We can only be captains of our own souls.

[digyourman]

It was a tenuous acceptance, being in this place.

Initially, Larry had believed that nothing could temper the shock of divine relief that had carried him here, to the Nexus Hotel. (Heaven or Limbo, pick your poison.) The surety of that white-hot flash had made him the most buoyant he'd felt since he got that damned record deal a lifetime (or two?) ago, but in a way that had far transcended all of Old Larry's petty little triumphs. He'd expected it to stick, that elation, but supposed now that he should've known better. The centre, he knew well enough, cannot hold.

His satisfaction remained immovable, but as the days ticked by, that bright, soul-shaking joy was steadily bleeding out of him. A week in, he wasn't unhappy, wasn't ungrateful, but the more time that passed, the more keenly he missed a life that he should have, by all rights, been jazzed to escape. His thoughts turned again and again to Stu, bearing up under the weight of fate more gracefully than Larry could ever hope to do, to Glen and Ralph and unerringly to Lucy—He'd thought he'd come to terms with leaving her during that long trek to Vegas, thought he'd gotten past the guilt of witnessing her gut-wrenching acceptance, so in contrast with Frannie's histrionics, but he missed her as keenly as a missing limb.

(Larry was well-convinced this was a feeling he was entirely owed, but wasn't sure what the hell to do with it other than carry it like a knot permanently fixed to his heart.)

A city boy all his life, Larry knew shit about plants. His mother had kept some sort of vine perched in a faded red pot on her kitchen windowsill, and that was where his expertise stopped. He'd never even been to the conservatory in Central Park. Yet when he'd visited the hotel offices and looked at the list of available jobs, his eye had kept jumping back to the landscaping crew. It felt wrong, somehow, to choose something that kept him inside all day, and his hands needed something to do. Not a distraction, a benediction.

That's how Larry Underwood, New York City born and bred, more accustomed to concrete than compost, was now outside beneath a blue sky with dirt caked under his fingernails and the sun at his back, packing soil around lavender plants in an English garden. Somewhere, Larry knew, the Judge approved.

Comments

[haolehothead]

Danny's been here for hours wandering the grounds like there's going to be a threat popping out from the corner. He's not exactly great. When he'd come through that door, he'd only just been patched up from the gunshot to his arm, so he's constantly checking how bad the blood is seeping from the wound and every thought is spent in worry about Grace and how she's holding up after witnessing her father being shot.

That's definitely going to get him in shit with the custody lawyers, he already sees that battle looming ahead. Danny looks to the garden and nearly stumbles when a cursory glance around the place shows him a familiar face.

"Shit," he breathes out relief, jogging as quickly as he can over to where Steve's in the garden. It's only when he gets closer that he gets a better visual of the guy and while he might look a whole lot like Steve, it's not him. There's tattoos missing, there's a beard there, and there's a lack of a 'I will kill you if you sneeze while I aim my grenade launcher' to his posture.

He's already too close to walk away without looking like a complete idiot and this is the first person he's seen since coming out of the hotel. Maybe he'll know something the staff don't (who all seem nice and all, but blank in that scary Hotel California absent kind of way). "So, uh, I'm just wondering here, but any chance you have a twin brother named Steve?"

[digyourman]

Larry looked up, squinting into the sunlight, and reached up to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with the heel of his hand, adding another dirty streak to the several already on his face.

"Sorry, no," he replied, and felt immediately bad about it, knowing all too intimately the feeling of thinking you've spotted someone you know only to discover it isn't them at all. They'd all known that sinking resignation back home, and this guy had run up all expectation.

"Trust me, you don't want two of me in the world anyway," he added, his smile open and apologetic, New York still creeping in at the edges of his syllables despite all those years in L.A.

[haolehothead]

"No, see, it's the two of him that I'd be genuinely concerned about," Danny promises, eyes widening as his imagination takes over and gives him an idea of what a world with two Steve's would be like. God, that'd be one to drive and the other to do all the insane and stupid things. "There would be chaos. Hawaii would probably burst into flames, poor innocent witnesses everywhere having their wrists broken and..."

And hold on. He moves his hand over the bandage to keep it covered. "Hold up, wait a second, is that New York I hear? Are you...are you actually a Steve-looking guy from New York?" he asks, pretty goddamn thrilled by the irony in the man before him.

[digyourman]

"Yeah," Larry replied with a nod, and hastily wiped his right hand on his shirt hem so that he could offer it to shake. The dirt and sweat just blended in with what was already there.

"Larry Underwood, Queens. You from Jersey?" he asked, knowing the answer.

[haolehothead]

"Yeah, Newark," Danny says, shifting so he can shake with his right hand, grateful that it's the left that's got the wound. "Not lately, though," he adds, grimacing. "I'm ah, I'm from Oahu," he says, unable to help staring at Larry. "Jesus, I mean, you look exactly like him, it's uncanny, I swear to god," he marvels. "You uh, you know if there's a first aid kit around here or something?"

[digyourman]

"Sure," Larry answered, and pushed up onto his feet. He made a brief attempt to brush off his knees before giving up and jerking a thumb toward the storage shed at the far edge of the garden. "There's a kit in the shed, c'mon."

Apart from a (very small) handful of people who had been convinced he looked just like the guy from that one music video, Larry had never been much accused of looking like anybody else. It was one more thing he didn't know what to do with, and he brushed it aside, squinting sidelong at Danny as they walked.

"How the hell does a Jersey boy end up in Hawaii?"

Same way a New Yorker ends up in the Rockies, pal. Shoulda learned to sail a boat.

