None of these characters are mine; nor am I making money from using them.
Every beat of my heart
tears us farther apart;
I'm lost and alone
in the dark.
Rod Stewart, Every Beat of My Heart
Is it so suprising that he taught me to love? He taught me how to be a good copper, how to cope with pain and grief. I held him one night in my arms, pushing a bandage against a wound in his ribs that wouldn't stop bleeding. Once you've saved a man's life, nothing can be more intimate.
He taught me how to laugh, both at jokes and at all the misfortunes that came my way. He showed me what it is to be a friend, one who is there at work when another case comes to a dead end, at night when you've got a woman problem and at home when you've got 'flu and can't go out shopping. And I like to think that I showed him complete trust and loyalty.
Together, we survived Beech and Chandler. I killed Chandler with my actions, and yet he was willing to say that it wasn't my fualt, to take the blame as his.
Yes, he saved me a lot of grief, my friend and colleague did. My lover, too, because love was one of the things that he taught me. And out of everything that he's ever showed me, I value that the most. The teaching that giving comfort in that most intimate of ways is neither sinful nor immoral, regardless of gender or relationship.
Both of us men; both men who had loved and lost women through fire and arguements, men who already loved each other for loyalty and courage over the years. Two wounded men that night, who, I think, needed love in the physical sense to remain whole.
We were both drunk, out of it, but he taught me regardless. Gently, kindly, with soft words and kisses. He held me when the tears came in memory of the woman I'd lost - weeping was another thing that he showed me and I accepted. Long before that night, he knew my griefs and I knew his. He is the only man who has ever seen me cry.
The memories of that one night, two years ago, are dim now. Lost in pain and time and loss. Without him, without what he showed me that night, I doubt that I would have ever survived now without him. He was always the stronger of us. Not physically but in his mind. A survivor. Perhaps more than his teachings, I value that in him. I know he'll come back.
That one night did not dimish our friendship, ever, nor the way in which we worked together - sometimes
in accord, sometimes arguing. It just gave him one more reason to tease me in that endearing way of his,
tell me that I was innocent and had no experience of the world.
What did he teach me after that night? A lot, things always underscored in my memory by his blue eyes flashing with humour. To express my feelings aloud. How to play Cheat. Never to wear a new watch while changing the oil in the car. He taught me that he was and is my truest, closest friend, including the dog. My mentor, my teacher, my best mate.
God help me, Mickey, please finish your MIT work and come back to me.