Chapter Text
Holland had never been particularly fond of Christmas, even before the house fire that had taken his wife. He never would have expected to find himself being a participant in any festivities, and yet here he was, seated on the couch with the trappings of the holiday scattered around him. His daughter is laying on the floor in front of the television set flipping through the latest Nancy Drew book. His partner is tucked under his arm. They are all wearing appallingly merry sweaters. Holly had insisted, and neither he or Jack could deny her something so simple.
The appearance of Jackson Healy had really turned the March household on its head. Holland had been quite content to drink himself into an early grave, but then the other man had, quite literally, knocked some sense into him. Now, he is finding himself doing things like “paying the bills”, “being a better parent”, “celebrating holidays”, and “cutting back on his drinking habits”. He takes a long pull of his spiked eggnog. It’s Christmas, he could be allowed the indulgence, besides, he’s not the only one drinking tonight. Healy has his own glass of the stuff.
“This ain’t very festive,” his partner says suddenly as the men on the screen harpoon the shark’s fin.
Holland supposes that Jackson is right. Jaws isn’t the typical Christmas movie. He still decides to push just for the sake of it. “You don’t like seeing some idiots getting eaten by a shark?”
“I’m not sayin’ I don’t like it, March,” Healy argues back, clearly a little drunk. “I’m just sayin’ that it ain’t very festive.”
“So what?” The private investigator asks, rising from the couch, glass empty.
Intent on a refill, he crosses the room to the kitchen. Behind him, Healy drains the rest of his glass before following suit. Holland can hear the other man’s back pop in protest from across the room. Life hasn’t been kind to the bruiser. They meet at the counter. Both men’s glasses are placed side by side on the polished surface.
He takes a swallow of rum directly from the bottle before pouring a healthy measure of it into his cup. He sets it aside to fetch the eggnog from the refrigerator. Holland returns to his drink to find Healy adding a splash of alcohol to his own glass. The nog swirls into the rum easily, he doesn’t bother with stirring. He pours for his partner when the other man tilts his cup at him in a silent request for eggnog.
Feeling the weight of the rum bottle, the PI decides there isn’t enough left for another serving. He is poised to throw the remainder of it back when Healy’s hand on his arm stops him. The other man’s grip is strong.
“Careful,” he grouses.
“I was just going to get us another bottle,” Holland protests. He flashes a winning smile and a wink at the shorter man. Charm was unlikely to work here, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
Uncoordinated, his partner puts his glass back on the counter and puts his now free hand on the collar of his sweater, holds onto it.. “You,” he clears his throat, “you’ve gotta try staying a little sober for tonight. We got, y’know, plans.”
“Relax, I’ll be fine,” Holland says with a half-smile.
Briefly checking over his shoulder to make sure his daughter is still enthralled in her book, he bends down and meets Jack in a brief kiss. The other man tastes good, like spiced rum and eggnog. He pulls back only for his partner to tighten his grip on his sweater and draw him back in for a second kiss. It’s a little messy when the bruiser brushes his tongue over the seam of Holland’s lips, but he lets out a moan that he wishes was quieter at the sensation. The older man is having a hard time keeping it together. His partner has a way of making him feel at least twenty years younger.
In the other room, Holly turns up the volume on the television. The sound of yelling and the clanging of metal in water gets louder. It provides the cover Holland needs to drag a hand from Healy’s chest to his stomach, right above the waistband. He’s drunk enough to slide his hand right under the other man’s Christmas sweater and swirl his fingers through that rich forest of hair that adorns his soft stomach. The bruiser has just the barest trace of sensibility left and redirects Holland’s wandering hand out from under the fabric and to his waist instead. He is not deterred in his capture of his partner’s mouth.
Somebody is moaning. It might be him. It might be Jack. He’s too out of his mind to tell, drunk on spiked eggnog and arousal.
“I love… your sweater,” Holland says in between kisses. It’s not exactly what he meant to say and Healy looks at him like he’s lost his head entirely. It’s a sobering moment, enough of one that he decides he’s going to need a second bottle of rum. The first is nearly empty and the PI is going to need a couple more drinks for courage. “I’ll be right back, let me grab another bottle.”
His partner tenses up initially at his words, but sags back. Jackson lets go of him and gives him a little shove towards the liquor cabinet. “Fine, knock yourself out.”
