“I figured.” Drew squeezed Joe again as if wanting to comfort and reassure him. “You make so much about Finn and what he wants and needs. I haven’t heard you talk a lot about what you want or need. You lashed out because you were in pain. That doesn’t make you less deserving of help. It means you need it more than ever.”
“Maybe.” Joe was glad he couldn’t see Drew’s eyes. It was easier this way, somehow. “I… I don’t know. Maybe there are things that can’t be fixed. You learn to live with them.”
“Getting help doesn’t always mean fixing the problem. It means getting the tools you need to learn how to live with it in a way that it doesn’t fuck up the rest of your life.” Drew gave a wry little snort. “My therapist had to say that a lot before I finally believed it.”
“That was about Stack?” Joe hesitated before giving Drew a little squeeze in return. “It must have been hard.”
“It was.” Drew released a long sigh that Joe felt rather than heard. “I’d seen men die before, but not like that. Plus he was one of mine, you know? I felt responsible even though there wasn’t a damned thing I could’ve done. Explosives were Stack and Hunter’s specialty, not mine. If I’d been closer, maybe I could’ve done something. Taken his place. I didn’t know. I just felt like I’d failed him, or it should’ve been me because I was the XO.”
“I can understand that.” And Joe did. He would have felt the same way. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. It sucks.”
“I’m sorry for what you went through here the first time,” Drew said, caressing Joe’s back with long, soothing strokes of his hand. “It did some damage. But it’s not what broke you, is it?”
Joe felt the twisting sensation he always did when he thought about his past. Normally he didn’t dwell on it, preferring to look forward, not back. He’d never told anyone—not D-Day, not Herc, not even Finn—about what he’d gone through. He didn’t want them to look at him as damaged, to see him as somehow being less than what he was now. But Drew had seen him at his worst, at his weakest, so it seemed stupid to deny it.
Yet talking about it was hard, so hard, and he was silent for several minutes, trying to find the words. “I speak nine languages. Did you know that? Fluently. And I’m familiar enough with a dozen more to get by if I have to.”
“I knew you were good with languages. I didn’t know you werethatgood,” Drew said, a strong note of respect in his voice.
“Yeah. Not many people do.” Joe swallowed hard. “But what no one knows is that I was scared to talk for a long time. I barely said a word until I was in school.”
Drew pulled away just enough so that he could see Joe’s face. “Why?”
It was difficult for Joe to speak of his past, despite it having been over twenty years since it had been an issue. “I had a stutter. A bad one. And my father used to hit me every time I stumbled over a word.”
“Jesus.” Drew’s expression darkened with anger, and he tightened his arms around Joe. “What the fuck was wrong with him?”
Despite the remember pain, now that he started, Joe knew he had to get it out. “My mother died when I was still a baby. Cancer. My father…. He started drinking, and there was no one to help him with a kid. When I started talking, and it wasn’t perfect, I think it just… set him off. Or gave him an excuse. I don’t know. He hit me when I spoke, and when I stopped talking, he would lock me in a closet. He called me a stubborn brat and told me he wished I’d never been born.”
“Motherfucker.” Drew’s voice thrummed with anger as he held Joe tight, almost tight enough to steal his breath. “That was abuse. You know that, right? He was an abusive asshole, and you didn’t deserve any of that.”
“I know. And so did the teachers at school. That’s why I was taken away and put in foster care.” Joe shuddered, remembering what it felt like. “I remember being almost more frightened at being taken away than I was when I was with him. Strangers… how would they treat me, if my own father did such things?”
“But it got better?” Drew asked, an edge of trepidation in his voice.
“Eventually. I was sent to therapy, and it helped. But after my father went to rehab, they gave me back to him.” He shifted restlessly. “That was a mistake. I was with him for six months before he started drinking again. It was another three before they got me out. Three months of hell. That’s why seeing those kids… it just about killed me. Iknowwhat they must be going through. I know how helpless they feel. Because I felt that way, too.”
“You’re not helpless anymore.” Drew’s voice sounded thick, and he clung to Joe tightly. “You aren’t alone either, and you deserve a lot more than you let yourself have.”
Joe swallowed again past the painful tightness of his throat. For Drew to be so generous, after everything, was more than he felt he deserved. “Mostly, I don’t think about it. It’s been years since it really bothered me. It was just… this whole thing. The kids, the evil scumbags hitting them, raping them. Then I go home and my anchor was gone. After that… all this again. I don’t know what I deserve. I feel like I don’t know much of anything, anymore.”
“We had shitty timing, and I’m sorry for that,” Drew said. “But Finn doesn’t have to be your only anchor. You could have two.”
“You must be crazy,” Joe murmured. It wasn’t the first time Drew had said something like this, but that was before Joe had confided in him about these issues. “You can’t want to take on someone as fucked up as I am right now. I think the best thing I could do for you and Finn both is just… go away for a while. It would be easier with just the two of you. Uncomplicated.”
“Oh, fuckthat.” Drew fixed Joe with a stern look that brooked no argument. “Finn loves you, and as crazy as it sounds, I care about you, too. You leaving wouldn’t be the best thing for either of us. In fact, how about you stop thinking about us and think about whatyouwant? Would walking away from Finn make you feel any better?”
The thought of losing Finn hurt like hell, but Joe only shrugged, weariness suddenly catching him, making him feel defeated. “It’s not all about me.” Releasing a shuddering breath, he closed his eyes. “But if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m tired.”
“Okay,” Drew said, stroking Joe’s short hair with gentle fingers. “Go back to sleep if you want to. Would it bother you if I watched something for a while? I’ve been binging on that gay fiction review show while you were out, but if the noise would disturb you, I’ll read instead.”
“No, it’s fine.” Joe sighed, leaning instinctively into Drew’s touch.
Drew reached for the laptop sitting on the nightstand on his side of the bed, and he balanced it on his lap and set up the show. He kept the volume low, but Joe could hear the familiar sound of Jim and Bill’s voices as they discussed the books of the week. It was soothing, being snuggled up to Drew’s solid warmth, his head pillowed on Drew’s chest. He could hear the vlog, hear the sound of Drew’s steady breathing, and it helped ground him. Hopefully it would be enough to keep the nightmares away, at least for a while. He gave in to the drowsiness that was falling over him, but he did have one final thing to say. Rubbing his cheek against Drew’s chest, he sighed.
“Thanks for caring.”
