AN: Mostly written while drunk. HA! I do my best work drunk, just ask my professors. Plus, I thought it was appropriate as Cam is hammered during the last bit. Honestly, I'm surprised the spelling came out so well. On we go.

Chapter Three: Each Hidden Deed

His hands are clean on the steering wheel, but he swears he can still feel the hot, sticky blood, that warmth that always seeps through the latex gloves. A heavy sigh, and Cam starts his Suburban and pulls out of the employee parking lot. Maybe this time he'll join them, everyone who gathers at that dive of a bar, the coming-off-shift relief heavy and the beer sliding down throats parched after hours of either mind-numbing boredom or frantic work. Yes, he thinks. A beer would be good. Or at least it would be better than going back to the house.

The house, not home.

He was glad to be out of his parent's house again, after two weeks of feeling like he was going backwards, but the house he'd found, splitting the rent with three other men, was always full somehow. Full of trash or music or drunks or moans from someone else's bedroom. It wasn't home. His place with Mark had been home, even if it was only for a while.

Cam pulled the SUV in next to a vaguely familiar Cadillac and cast an eye over the bar. A dump, to be sure, but the lightly shining weakly through the tinted windows and the brightly fizzing neon sign were somehow welcoming.

As he pushed the door open, he was greeted by surprised shouts from the large corner booth to his right. Cam ran a hand through is hair, scrubbing it slightly against his scalp as he smiled a little shame-facedly at his co-workers.

"Hey folks. I figured going back to the house and swilling vodka alone sounded a little self-destructive. So here I am."

"Good on ya," Georgie slurred, pulling her own hair, blonde as his, over her shoulder. "Maybe you can have some fun, loosen up." Her wink, while aiming for 'surreptitious yet sexy' fell flat and only made it to 'blatantly obvious'. Cam snorted, slightly amused at Georgiana's complete and utter rejection of "I'm gay," as an excuse for why a man might not want to sleep with her.

He cast an eye over the dive, taking in the scuffed hardwood floors, the old but gleaming wooden tables and the slightly threadbare upholstery on the booths. The walls were covered in beer signs, including an extremely welcome framed "My Goodness, My Guinness" ad with a handwritten sign beneath it reading, "We Serve Guinness on Tap." A jukebox in the corner was whirring between songs, and although the dance floor was currently empty and little more than a space cleared of tables, it was there. Cam immediately revised his opinion of the place. "Less dive, more honkey-tonk." At least, it could be. It was hard to imagine the place hopping with customers, but the potential was there.

Since no waitress appeared to take his order, Cam assumed that the protocol would involve heading to the bar and waiting as the probably-incompetent bartender overfilled his Guinness and then overcharged him for it. Oh well, he thought. Nothing else for it.

"Be right back," he shot over his shoulder as he headed for the bar. Cam smiled as he recognized the tall girl behind the bar. She'd dyed her hair, now a deep burgundy that couldn't possibly be natural swinging in a high ponytail as she hung up the phone. A new tattoo, still a little shiny and red graced the back of her right hand, but it was definitely his sister's roommate.

"Hey, Dempsey," he called from the other end of the bar, noticing that the older gentlemen she had been pouring a drink for was one of the professors he'd met during orientation. "Quit angling for an 'A' and get me a beer."

Elise turned to him with a sneer that quickly melted into a warm smile as she grabbed a pint glass and began pulling a Guinness without even asking what he wanted. Of course, he had to tease her about dictating his drink, even if he had wanted a Guinness in the first place. She teased back, surprising Cam who had been expecting a blush and maybe an apology, judging by the timid girl he'd met two weeks before. He grinned wider as he paid for his beer.

Switching to Jameson's was probably a mistake, but hindsight…

It was nearly an hour later that the comfortable rhythm of good-natured teasing with Elise, sipping his whiskey and occasionally checking the score of the Georgia game on the TV above the bar was disrupted. Elise's voice, amplified and nonchalant, called last call and he ordered an Irish Car bomb to finish out the night. As he dropped the Bailey's into the heavy, dark red beer, Cam took a moment to look at the new tattoo gracing Elise's right hand. The fleur de lis on her left forearm had been there when she'd moved into the dorm, but the tribal cross was definitely new.

Maybe, Cam thought with all the logically-minded fuzziness of a man who has spent the last hour getting thoroughly drunk. Maybe I should get a tattoo. His reverie was interrupted again by the insouciant chiming of the eleven o'clock news.

