ROC POV

The phone rang for about the fifth fucking time in two hours. Fucking Chinese telemarketers that can barely speak English. Do they know we live on different continents? Groggily, I got off the couch and picked up the phone from the table, knocking over beer cans and old pizza boxes.

"Listen up you fuckin' chinks! I already told you I don't want any!"

"Rocco! Shut up, it's me!" I shook my head at the voice coming through the phone. Think I'm still drunk.

"Who is this again?"

"It's Ericka! Listen, Mur-"

"Ah, what the fuck Ericka? It's like two in the goddamned morning. It's a bit late for a social all, don't ya think?"

"Rocco-"

"If it's about the beer, Murphy drank the last fucking one, not me. Go yell at him."

"HE'S GONE FUCKING AWOL!" She yelled. I held the phone away from my ear.

"The fuck are you talking about?"

She explained it to me in a slightly quieter tone, though judging by her voice she was two sheets to the wind with panic. "Murph went out a on a job by himself. I don't know where the fuck he is."

"That's….weird." I scratched my head absently. "That's really weird. They don't do that shit without each other. Where's Connor?"

"He's gone after him."

Explains why she's freaking out.

"Alright, hey, calm the fuck down now, alright? They're fine, okay? I've known them boys for years They're smart. They'll come back in one piece."

"Roc." Her voice shook. "I've got a bad feeling about this shit."

I made up my mind then. "Look, I'll go out and try and find them-"

"Not you fucking too!" She yelled. I groaned in frustration. I had no problem with Ericka, except that her cooking royally sucked and she could be a righteous bitch at times. And she was still bitter for my off-the-cuff suggestion of killing her. But Murphy and Connor were pretty good judges of character, and if they were alright with her, then so was I.

"Okay, okay. Look, keep your door locked. I'll be over in twenty." I hung up and glanced around my shitty apartment, trying to locate my keys in the mess. I hadn't cleaned it in…. well, it had been a while. Boxes of take out, liquor bottles, and empty cigarette packs were all over the place. I found my keys on the table, underneath Skippy the cat and a bag of coke. Donna's back on the wagon, eh? I made a mental note to throw out both the bag of drugs and the cat belonging to my ex when I came home.

I stumbled over to Ericka's, freezing my ass off. I had to marvel at Murph's tenacity-the cold was unbearable. Grape nuts. I have fucking grapenuts for nuts.

Ericka let me into her apartment. While didn't look like she was in a panic, she certainly didn't look calm. She kept fidgeting like Murphy and there was a sharp crease in between her eyebrows, face colorless. She poured me a cup of coffee as soon as I sat down at the kitchen table and went back to pacing. I took a sip of my coffee and watched her.

After about her twentieth lap around the table, I finally pulled her into a chair. "Ericka. Calm the fuck down." She opened her mouth to interrupt me. "No, really, you need to like take a fucking pill or something."

She reached out for a pen lying on table, tapping it against her knuckles with a loud rapping sound. "I can't just calm down, Roc. It's fucking Connor and Murph for Christ's sakes!"

"Which is why you shouldn't be worried. They're fine! They know their shit. They're good." The hotel room full of dead Russian mob bosses came back to me. "Real good actually."

"I don't fucking care how good they are." She said heatedly. "I care that they come back alive!" She was an open book to me at that moment. Every emotion was laid out bare on her face, and it was apparent she was genuinely concerned about them. I decided to ask the question that I had been dying to ask her.

"Why do you care so much about them?" I asked. "You haven't known them long. You could decide tomorrow you hate them or vice versa. C'mon. What makes them so special to you?"

She smiled sadly at me. "They're the closest thing to family I have. Murphy is like a brother to me. And Connor…" her voice trailed off. I finished the sentence for her.

"You're in love with him." I said simply. She stared at me like I had lost my goddamned mind.

"L-love? Are you insane?"

I laughed at her. "Nah. Just observant. You two should see the way you look at each other. It's like the sappy shit you see in movies. You're fuckin' lucky." The last statement was more of a bitter one than anything else. Donna and I at one point were in love with each other, like sickeningly so. Nowadays the apartment we shared was more like a motel for her- She was she used it as a crash pad for when she was coming off the drugs. It was disgusting; She brought on the urge to scrub down with a Brillo pad and bleach anytime she dropped in.

"Anyways," I cleared my throat to change the subject. "I've been meaning to ask you, what the hell happened to you? Like, did you eat paint chips as a child? What?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Come again?"