[haolehothead]

Danny follows after him, giving a rueful snort when the inevitable question gets asked. "Believe it or not, I did it for a girl," he says, stripping off his sweater so that he's got better access to the wound with his black t-shirt on and barely covering the shot. "My ex-wife dragged my daughter out to the island when her new husband got a better job. Me? I love my job, I love my folks, I love my siblings, but there's nobody in the world I love more than my Gracie," he swears. "So I uh, I moved to so-called paradise and I'm pretty sure I'm the only guy on that rock who spends his time wishing he was back in Jersey where they know how to do real pizza," he boasts.

[digyourman]

Larry paused in opening the shed door to tilt his head back with a low groan of nostalgia.

"God, I miss New York pizza," he said, and finished shouldering open the door. "They have pizza at the restaurant here sometimes, but it's not the same."

The space inside the shed was small but well-kept, gardening tools hanging neatly from the walls or lined up in orderly rows on shelves. Dust motes spun lazily in the light from the single, tiny window as Larry pulled a red first aid kit from one of the shelves and opened it up on the little work table.

"I didn't even ask what you needed it for," he realized, and hitched up a half-smile. "I assume you're not dying or anything."

[haolehothead]

"There was this guy I found, this horrible degenerate," Danny spits out the words with the extra anger it's due given how that whole thing ended. "Scumbag who we wound up putting away, but he made a delicious slice of pizza. I swear to God, it was like I was back in Newark on the beat," he swears, moving his arm to press a kiss to his lips and wincing when it pulls at the wound.

He gestures to the sluggish blood. "I'm the only idiot in the world who goes on a girl scouts trip with his partner and gets shot." Though, to be perfectly fair, what with Steve throwing a knife around and teaching little girls how to gut boar, it was probably inevitable.

[digyourman]

"Jesus," Larry replied, taken aback. Maybe he had been a little presumptive in his previous statement about not dying, although Danny didn't seem all that worried about it, which was a little shocking all by itself.

"You a cop?"

[haolehothead]

"Yeah, Detective Danny Williams," he introduces himself with the full name because it's better to have been shot as a cop than involved in some illicit business. "I'm part of the governor's task force in Hawaii," he says, grimacing as he stares at the gunshot wound. "Steve, the guy who looks like you, he has a habit of getting me into situations where I get injured. I'm more concerned with the fact my daughter watched me get shot."

[digyourman]

"What, like Hawaii Five-O? I thought they made that up for TV, guess you learn something new everyday," Larry replied without thinking, as yet too ill-versed on his new home to fully understand the sorts of people around him. He'd mostly been keeping his head down.

"Are you able to get back home, see your kid?"

[haolehothead]

Danny's a bit affronted and gives him a taken aback look. "Not like. Exactly," he clarifies. "We're the Hawaii Five-0 task force," he clarifies, though he doesn't think going into why they're named that way is something they need to do. "See, I haven't exactly tried any doors yet. I kind of want to get the gunwound treated before I try and get back. The last thing I need is to get infected and put Grace through that."

[digyourman]

"Wait, hold on," Larry said, rearing back as he afforded Danny a more critical, concerned once-over. "I didn't think you were seriously shot, like— More than a Band-Aid shot. No offense to your prowess with first aid, but if we're talking actual bullet wound here, maybe we oughta let somebody more qualified take a look at it."

A little twinge of guilt wrapped in anxiety pressed against Larry's chest, told him in a low whisper that if something bad happened to this guy, it was his fault. The comfort of a familiar face could make a guy do reckless shit, right? He should have paid closer attention.

[haolehothead]

"Hey, c'mon," Danny protests weakly, even though he's pretty sure it's not going to do much good. "It's just a graze. Trust me when I say I've been injured way worse in the line of duty. I mean, hey, you ever absorbed anthrax through your skin? Because me, me, I have," he promises, lifting the bad shoulder up. "This? This is just Monday. This is a scouting trip out with my girl's crew and my partner doing insane things with a knife. This is just...it's okay, buddy, I mean it," he says, breathing finally and remembering he probably needs that oxygen for his blood. "If you can wrap it up, I'll take that."

[digyourman]

"That's a really shitty excuse, man," Larry replied with a knowing arch of his eyebrows. "I've been hurt worse so you shouldn't worry about it? That's some screwed up logic you got there."

He glanced down at the tin first aid box, considering Danny's request, and then shook his head. Maybe he'd gone too long in a situation where infections were a serious health risk, or maybe he'd gotten some sense at long last.

"There's a doctor inside who can do a better job, trust me. We'll get you patched up and then we can go get a beer. Deal?"

[haolehothead]

It's kind of screwing with Danny's head to hear all this common sense and logic coming from a guy with Steve's face, but with an accent that puts him right at home. He pushes through all that Five-0 rah-rah that's convinced him to push through the worst and looks back to where logic is resting comfortably aside. "Yeah, see, you're probably right," Danny admits, giving a mild scoff when he thinks about how insane he probably sounds asking to have a band-aid slapped on it so he can walk away and keep going. "You paying for said beer?" he jokes.

[digyourman]

"I'm not right all that often, but I feel pretty secure in it this time," Larry agreed, and began to lead Danny back out into the sunlight with a warm laugh. "And yeah, I'll pay for the beer. A man gets shot, he deserves somebody buying him a drink."

[haolehothead]

"See, you? You I like," Danny says, wondering how much of this is a strange blood-loss-fuelled hallucination that he's painted up for himself. Maybe he wants a perfect version of Steve in his life who appreciates New York and New Jersey and who pays for drinks and thinks gunshot wounds are a big deal. "You're something, you know?" he exhales the words, like he's actually marveling at this Not-Steve named Larry.