished chewing.

"It's the vegan version of honey trapping."

"Of course, it is," Dick stated taking another bite of his breakfast, making sure there was a lot of sausage to inoculate him against veganism.

Once that subject had been put to rest, they ate their food and drank their coffee in companionable silence. After their meal was over, and Logan had topped off their coffee, conversation picked up again. Dick made a decision halfway during Logan's spiel about some mission he'd been on recently, leaving several parts of the story redacted so flyboy wouldn't expose any Government secrets.

After Mac's confession, Dick had never asked Logan why he'd hadn't mentioned that he'd been with Ronnie when they discovered Mac huddled in a shower curtain in the Neptune Grand. He knew, of course, that Logan had been on the roof with Cassidy, they'd even talked about it…once when they were students at Hearst. But the rest of that evening, and specifically Logan's whereabouts had never been discussed.

For the past month they had dissected every other word of Mac's confession, it had practically been the sole topic of conversation that entire time, but whenever he thought about mentioning Logan's hand in rescuing Mac as she huddled in that hotel room alone, frightened, waiting to be saved, he chickened out. The entire thing made him nauseous, but it was a topic that needed to be dealt with. He supposed there was no time like the present, as that cliché went.

Dick took a deep breath to center his core and waited for his world to explode. "There's one more thing Mac mentioned, you know, the other week. She, um," he swallowed before continuing, "said you found her in Cass's hotel room." It came out a garbled mess.

Logan eyes went wide, he opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it once again. He looked away briefly. Finally, he just nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dick asked, his voice hoarse.

"It wasn't my place to say anything," Logan said. "And I didn't really know what did, or what didn't happen in there. Anyway, you weren't exactly in any shape to hear it, not after...you know..."

Dick admitted to himself that was probably true, but he didn't say it out loud, instead he just shrugged his shoulders. Honestly, he wasn't in any shape to hear it nine years after the fact, either. He probably wouldn't be ready to hear that 43 years later. That wasn't what mattered, however, not in this situation. This wasn't his Cassidy shaped trauma; Mac was the only thing that counted here.

"Even if it had been my business to share, which it wasn't, I wouldn't even know how to bring it up in the first place. You'd just lost your brother; you'd just found out all the crimes he'd committed," Logan continued.

"Apparently not everything," Dick corrected. "Of everyone my brother hurt, I thought Mac was the one person who escaped his evil side." He started to kick the table leg in front of him but shut that operation down right before his foot made contact. He took a deep breath, just like Dr. O'Callahan had been coaching him to do after seeing his swollen, bruised knuckles. "I freaked out on her when she told me what he did to her, just kicked her out of my fucking house, broken ankle and all. Like she was the one who was to blame for everything, not my waste of a brother. I wouldn't even blame her if she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you," Logan said.

"No? What does she think about me?"

"I know she doesn't hate you," Logan hedged.

"But?" Dick asked. He really wanted to believe that and figured all the hope he felt was clearly displayed on his face. However, the fact Mac had left before the bar before they could talk clearly pointed to the fact that she wasn't ready to talk.

"There's no but," Logan rushed in. "However, you know Veronica, she's not the type to betray confidences. When you two "split up," I got custody of you, Ronnie got Mac. I don't tell her what you tell me, and she won't tell me anything Mac tells her. Believe it or not, we have better things to talk about than you guys." He followed that declaration up with a smirk.

"Then you don't actually know if she hates me."

"I know that if she hated you then she wouldn't be moping around this whole time either."

"Ah ha, so you guys are actually talking about us," Dick pointed out.

"Sorry to disappoint that big ego of yours, but no, not really. I have had to diffuse Bobcat a couple of times to make sure she doesn't taser your ass, but otherwise your name doesn't come up much in daily conversation."

Before the subject could go any further, Pony started barking and headed to the door, wagging his tail. The pixy spy walked through the doorway a few moments later. She bent down to pat her dog, before straightening up. Her smile for Logan was short lived when she saw Dick was still there.

After greeting Ronnie, and resisting the urge to ask about Mac, Dick decided to end his sleepover. He headed back home to his empty condo. He wasn't known for being a deep thinker, but he figured it was an apt allegory for his current life.

He puttered around, going about the drudgery of his day. Maybe he really should adopt a dog, a rescue who needed him as much as he needed them. A sentient creature to fill up the spaces of his life.

A few wasted hours later, as the sun started its descent below the horizon, he sat in one of the loungers on his back deck, watching the waves break along the shore.

Dick took a sip of his beer, being a firm believer in the hair of the dog hangover cure. He slammed down the glass bottle on the side table, hitting his cell phone, a depressingly silent device these days.

Every single fucking time he thought he'd made peace with what Cassidy did to humanity in general, and his friends specifically, some other piece of evidence came to light and slapped the shit out of him. He really thought he'd be used to that by now, but apparently in the immortal words of Star Trek "resistance was futile."

Without much forethought, he scrolled down to Mac's number in his contact menu. He opened the message thread, the last message he'd sent her was dated June 16th when he'd thought she was injured and in the hospital. It had turned out her bio dad was the one hospitalized. The Pixy Spy had misinterpreted a text Mac had sent.

Dick tried to ignore the 15 unanswered messages she'd sent him from June 17th through the 29th. They seemed to glare up at him accusingly. He wondered what changed on the 29th, why did she give up on him on that day?

It wasn't a question he had the right to ask.

He had left those messages hanging out in the interweb, a testament to everything that was missing in his life.

Maybe his fingers had a mind of their own, but before his brain caught up, he was composing a new text.

I miss you!

He pressed send.

He waited, but the answering ping never came.

It was her turn to leave him hanging…It was nothing less than he deserved.

TBC…

*****Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. If you have a spare moment or two, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts.