Baywatch fic: A Hazy Shade of Family (2/2)
PART ONE
PART TWO
As lieutenant, Mitch has a lot to do. That’s part of the job, and it’s a job he’s signed up for. Sometimes, he wishes he could spend more time on the beach and less time on paperwork, but you take the good with the bad. That’s the nature of commitment. That’s the way it is with a team.
Mitch knows that. He’s learned that, and it’s a lesson he makes sure to pass on to every recruit who passes through his program.
Most of them pick it up, no problem.
The ones who don’t usually wash out on their own.
But then there’s Brody.
Brody is an odd one, when you get right down to it. Mitch had him pegged for failure the first day he met him, and the kid tried his best to live up - or down, as it were - to that expectation. So it is almost counterintuitive that he’s not only stayed - but flourished. The change is nothing short of radical, and Mitch knows this. Brody is learning, growing, committing.
That’s not to say that it’s going perfectly.
Because it’s not.
Brody is still Brody.
He’s moody and inconsistent. He doesn’t think things through. He’s barely functional sometimes, and he’s the best worker Mitch has at other times. He’s late, he drinks too much, he swear and he’s too pretty for his own good. He is also, consequently, Mitch’s best friend.
That’s the kicker in all of this. That somehow, in all of this mess, Brody’s become more than a recruit, more than a teammate. He is family; Mitch has absolutely no doubt about that.
There are moments, however, when he wonders if Brody has doubts. Or if Brody even knows what that means. The kid is bad at relationships. Not just bad - abysmal. He tries but he doesn’t get that shit and none of it comes naturally. So maybe Mitch needs to take the time. Maybe he needs to make the time.
Brody had been upset earlier, and yeah, the kid is making way too big of deal out of some pranks, but he just needs to see that it’s because he’s one of them. It’s because they like him. It’s a growing bond, a camaraderie. He needs to learn the nuances of give and take and not assume a defensive position.
Mitch can help with that.
He swings by the locker room, looking for Brody as the crew clocks out for the day. Brody’s not at his locker, and he’s not in the shower. Mitch wanders through the breakroom and checks back up at his office just to be sure they haven’t missed each other. He is Brody’s ride, after all. They always go home together.
He’s on his way back to check the locker room again when he runs into CJ. “Oh, hey,” he says. “You seen Brody?”
She’s in her street clothes now. “What?” she asks distractedly, checking her phone.
“Brody,” he says. “He’s supposed to meet me so we can head back for the night.”
CJ looks up from what is clearly a text from Ronnie. “Brody?” she repeats. Then, she seems to remember. “Oh, right. Brody. I haven’t seen him since about lunch. But, you know how it is. We sent him on the Rookie Inventory today. I was going to ask Ronnie at dinner tonight all about it.”
None of this is news, necessarily. Brody had already complained - vociferously - about the Rookie Inventory. And yet, Mitch frowns. “You haven’t seen him since lunch?”
She nods. “More or less, I think.”
“But that was hours ago,” Mitch points out.
“Well, yeah,” she says. “But have you seen the storage shed?”
“I try not to, honestly,” Mitch admits. “That place is a disaster zone.”
She grins widely. “I know, right?” she asks, like this is the most perfect joke ever. “It’s just right for Brody.”
In some ways, it’s a joke Mitch can appreciate. Hell, it’s a joke Mitch has told time and again. Brody is the perfect punchline in all of this, with his two gold medals, cocky attitude and chiseled jaw. Most of the time, Brody himself is in on the joke.
That’s the thing, though. The thing that niggles in the bottom of Mitch’s gut. Most of the time.
Mitch shrugs, trying to maintain an air of indifference. “It’s just that it’s time to clock out,” he says, gesturing to the clock on the wall. “He probably should be back by now.”
She follows his gaze and seems to consider this. “I guess you’re right,” she says. “Most of the time, people quit after a few hours when they realize we’re messing with them.”
A few hours - and Brody has been gone nearly six. “Yeah, well, Brody’s not most people,” his says, the words more clipped than he intends.
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” she asks, and she looks like she’s ready to make this a punchline again but the overture falls flat. She chuckles to herself. “It’s all a part of bringing him back down to earth with the rest of us.”
Her point isn’t without validity, and yet it’s still somehow completely missing the point that Mitch isn’t sure he’s ready to make. Brody defies reason; he defies logic. All the predictable patterns in Mitch’s life have been turned upside down by one smart-ass Olympian.
But Mitch can’t do this now, not with CJ.
Just not at all.
He shakes his head. “He’s pretty grounded these days,” he says instead. “I mean, maybe it is time to lighten up on him a little.”
Her face contorts just slightly, showing a trace of petulance. “I know you’re right, I do,” she says. “And I have been trying to scale it back, but he just makes it so easy.”
