A/N: The first part just felt like it needed a little more, so here it is. I do the notebook thing myself and it does help. :)
A Step Toward Morning 2
A gloomy dawn two days later sees Kenny staggering out of bed. His mind wants to stay there but his body is bound by old habits. Groggy, he shuffles toward the kitchen and is completely caught off guard by Kyle standing in front of the sink.
"Oh, shit," he croaks, dragging a hand over a stubbled cheek. "Sorry about the mess in there, man. The past few days have just been... Kyle?"
There's a subtle tension in Kyle's shoulders and Kenny sees scarred hands gripping the counter top so tightly the knuckles are white. The other man takes a deep, shaky breath.
"He...he always insisted on a clean house," the words are soft and strained. "Spotless."
Kenny wonders what Kyle is seeing in his mind's eye now. Is it the pristine, windowless house that was his prison? Or is it those same walls smeared with blood?
"He can't hurt you now," Kenny says.
"I know. But ten years is a long time."
"Yeah. Look, I'll take care of those dishes as soon as ..."
"Actually," there's almost a shy quality to Kyle's words, "could you leave them? It's...kind of nice."
Kenny smiles. "Sure. Less work for me."
When Kenny does do the dishes later that day he makes sure to leave a cup and a dirty spoon in the sink, just in case.
That night Kyle is inattentively channel surfing from the couch while Kenny fills out a third job application in the kitchen. The tv's drone and the application's tedium make his eyelids heavy.
"Hey, Kenny?" he twitches into more wakefulness at the sudden sound of Kyle's voice.
"Huh?"
"You were a cop..."
"Detective."
"Detective, yeah. I bet you saw a lot of horrible shit, right?"
A chill creeps down Kenny's spine, his shoulders tensing. "Yeah."
He can hear Kyle fiddling with the remote. "How did you cope?"
Kenny blinks and sits up, pushing the application away and setting his pen down. He shifts in his chair to look at the couch. Kyle is looking at the remote in his hands, absently turning and flipping it around without really seeing it.
"Well," he sighs. "We had some older guys in the station, kind of veterans. If you were having a tough time, they'd listen. It helped, knowing it wasn't just me."
Kyle nods.
"There was a counselor on staff, too," he pauses before reluctantly adding, "Stan talked with him a lot. He's a good guy, knows his stuff."
The silence between them is broken only by the tv's quiet murmur. Kenny shifts in his chair, looking anywhere but at the man on his couch. Kyle's first official therapy session is in two weeks but it feels like an eternity stretching before them both.
"Uh, there's one more thing," Kenny rises from his seat and Kyle's eyes follow him into the dark bedroom.
He comes back with a cheap notebook in one hand, it's blue cover scratched and rumpled, a pen tucked in the spiral binding. Kenny plops onto the couch and lets the notebook rest in his lap. Kyle looks at it with one eyebrow raised.
"I don't know if anyone else does this," Kenny says without meeting the other man's gaze. "When things are really tough and I can't sleep, I write all the bad stuff down."
"Does it help?"
"Yeah. If it's on paper, it doesn't rot my brain so much."
"So...where are the other notebooks? I mean, you've been a co...detective for years, right?"
Kenny grins. He walks into the kitchen, notebook still in hand, and lifts an old coffee can down from the top of one cupboard. The notebook comes to rest on top of the unfinished job application and Kenny sits back down. Kyle watches as the can lid, streaked with tally marks in permanent marker, opens to reveal fine gray ashes.
"When one book gets filled up, it goes in here."
"Huh."
"You want to try it out? I always keep spare notebooks around. I...kind of blow through them when things are rough."
Kyle looks thoughtful.
"Hide the one you write in somewhere if it'll make you feel safer. I'm not going to read it, dude. That's the cardinal rule of the notebook: nobody reads what's in there, not even you."
Ten minutes later the tv's noise is undercut by the sound of pens scratching, one at the kitchen table and the other on the couch. When Kenny wanders toward his own bed, Kyle is still furiously writing, shoulders hunched and tense.
Three and a half weeks later they stand by a circle of stones near Stark's Pond in the predawn light. Kenny offered to stay in the car, but Kyle asked him to come. He watches the other man carefully arrange pine needles around a green notebook. Kyle's breath plumes over his red hair, mingling with a small wisp of smoke. He stands and they both watch the flames curl around blackening pages under a sky turning gold at its edges.
The mountain tops are orange tipped with the rising sun's light as Kyle stoops again to scoop ashes into a big glass jar that had been holding pennies until recently. He wipes his soot-stained fingers on his coat as he stands. Kenny grins at the consciously made streaks and Kyle smiles shyly back.
"So... You want breakfast or something?" Kenny says with a light shrug. "The coffee shop is open by now. My treat."
"Sure."
They walk to the car with the first rays of morning sun warming their backs.
Beginning.