We are not traitors

It's too familiar. It's surreal.

He's sitting in the back of Preston's car again, slumped down and watching the miles of flat fields roll by. The clouds make dark smudges of shadow that move across the green and gold and brown. He feels like he hasn't slept--though he did, heavily, Neil half-draped across him, and breakfast--eggs, sausage, pancakes--had been better than it really should have been, with the eggs a little overdone and the pancakes a little dry. He had wolfed them down, Ellen doing only a moderate amount of distracted fussing over each of them, Neil's foot brushing his under the table.

No indication from her that she had heard anything.

And now here they are, and he's thinking back to so many hours spent driving across this same flat country. Driving to Neil. Driving to things he didn't understand then and doesn't fully understand now.

And now here comes more that he can't even pretend to get.

He shouldn't be this nervous, he thinks, looking up at the back of Neil's head. But he is. It feels like another step, and one in another direction. Not towards getting better or confronting his own shit, but towards a world where he and Neil are so profoundly entangled that there's no pulling them apart.

Which he wants. God, he wants it.

And it's terrifying.

It's better. For the first time, it's better and he's sure it's not just wishful thinking, or adjusting to a situation that's just as shitty as it was before.

He's still not good. The morning he and Neil had spent in bed and curled around each other, he hadn't dreamed, but that night he had, and badly. And the night after. Neil touches him, and he still flinches instinctively away most of the time. The thought of going outside for anything--even the smallest task--feels like an exhausting ordeal. At times even getting up to bathe or eat is difficult.

But a few days later, and he's sure it's still better. As he makes his way up the stairs to he apartment, he's sure he feels less tired. Less battered inside.

Again, he's coming back from therapy, but he's feeling cautiously hopeful in addition to sore and tired. Donna had seemed entirely unsurprised when he had broached the subject--sidling around to it with an awkwardness that made him cringe and yet that he couldn't really stop--nodding and moving over to a desk and scribbling a name and a number down on a scrap of paper.

"There," she had said, tossing her long blond ponytail back over her shoulder and handing the paper to him. "Call that number. They'll take good care of you. Promise."

And he had thought that might actually be all she said about it, but as she pointed him back to the mat and his stretches, she had smiled, and it had been faint and warm. "I'm glad you said something," she said quietly. "'Cause I was about to."

Under the embarrassment, he was--and is--grateful. Because people care. They care without prying, without making themselves a nuisance.

Unless they have to. He thinks of Johnny and doesn't quite smile.

He turns the key in the lock, pushes the door open. Maybe it's better, but he's still tired and everything still hurts, and all he wants to do is curl up on the couch and doze.

Once it would have been with a drink. But now part of him--a louder part--is wondering if that might be the best idea.