"Why can't you cook?"

She rolled her eyes at me. I breathed a sigh of relief that she was calm. She wasn't moving around as much and a little color had returned to her face. "I don't see why that bothers you so much."

"I don't see how it's possible. Hell, I can cook and I'm a fuckin' moron."

"You can cook?" She laughed at me. "Bullshit! There's no way!" She got up from the table and filled a glass with tap water.

"I'm Italian, cooking is in the blood! I'll have you know," I raised a finger at her. "I can cook one kickass lasagna."

Ericka's laughter was cut short by the front door bursting open. We looked up to see Connor literally dragging a flattened Murphy into the apartment, followed by Jose. Ericka jumped away from the sink, dropping her glass onto the floor and rushing over to Murphy.

"C'mon Murph, sit down. What hurts? What happened?" She looked at me and pointed to the bathroom. "Grab the bag under the sink in the bathroom." I did as I was told, grabbing the black bag and returning to the kitchen to find Ericka waving Connor off of Murphy. "Back off of him- let me fucking work!" Murphy looked up at her.

"Ericka-" He started heaving and puked up a reddish substance all over the floor. It landed with a sickening splat and the smell was even worse.

Connor grabbed Jose by his shoulder and shoved him into the fridge. He yelled in a language I couldn't make sense of, but it wouldn't take a translator to figure out he was pissed. He drew back his arm to take a swing at the kid. I grabbed the collar of his coat and pulled him back before he actually landed a punch. "Connor, come on. Calm down." I pushed him towards the patio. "Kid, get the fuck outta here." I yelled over my shoulder. Jose nodded and ran out without a second glance.

Connor glared at the sky, hands buried in the pockets of his coat. I offered him a cigarette; he took it without hesitation and lit up. "Conn, what the hell's going on?"

"Murph got in over his head, I went to bail him out, end of story." He let out a breath of blue smoke. I stood there with him on the porch in silence, shivering as the wind blew.

"Storm's coming in." I attempted conversation. Connor ignored me. I should have known better then to try and get anything out of him. That was the main difference between the twins- While Murphy was prone to fits recklessness when he was upset, Connor shut the whole damn world out. I accepted defeat after a few more attempts at conversation and clapped him on the back. "Don't stay out here all night."

I went back inside and watched as Ericka patched up Murphy. The scent of the vomit still hung around but sharp smell of rubbing alcohol covered it up; there was a whole pool of it on the floor and the wall. I got a good look at Murph- he looked like absolute shit. His entire face was black and blue, and there was a cut on his neck, like someone had held a knife there. There were numerous marks and welts on his back. I busied myself with cleaning up the pool of vomit on the floor, taking care to not look at him. It was disturbing to see him so fucked up. Sure, I'd seen him after bar fights or even the occasional scrape with Connor, and he looked pretty shitty then. This time, it was different somehow. Maybe it was the obvious tear tracks streaking his bloody face, or maybe it was the dazed look he had; either way it was absolutely unnerving.

Ericka peeled off her gloves and stood up from Murphy's side. She handed him a glass of water and two white pills. "Take those. Go clean up. Watch the stitches." She started to clean up the kitchen-turned-makeshift-ER, never once looking at him. I think it hurt for her to look at him as he got up slowly and limped to the bathroom.

"What's the diagnosis, doc?"

She spoke in detached voice. "Well, he should be in a hospital, but he can't exactly waltz into the ER and explain why he's in his present condition. The excuse of 'I fell down the stairs' wouldn't fly." She pulled a bottle of some kind of cleaner out from under the sink. "He's got a couple broken ribs, a concussion, several shallow stab wounds- My guess is that the attacker stuck the tip of the knife in and twisted it around a few times. All things considered, he's lucky he hasn't bled out internally."

Her voice lost its apathetic tone. "Though, quite frankly, I think it's his mental state we should be more concerned about, not his physical one." I couldn't dispute that. Being beaten within an inch of your life would fuck anyone up in the head.

Ericka sprayed cleaner onto the table and chair. It had a sharp citrus scent. "What'd you give him?"I asked, curious as to the pills she gave to Murph.

"Hydrocodone. It's a painkiller, and when he actually snaps out of the fog he's in, he's gonna hurt something fierce." She started scrubbing down the chair where she stitched up Murphy.

I stood there watching awkwardly for a minute. "Want help?" I asked, moving over to her. She shook her head at me. "You've done enough. Thanks." She scrubbed the chair so fast her arm was a blur. When she was finished with that she moved on to the table, cleaning with just as much vigor. Gently, I put a hand on her shoulder. "Stop cleaning like a methhead."

She threw down the sponge she was holding. "I don't know what else to do."

"Ericka, you know what these guys do. Did you honestly think something like this wouldn't happen?"

She looked at me with sad and tired eyes. "No. But I had my hopes."

"Yeah, well forget 'em." She bowed her head and crossed her arms over her chest, looking suddenly overwhelmed.

"Look, we'll tag team this shit?" I put my hands on her shoulders in a attempts to keep her from having a breakdown on me. The boys, I could deal with them. A hysterical Ericka? Not so much. "Go deal with the human Iron Curtain outside, I'll try and talk some sense into Murphy. Alright?" She nodded and wrapped me in a hug. I awkwardly patted her back, being a stranger to touchy-feely shit.

"You know, Roc, you're not that bad."

I chuckled to myself as she walked to the porch. "Yeah. You either."

Connor POV

This shit is so fucked up. So fucked up.

I stared out at the skyline, ignoring the cold that numbed my face. The last couple hours replayed over and over in my head. It was like watching a bad Infomercial for cleaning products or household appliances, but rather than seeing an ad for a magic blender, I kept seeing my brother, beaten to hell and on his knees, clutching to his rosary and begging for someone to kill him.

"Do it now. Just fucking kill me." The words haunted me, and probably would for the rest of my life. I shuddered.

How could he just give up? That part of things made no sense to me. My brother wasn't one to just lay down and take a beating, in any sense of the word. He always- ALWAYS- fought back. What in the fuck happened in there?

Why didn't he let any of us in on it?

I heard the glass door slide open and footfalls on the wooden deck. "Conn," came Ericka's tentative voice. "Come inside. It's cold out here." I felt her pull gently on my arm. I didn't acknowledge her. I just wanted to be alone, to think, to clear my head, to forget the whole night. Ericka apparently sucked at reading body language, because she didn't back off.

"Talk to me, hon." The slight southern drawl that normally made me smile only served to irritate me further. I heard a sigh and the warmth of Ericka's hand was gone. "If you're going to give me the silent treatment, then at least humor me and do it inside where you won't contract hypothermia." I turned to see her walking inside the apartment. It looked warm in there. My feet did my thinking for me; I followed her inside.

She leaned against the counter with a cup of coffee in her hands. She took a sip and surveyed me. I feel like I'm under a friggen microscope. I shrugged out of my coat and sat down at the table, avoiding her gaze. Ericka set down her mug and crossed the tiny kitchen in three steps.

"How's the wrist?"

"Fine." I said, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours. My voice sounded strange to me.

She examined the cast that encased my left wrist. "No soreness, no pain?"

I shook my head at her. "Nope." She let go of my arm and went back to her coffee. She wasn't drinking it, just holding it and occasionally tapping her fingers against the ceramic. That was one of her nervous ticks; She had to have something in her hands if she couldn't move around freely. I glanced at the clock. A little before five.

There's no way I'm gonna be able to sleep. Too wound up.

Ericka looked drained. I felt a pang, knowing that she had one of her twelve hour shifts starting in a few hours. I walked over to her and pulled the cup out of her hands, knowing she would attempt to stay up with me if I didn't make her get some shut eye. "Go to bed." She made a whiney noise and said something completely unintelligible. "C'mon. Let's go." She shrugged away from my hand.

"Only if you come with me." She mumbled as she spoke, but her eyes were the sharpest they'd been in the last twenty minutes. I nodded, acknowledging that I had little say in the matter. I allowed her to lead the way to her bedroom, pulling off my clothes and crawling into bed. Her sheets were the crisp, clean kind that were always cold. Ericka inhaled sharply as she laid down next to me. I reached out and pulled her close to me, suddenly wanting the comfort that only a warm body could provide. The smell of Ericka's perfume- a subtle, woodsy one- hit me as she slowly climbed on top of me. I let my hands wander over her bare back as she kissed me, exploring her curves and letting her take over. I needed someone else to think for me.

Oh God, I need this.

Soon we were just a tangle of limbs, two people moving as one in a cold and darkened room. Nothing mattered then but us.

The world can wait.