Briskly, he sets off. He’s so consumed with thoughts of how he’s going to finally tell the other man that he loves him that he doesn’t notice the wrapping paper strewn out on the floor. He goes down hard, slamming his previously broken arm into the wall on the way down. The detective makes a wounded, little noise when he makes contact with the carpet. The air is knocked out of him and his arm is throbbing with such pain that he feels like a strand of blinking lights.
“Jesus, March. I didn’t mean it literally,” comes Jack’s voice from somewhere above him. All he can do is let out a wheezed utterance of the man’s name. There is a rapid discussion between his partner and his daughter. His head is swimming and he suddenly feels sympathy for the men on the boat in the movie still playing in the other room. He was really too harsh in calling them idiots, just look at him.
“I’ll be fine,” he mumbles before trying to sit up only to let out a piercing yelp and fall back to the floor. He can’t string the words together to ask for a trip to the hospital so he settles on making a siren noise with his mouth. It gets the point across.
“Shit,” Healy groans. “March, we’re going to have to get you up. We need to take a trip to the uh… to the hospital. Holly, can you get the keys? I can’t drive like this.”
Holland feels him wedge an arm under his back and wrap the other around his chest. He is bodily hauled to his feet in a smoothly effortless motion. He often forgets just how strong Jack is. The other man murmurs apologies and soothing words when he wails in pain at his arm being jostled.
Stars erupt across his vision as he’s escorted out the front door and into the back of his Benz. He falls flat on his back across the leather seats, dazed from alcohol and pain. It’s a comfort to him when Healy wedges himself into the vehicle after him and carefully guides his head to rest on a broad thigh before combing calloused fingers through his hair. The PI distracts himself while Holly drives on backroads and sidestreets to the hospital. In the part of his brain that’s not consumed by his current predicament, Holland’s glad she’s taking the extra time to avoid traffic. It wouldn’t look remotely good for an unlicensed thirteen year old with two drunk, old men in the back to be pulled over.
To help pass the time and to distract from his throbbing arm, Holland mindlessly sings. It’s a mixture of half-remembered songs he had heard on the radio and some improvised verses when he forgets the actual lyrics. He doesn’t have to see the other man’s face to know that Healy has to be gritting his teeth at the warbling voice filling the vehicle, even still the bruiser's hand doesn’t falter as he strokes Holland.
Upon arriving at the hospital, the detective gratefully allows his partner to help him out of the vehicle. He ends up clutching onto the shorter man as though his life depends on it. Through the haze of pain, he can make out the shapes of a couple of the nuns serving as nurses at this facility. They’re lingering in front of the building. He can feel their disapproval from here.
Holland remains cradled against Jackson’s chest as the other man soothes him with a tenderly calm “Easy, March, I got you.” before directing his next words to the girl waiting behind the wheel. “Park the car and meet us inside.”
The injured man can hardly walk under his own volition, head swimming, completely relying on Healy to support him into the waiting room and up to the check-in desk. His arm is dangling at an awkward angle with each dragging step. The appearance of it does not improve when the other man props him against the counter. The receptionist has a politely horrified expression on her face as she unceremoniously shoves a clipboard at the both of them. He can’t help but notice his partner is sporting a similarly nauseated face. A functioning human arm would not be moving around the way his is.
“So uh, pretty sure my partner has a broken arm.” He hears Jack tell the woman. Holland helpfully waves the limb in question to demonstrate the point just in time for his daughter arrive to reprimand him.
“Stop doing that, that’s gross and stuff,” Holly snaps.
March pushes down the pain and drunkenness for just long enough to scold his daughter, “Don’t say, ‘and stuff’, sweetheart.”
“What was that, March?” Healy asks, clearly not paying attention. Holly and the receptionist share a look.
“Don’t say, ‘and stuff’,” he replies, mostly ignoring the other man, “Just say ‘stop doing that, Dad, that’s gross’. Isn’t that easier?”
Immediately, he hears the bruiser start to speak before he cuts himself off. After a pause, he sheepishly speaks. “Oh, uh.. Your dad’s right, Holly,” he says, sounding choked.
With a long suffering look, the receptionist tells them that a nurse will come collect them shortly and to have a seat. His partner gamely drags him to a chair in the waiting area. Holland groans at the thought of having to wait while his arm continues to plague him. He’s barely seated before Holly shoves the intake paperwork into his good hand. The words on the paper are nothing but smears of black against white. He lets out a helpless whine and offers the clipboard back to his daughter for her to fill it out. God knows that she’s done this for him enough times to do it in her sleep. She takes it back with a frustrated sigh.
