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It’s a cold, bitter night in New York.
Pete’s socks are soaking wet and freezing, and he’s shivering constantly. He left his jacket at home. He exhales out, and his breath clouds up in front of him like a warning.
Desire, addiction, clawed at him invisibly. Down his back, scratching at his head as if it was trying to get in. It was so frustrating, because nothing was even wrong. Nobody had upset him, nothing awful had happened. He was months sober now; shouldn’t he be fine?
It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what he thinks should be right, he’s this way regardless. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, but it does nothing to fix the way his fingers freeze with the cold. Nothing is fixed, because he isn’t. Not his addiction, not his life— not even his magic, which he can feel roiling and twisting inside himself.
It’s been so long since he saved the world, and chaos has built up. It seems other things have, too.
He blinks back tears in frustration, searching for the nearest building he can stand in. New York is unforgiving, cold, mean and dirty; it’s also incredibly lively, so it only takes him a few moments to walk into the nearest building, a hotel. The employees standing in the lobby give him weird looks for walking through New York City with only a hoodie on, but he ignores them as best he can.
Pulling out his phone, it takes longer than usual to type in the number because his fingers are still freezing, and the tiny movements required to punch in a number are limited until they thaw out. Regardless, he manages to get the number in (Or, at least, he hopes it’s the right number. It’s been a while, and he has never remembered to save numbers in his phone. Bad habits from his dealing days die hard, and his memory fizzles when it wants to without considering his needs.)
“Hello?”
“Sofia.” Pete breathes out. “Fuck, I’m so glad you picked up.” He breathes in shakily, struggling to think of what to say. What do you even say, in this scenario? He could tell Sofia he feels sick, she might show up with chicken soup but that’s an entirely different kind of sickness. He could say he feels unwell, but then Sofia would ask what was wrong.
He could hang up. Forget he ever called her. Deny later. He could leave this hotel. He could-
“I really want to relapse right now.” He blurts out after a long moment of silence, and even the hotel employees hear and avert their eyes accordingly. Cat out of the bag, he feels like he’s ripping off a bandage and taking a few layers of skin with it. He wishes he could go back, in vain. Why did he say it like that? Panic surges through him, twisting into magic that wants to implode. “Fuck,” He says, under his breath. “I’m sorry, Sofia it’s really bad, I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t. I need—” Need what? Love? Care? Drugs?
Pete remembers the day Sofia told him what it was like recovering from alcoholism. When she’d told him the story of what it meant to grow up in a family where all the women drank two or three cases of wine a day, and how they always assumed she was joking when she told them she didn’t know how to stop. He hadn’t been able to explain, then, just how much Sofia had meant to him for all those years. She was not only living, breathing proof that someone can recover, but she had supported him constantly during the first few years of rehabilitation. Never been afraid to ask him if he was okay, if he needed to sit down, get away.
Things were different now: Sofia had a daughter. He knew Catherine Lee, and well at that. The Dream Team liked to stick together, and even more, they shared their lives with each other. Pete knew Catherine, pre-teen in all her glory.
He didn’t want to disrupt her life. Didn’t want to disrupt anyone’s life, as he had already done so acutely and so painfully to everyone he’d ever sold to. He was so tired of hurting people, but it felt like no matter what he did, no matter where he went, it just seemed to happen.
Pete slams his eyes shut. He realized his heart was pounding. “...I need help. Please.”
For an awful, terrifying moment, Sofia is silent. The worst fears: The ones fueled by anger, by terror, by addiction, by addiction, tell him she’s hung up. Tell Pete that nobody is here for him, that there’s nothing left.
Then, as quickly as it came, it leaves as Sofia says softly from the other line; “Okay, I’m on my way.”
“Thank you.” Pete replies, feeling some of the tension clawing at him slip off his shoulders, losing its grip.
“I’m going to be a while. The ferry takes a second, so I’m going to send someone over. Can you get somewhere you can stay at for a couple minutes?”
Pete tries to look through the glass, but it’s foggy and the snow crashing down the streets doesn’t make it any easier to see. “I’m not sure. I can probably find somewhere, should I just send you the address…?”
“Yeah, that works.” Sofia replies, and he can hear from her phone the sound of Staten Island as she rushes to catch the next ferry. “I’ll be there soon, okay? I love you, Pete.”
“Love you, Sofia.” He mumbles, still unused to this affection he never experienced, in childhood or adulthood until he met the Dream Team.
Pete hangs up, shoving the phone back into his hoodie pocket. A quick look at the front desk tells him Pete is no longer welcome in this hotel; Well, fuck you anyways, lady, and so despite how cold it is outside, Pete steps back out.
It’s still cold as fuck. The snow falling on him is melting through his sweatshirt, is dissolving in his hair, and that makes him feel colder as a result. These streets are filled with restaurants and shops that have already closed at 10PM, much to Pete’s disappointment. There are plenty of bars open, but that’s not a place he or Sofia should be. He keeps walking; there’s nowhere to go. He keeps walking; all the windows are dark, shut. It feels like the entire city has shut Pete out.