"And in national news, notorious Russian crime boss Yuri Csokas was killed today in his New York home. He was shot by three unknown gunmen, although New York police think the murder may be the work of the equally notorious Boston Saints."

"Fan-fucking-tastic." It was the best word for it, really. Would have been, even if he was sober. Elise looked at him questioningly, and he tried to elaborate, waving at the TV a little half-heartedly. It was so much easier to talk with his hands when he had a cigarette in his mouth. "Love those guys," he slurred, and dimly recalled slipping out, two weeks ago, during one of Abby's single-sentence speeches on hair care products to have a quiet smoke outside with the girl currently drying glasses. "Hey, you got a cigarette?" A pack was produced and deposited on the bar in front of him. "Yeah, yeah. I see so much shit, you know, Elise? Like last week. There was this kid shot in a drive-by. Nine, ten years old."

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it a little shakily and continued. In fact, Cam seemed to vaguely recall continuing in much the same vein, admitting to family problems, being gay and loving his sister (definitely the least embarrassing of his confessions). But the next thing he new, he was being strong-armed out the door by a girl (admittedly she was the same height as he, and outweighed him by a bit, but it was the principle of the thing).

"Hey, now," he protested mildly. "I may not be exactly in possession of my faculties-"

"Uh-huh." Elise interrupted as she struggled with the passenger-side lock of the Cadillac. "You're smashed. Get in the car, you're sleeping on my floor. It's cool."

Apparently, it was just easier to go along with her, despite her normally shy demeanor. Cam sat quietly through most of the car ride, trying to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged, as Elise carefully guided the car through the quiet streets at ten miles an hour over the speed limit. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window and sighed, wondering quietly why alcohol chose to hate him, when he obviously loved it so much. His mind was playing over the things he could remember saying in the bar and lingering over things which he wasn't sure if he'd said or not. It was only as they stopped for the red light at the turn onto campus that he said anything, hoping like hell that half of what he thought he said he'd imagined.

"Elise, I didn't mean to tell you that stuff." Cam reached back and rubbed the back of his head worriedly as he waited for her answer.

"I know. But it's ok that you did. If you don't want to tell Abby-"

"I can't!" He interrupted, snapping his head to the left to look at her, to make her understand. Although the snapping might have been a bad idea, since it did remarkable things to his sense of balance.

"Does she know about- I mean, that you're gay?" Oh. He'd actually said that. Shit.

"Oh yeah, she doesn't care about that. I just-" he sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face as she pulled into the parking lot. Cam pulled himself unsteadily out of the car, leaning heavily on the door to close it. He stumbled a bit as he spoke again, the sudden change from sitting to the vertical plane making his inner ear swim and his stomach turn.

"Abby believes the best about people. Always. And I don't want to take that away from her. She really believes that everyone's got good in them, very deep down."

Elise went quiet at that, shoving her hands into her pockets and sighing as they started rambling down the path to her residence hall. She gently slid an arm around his shoulders and offered him a cigarette.

"I can't blame you for wanting to protect her, Cam," Cam sighed, taking two cigarettes and lighting them both, handing the second to her. Elise took a deep drag, her eyes focused on the streetlamp ahead of them. "But you've got to be able to let it out somehow. And, well…I'm not saying you have to talk to me, but I already know how bad people can be. I've lived with it my whole life. You're not going to surprise me or take away my innocence."

Cam sighed, nodding. He sagged against her, letting her feet steer them straighter than he could manage. And as they stumbled up the wheelchair ramp to her dorm, he was just thankful . Thankful that they hadn't used the stairs (although three flights up to her floor were still facing them) thankful that she'd so readily and unconsciously offered her support, her shoulder. Thankful that he'd managed not to hurl on her cowboy boots. But mostly, Cam was thankful that, in the midst of the turmoil and upheaval in his life, Elise had offered him a safe port in the storm.

"Elise?"

"Yeah."

"I hate them."

"That's ok."

She knew who he meant. And it really was ok.

AN2: Also, I did this while smoking illegally in my dorm room, as once I got going, I couldn't tear myself away from the keyboard. I hope you're all happy! I could have burnt down my residence hall! ;) Thank MKOLO, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese for this one. I saw the Departed and it kicked me right in the ass. Violence, cursing and the Boston Irish Mob. Lovely. Also, Mark Wahlberg, whose Boston accent is surprisingly good

MKOLO says: SWEETS…MARK WAHLBERG IS FROM BOSTON! IT OUGHTTA BE GOOD!

Me: I didn't know that! Ha, I learned something.