iselldrugstothecommunity | Ficlet for Zoki 2

They don't drive home in silence, but Cedric feels like they do. Howard has a tendency to hum along with the radio and comment on stupid advertising jingles, and that's suspiciously absent today. And Cedric knows better than to try and drag thoughts out of him that he doesn't want to air yet; with Howard, everything usually reveals itself in time, be it a few hours or a few years, but nothing stays hidden forever. At least, nothing Cedric knows about.

Cedric's still shaking.

Howard pulls into the driveway and stares into space for almost a full minute before getting out of the car. He appears less like a human and more like some ungainly marionette made of staples and planks, off-kilter and robotic. Cedric takes the keys, gives him a hug, and gets in the driver's seat.

"I'll be back in half an hour. You're okay?"

"Uh huh. I'm just going to bump up my appointment with Dr. Amani next week. I'm okay."

"I love you."

"Yeah."

Cedric doesn't listen to any of the muggle music while he drives to the grocery store, and he goes through the aisles fairly quickly. Mint ice cream, pasta sauce, yogurt, marshmallows. 'Binge food', declared such because it doesn't burn when it comes back up and there's nothing to choke on. Cedric's sad that this is a regular enough occurrence that he has a de facto list for such occasions, and doubly sad that tonight will, in all likelihood, call for it. That and nailbiting are Howard's go-to responses to stress. That, nailbiting and withdrawing.

"Long day?" the cashier asks. Cedric snaps to attention and realizes he probably looks a mess - his shirt is still rumpled from the little girl clutching onto it and he's never been good about keeping worry from his face. It tends to tug at the area between his eyebrows, folding little wrinkles into his brow and making him squint. The cashier can tell, god knows Cedric's at this store often enough, and Cedric's fairly certain she has a crush on him and his 'adorable accent', as she puts it.

"Very. A man…well, I don't want to bother you with it."

"You can't come in here looking like that and expecting to walk away with just that explanation."

Cedric sighs and squints again. "I was out shopping and a man in the store keeled over. Heart attack, I think. Er, cardiac arrest."

"Oh, god. I'm sorry."

"My roommate was with me and he's a paramedic, so at least…anyway, I couldn't really help. I just stood there for an eternity. He had a daughter who must have been thirteen or so."

"Jesus." The clerk shakes her head and bites her lip. There's lip gloss on her teeth. "Well, at least with a paramedic onsite he was probably okay."

Cedric tries not to think about the way Howard shook his head when the ambulance came, or that painfully quiet ride home, unpunctuated by banter or declarations of heroism. "Yeah. He probably was." No need to worry her about all the evil in the world too.

When he gets home, Howard's in the bath. Cedric figures he predicted running out of hot water if he showered for as long as he wanted to relax. Howard's eyes are closed and his head's resting on a folded-up pile of towels. Cedric puts a hand in the water - it's long gone lukewarm. Howard's toes are all wrinkly.

"Hey."

Howard doesn't open his eyes. "Hey yourself."

Cedric doesn't mention the food he brought home, because he doesn't want to see Howard's features curl up into a wince. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about. It happens all the time when I'm at work." Howard wrinkles his nose. "I just wish that asshole didn't have to die on my day off."

Cedric has seen death before, but not as much as Howard has. Cedric wants to talk to someone, anyone, about the fact that he could do nothing but stand there and hold that girl while her father received CPR in front of her. Some girl so young she shouldn't even be old enough to worry about makeup or school dances or anything like that yet, so young she might still have imaginary friends, if secret. Cedric stares at his hands. "So he died, then."

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure." Howard's palms have bruises forming in them.

Cedric reaches over and taps his shoulder. "May I?"

Howard's voice sounds a bit choked. "Yeah."

Cedric starts to massage his shoulders. The tension all gets carried there, and fifteen minutes of delivering compressions has made the muscles feel tight and wrenched under Cedric's thumbs.

"Like I was saying, I see that kind of stuff all the time. It's no big deal." Howard sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than anyone else. Cedric has his theories on why this one is bothering him. Maybe it's because Howard likes to compartmentalize all the awful things he sees into his work life, so it can't bleed over and touch his life at home, so his own doorstep is never threatened. Maybe it's because the girl was around the same age Howard was when he lost his parents. Maybe it's just the same thing as Cedric, that knowledge that no amount of wishing otherwise would have granted them the power to change things.

Not magic. Not willpower. Not medical training. Nothing. Something sad and awful happened and they were helpless to do anything meaningful about it.

Howard makes a little noise of relief as Cedric rubs his thumbs over a particularly knotty region. "You're okay?"

Cedric folds his lower lip into his mouth then sighs. "No."

"You will be."

Howard reaches a hand up and rests it on Cedric's knee. The water in the bath is growing cold. In the quiet, they can hear that it's starting to rain outside. Howard moves his hand in smooth, calming circles; Cedric mimics the motion with his fingers and knuckles.

"Would he have made it?" Cedric asks. "If the ambulance had arrived sooner?"

"Probably not." Howard sinks a little lower in the tub. "But my arms would hurt a lot less."