At some point, he starts to panic because wasn’t that the hotel he just came from? New York has always been large and, at times, unmappable but usually he’s able to find his way, but he can’t stop shivering and the back of his throat starts to hurt as he tries to fend off tears of frustration and desperation. He literally made Sofia take a ferry to get here, only for her to realize he never gave her an address because he’s still fumbling around in the fucking snow—
“Pete!” Someone shouts, a block away. But it’s not Sofia. It’s a man’s voice, a man’s voice he recognizes, but can’t figure out.
“..Yes?” He calls tentatively, squinting his eyes in the direction of the person calling his name. It takes a long time for Pete’s eyes to focus, but they finally latch on to a blot of black in an otherwise unforgivingly white and gray city. His breath catches a bit, in surprise. Sofia said she was going to send someone, but Pete had instinctively guessed… Kingston? Ricky?
“Cody!” Pete shouts.
Cody grows nearer and nearer, and Pete realizes with a start that he’s running towards Pete. Which is an incredibly sweet gesture for Cody, who never runs unless he absolutely has to (Chasing monsters, and being chased by monsters.)
Something inside him breaks, like one of those hand warmers Kingston aways pushes into his pockets during their winter fights. Pete feels lighter, warmth spreading from inside out as Cody crashes into him with a huff.
“Dude!” He reprimands, but Pete can’t understand what’s happening because there’s a flurry of fabric around him and it all smells like leather and the cologne Pete got him for Christmas, which leaves his heart fluttering even more as he feels old, supple leather slip around his shoulders.
“You’ll be cold!” Pete argues, moving to take the coat back off, but Cody grabs his hand
hard
and is already leading him away, and he’s so feeble already it doesn’t take much. He lurches forward and Cody unceremoniously catches him, still moving effortlessly forward, and Pete can’t help but ask;
“Are you mad at me?!” He shouts through the loud winds that surround them. Cody must see somewhere they can stop at for the moment, because he lets go of Pete’s hand.
They’re stopped under the awning of a now closed deli. “Pete.” Cody sighs in relief, and suddenly his arms are around Pete and they’re not letting go, and with anyone else it would be suffocating but it’s not because it’s his best friend, his roommate,
“Cody.” Pete replies, slumping into his shoulders. They stay like that for longer than Pete expects, but he isn’t upset about a second of it. He stops feeling so cold. even though they’re still outside.
“I’m not mad.” Cody says finally, returning to his more casual, slouched position. “I just…” Cody fidgets with the bracelets on his wrist. “I was worried about you. I wish you would’ve called me.”
“I wanted to.” he replies, instantly.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I was really worried that you were going to realize that I was a mistake.” Pete says slowly, piecing together each part of the sentence in his brain. Every word only seems to make Cody more nervous, so he just stops speaking, turning his head to look at the ground.
“Pete!” Cody says, and now there’s warm, if sweaty cheeks holding up his head on each cheek. “I don’t know how to tell you in a way that won’t sound like bullshit.” His eyes look wild, raw. They look like the way Pete feels when he surges, when Cody has to heal him and he’s laying hands on his wounds—
“You have never, and will never be a mistake, okay?” Cody sounds angry, looks angry, and Pete shrinks away from it on instinct. Then, Cody’s backing off, and despite everything Pete mourns the loss of contact all the while.
“Fuck, dude. You don’t have to be anything, Pete. You just have to talk to me, to talk to anyone even. Okay?” His hands are falling limply at his sides, unable to stuff them into the coat Pete is now wearing. The same hands that have saved him so many times, the same person that is saving him now.
“I’m sorry.” Pete says weakly, but Cody won’t accept it. He’s shaking his head furiously.
“No. No worries, you don’t have to apologize.”
He’s staring into Cody’s eyes, and he feels even more incapacitated than he did that one time a Beholder got loose in Manhattan. The one Cody killed, his brain supplies unhelpfully.
“You did a great job, Pete. You called Sofia. You did great.” Cody states, like he’d kill anyone who tries to argue against it. “Just keep doing that, okay?” Pete nods, and Cody nods back at him. He extends a hand for Pete to take, and he does.
“Let’s go see Sofia. She’s waiting at the new pizza place that just opened up a couple blocks from here. It’s not as good as the mall pizza, but…” Cody trails off. “Whatever, right? It’s just.. whatever.”
“Thank you.” Pete says softly, as they begin to trudge forward in the snow. It’s still cold, and it’s still slow. But the snow doesn’t leave him breathless anymore, and for the moment, that’s enough to keep him from falling through.
Cody squeezes his hand. “No, dude. Thank you.”
And they walk, towards the warm glow in the distance.