After Holly takes a seat in the chair beside him, Jack leans into his space, way too close to be appropriate. “Hey, you doin’ okay? I know your arm hurts, but you alright?” He takes hold of his hand and gives it a strangely, business-like squeeze. He doesn’t let go and instead just… clings to it.
Holland tries to give his partner a reassuring smile, but he’s sure it comes across as a grimace. Spots are floating across his vision in bright, sizzling flashes. The PI is feeling simultaneously more sober and faint as the minutes pass. His arm had just barely been freed from the cast before tonight’s re-fracture of it.
“Mister… March?” A nun approaches the group.
Holland stands up and winces in pain as the movement jostles his arm. “That’s me.”
The nun makes a gesture to follow her down the hallway and he does. He doesn’t even look back, knowing that his partner will be right on his heals. They’ve become damn near inseparable since they had finally danced around some of their mutual feelings. He makes it past the doorway, but Healy does not. The nun stops the other man at the door with a curt “Family only.”
Holland whirls around to see the woman physically blocking Jack. His temper flares, but before he can come up with a protest, the bruiser is already speaking.
“He’s my partner…. My business partner. We do business. Wherever he goes, I go.”
The nun scoffs and suddenly Healy looks cowed, all of ten years old again in front of his teacher, being lectured for holding another boy’s hand. He’s looking down at his battered shoes in a show of submission that makes Holland feel sick.
“I’m sure you do. But as I said. Family only,” she says, booking no room for argument. She silences Holland with just a look. His mouth audibly shuts as she glowers at the two of them in turns, tapping her foot impatiently.
“I’ll go.” Holly says, coming up to the small group. “C’mon dad.” She trails them down the hallway, leaving Healy to slink back to his chair in the waiting room.
Setting the fracture goes as smoothly as it can be with Holland as a patient. Despite his best efforts, he fails at keeping still and quiet. There’s screaming and flailing on his end of things and barely bitten off curses from the doctor’s. Eventually, sweating and hopped up on pain meds, the arm is secured once more in a cast and he’s turned over to the supervision of his exasperated daughter.
Holly promptly takes him by his good arm and drags him down the hallway into the waiting room where chain of custody continues and he becomes Healy’s responsibility. He can’t help the slightly drugged smile that spreads across his face at the sight of the gruff man.
“Doc said it’s not nearly as bad as what you did the first time you met, but he needs bed rest, and to stay away from the bottle for a while.” Holly rolls her eyes, knowing that her dad has at least been putting in a good effort in reducing the amount of alcohol that he’s been pouring down his throat.
Relived to nearly be done with tonight’s ordeal, Holland shuffles close to his partner and leans against him. He’s desperately craving some reassurance and comfort. He can’t bring himself to care about the heavy presence of eyes on the two of them. Two grown men should be able to have friendly contact without everyone getting upset.
“Let’s get him in the car,” Jack says to Holly, ignoring Holland further by shrugging away from him to walk out the door.
Stung, Holland follows after him. Surely the events of tonight wouldn’t have been enough to keep rattling the other man. Jackson Healy doesn’t get bothered, not like this. He’s always surefooted and reliable. Perhaps he himself had done something to personally upset him. Yeah, he had gotten a little drunk and hurt himself in a typical March fashion, but usually they would just laugh it off together.
The trio gets to the parked vehicle, and Holland shunts himself into the back again. He doesn’t bother to listen to the conversation between his daughter and his partner over who will be driving. His mind is too focused on pinpointing exactly where the night really went wrong.
He startles out of his thinking when Healy settles himself into the front passenger seat. It looks like Holly will be the one to drive them back to the house. Holland can’t help but feel as though he got slapped in the face by the other man’s decision to sit in the front rather than join him in the back again.
Leaning forward, he presses the side of his face into the headrest. The leather is cool under his cheek. “Jack, what-”
“Just sit back, March,” the other man responds before he can get all of his sentence out. It seems like everyone is determined to cut him off tonight.
Merry Christmas, Holland thinks bitterly, letting himself flop back against the seat. The ride back to the house is silent aside from Holly’s occasional sighs. Jackson keeps his eyes focused straight ahead through the windshield. He doesn’t speak a single word after shutting him down, doesn’t even make a noise until Holly hits the curb in the driveway by accident and forces an involuntary grunt out of the man.
“Christ,” Holland grumbles, getting out of the car as soon as it’s put into park.
He tries to initiate contact with his partner once they’re all on the porch waiting for Holly to unlock the front door, The PI is desperately hoping that the other man won’t slide away from him again. Slowly, carefully, he leans on him. Relief floods him when Jack doesn’t move. The porch is bathed in darkness, making it difficult to make out anything distinctive, and besides, it’s not like the neighbors haven’t seen already seen the two of them be affectionate with one another anyway.
A glance over at the man he’s leaning on reveals nothing blatantly transparent. Healy’s face is carefully blank. Even still, Holland can make out the tense set of his jaw. It’s enough to worry him further.
Holly gets the door open and immediately darts off to her room after dropping the keys in the bowl in the entryway. Holland is carefully escorted over the threshold by his partner who calmly closes and locks the door behind them. They’re left standing uncomfortably on the tile while Healy seems to be looking at everything else but him.
Fed up, the PI reaches out and takes the other man by the collar of his Christmas sweater and hauls him in for a kiss. He normally doesn’t have to fight for affection like this. Healy is still against him. He doesn’t resist the kiss but he doesn’t exactly return it either. The bruiser pulls away after a moment.
“You should go to bed, March, it’s late.”
“Come with me,” he instantly responds. He needs his partner with him. He hates nothing more than sleeping alone. It always makes him think of those sleepless nights right after Holly’s mom had died. He takes an unsteady breath and wraps his arms around the other man. “I love…”
Healy’s fists clench at his side for a moment before he hooks a broad hand over Holland’s shoulder. He holds it there while he’s hugged. Holland all but burrows against him. He feels the exact moment when the other man relaxes just a little and gives in. “Alright, I’ll stay with you for a while.”
“A while? What do you mean a while? I thought we had plans for tonight.”
“I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep,” Jack supplies, nudging at him to walk to the bedroom.
“What about after?” He questions, his worry surging back up into his throat. Jesus, what he would give for a drink right now.
Unsurprisingly, his partner doesn’t respond right away, lost in his own troubled thoughts. He pulls back the covers on the bed for Holland, correctly assuming that he would struggle to get under them on his own. The other man doesn’t so much as look at him while he works his own holiday themed sweater off over his cast. Maybe he did something so heinous in the past few hours while inebriated and injured that Healy doesn’t find him attractive anymore? Could that be a possibility?
The younger man finally answers Holland’s question, abit unwillingly and still not looking at him. “Probably gonna clean up the living room.”
“Hey. Don’t be like this… Please.” He stops himself from reaching out, realizing that it likely wouldn’t do any good right now. He awkwardly drags himself into bed, motioning for Jackson to join him.
With clear reluctance, Healy sits stiffly on the bed with his back against the headboard. He looks down at his clasped hands. “I’m not your wife, March. I’m just your business partner,” he says suddenly without any preamble.
Holland is left reeling. “I... do you think I don’t care about you? About us? Is that what this is? Because I do. I care about you. I lo-,” he bites the confession off before it can fully escape.
“Care all you want. That nun was right, we’re not family. We can’t be real family.” The other man seems taken aback by his own outburst. He clears his throat unsuccessfully, poised to get off the bed, to flee from the conversation.
“Healy…” The detective’s heart breaks. This feeling is devastating. He’s not sure what to say. He can’t just tell a joke or make an asinine quip to smooth this over. He can’t argue that his partner is wrong. Even in his current, foggy state he knows that people won’t accept their relationship as being a legitimate one. It’s not going to be like it was with his wife. The silence hangs in the air.
Finally, the other man reaches over and gives him a pat on the shoulder. It's similar to one that another man would give a friend, nothing more. Reassuring but detached. “Look, March. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”
“Fine,” he agrees hollowly. He rolls over, putting his back to the man sitting beside him. He doesn’t want him to see the tears that have decided to start streaming from his eyes. Despite his best efforts, he can’t fully contain his sobs.
Healy doesn’t leave his side while he cries. Through his tears, he keeps looking at the analog clock on the bedside table. Every minute that passes feels like an hour. His crying slowly abates and he’s left to slip into an exhausted slumber.