Mitch can commiserate - he really can. He lives with Brody, so he gets it. “But he’s still part of the team,” he says, as much for CJ’s sake as for his own. “You can’t forget what makes Baywatch Baywatch.”
“I know,” she says with a solemn nod. “But I swear to you, our motives aren’t bad. We like Brody. It’s in good fun.”
“For you, sure,” Mitch says, thinking of Brody’s flouncing earlier in the day. At the time, Mitch had been quick to write it off as another one of Brody’s vapid protestations. But the guy spent all afternoon in a storage shed doing an inventory that didn’t need to be done. It’s pretty clear to Mitch that Brody’s not just putting on a show; he genuinely doesn’t understand that this is family. Because Brody’s only concept of family is Baywatch, and they might have to be a little careful about how they inform that concept. “But I’m not sure he knows it.”
CJ is many things, but she’s not mean spirited. She can take as good as she gives, but she’s a good person, through and through. She’s not trying to hurt anyone, and Mitch knows that. The second any implication of misunderstanding becomes clear to her, her entire disposition changes. “You’re right,” she says. “We’ve been pushing it awfully hard - harder than we would on anyone else. It’s not fair. I’ll talk to the others, and we’ll scale it back. Really.”
Mitch nods, having no doubts that she is telling him the truth. “Good,” he says.
“In fact,” she offers. “I can go get him right now. Apologize. Clear this up.”
Mitch waves his hand at her. “No, it’s fine,” he says. “We were going out tonight anyway to pick up a few things - I’ll swing over there and get him. You can talk to him tomorrow. He’ll probably be in a pissy mood tonight anyway. He’ll be more open to listening tomorrow.”
CJ winces a little. “Yeah, six hours in the storage shed,” she reflects. “I can’t believe he didn’t come back already. Everyone always comes back.”
“Brody is a special case,” Mitch reminds her with a thin smile. He cocks his head, feeling rueful now. “A very special case.”
-o-
It’s not a short walk down to the storage shed. He knows this beach like the back of his hand, and it still surprises him how long it takes. In his job, he frequents every part of the beach and every Baywatch facility. He has been to this storage shed exactly three times in the last year. Once to dump an extra box of clipboards that was taking up too much space in his office. The second time he’d been looking for a lost item someone was desperate to find. The last time had been to look for spare boating parts to support a few repairs on some of their more outdated vessels. A few of them are retrofitted fishing vessels, and it’s often cheaper to scrounge up used parts than custom ordering new ones.
In those three instances, he’d tried to spend as little time as possible in the shed. It’s a dark, dirty, crowded, hot building. No one wants to spend time there.
Besides, Mitch remembers his own experience with the Rookie Inventory. It’d been the height of his hazing experience at Baywatch. After several weeks of being the team’s whipping boy, he’d been assigned to inventory the shed. He’d started the process, skimmed over the fact that there was outdated medical supplies and damn fishing spears, and taken the checklist back to HQ and told everyone to piss off.
The rest of the team had broken out into laughter and taken Mitch out that night for a few beers. The next day, Mitch was a full fledged member of Baywatch - not just in name, but in practice, too. He got the shifts he wanted; he was rotated freely through the duty schedule. And no one ever asked him to go to the inventory shed again.
Because that was how hazing worked. You endured it, learned your place, and then called out the others on their shit. Everyone laughed and had a good time, and that was it. You were family, then. Shared experiences matter. Initiation procedures create unity. It’s an ebb and flow, and every other recruit gets it.
That’s how family works, after all.
Everyone knows how family works.
But not Brody.
Mitch chews the inside of his lip as he approaches the shed. He has to say it again and again and again until he really understands the implications of it. Family dynamics require a foundational trust that is easy to take for granted. But for people that don’t have that naturally, it’s a much different ballgame.
And Mitch knows this about Brody better than anyone. He’s lived with the dude; he knows how hard he’s tried and how much he’s struggled. Mitch has seen since the start that the kid needs to keep his ego in check, but it’s taken him more time to see that ego and self esteem are not the same thing. Brody’s weird like that: full of himself but completely lacking any confidence in himself whatsoever. The brashness of his bravado - which Mitch had called out on day one - is a cover for his deep rooted insecurities.
That’s taken longer for Mitch to see. Longer still for him to understand. He’s still grappling with how to deal with it.
The simple fact is that Mitch can’t treat Brody like everyone else. That’s not to say he needs special treatment - because no, definitely not. Brody needs to learn the hard knocks. He needs to learn responsibility the hard way sometimes. But he also needs validation in a way that the rest of the team doesn’t. He needs to know that when he puts himself out there, there’s going to be a payoff.
A payoff that doesn’t involve the Rookie Inventory.
Hazing is not designed for people like Brody.
But Mitch can make it up to him. He’ll take the kid to the store tonight and they’ll pick up some extra beer and they’ll sit back and tell stories about the weird shit you find in the storage shed. Mitch can make this experience mean something. Mitch can draw the connection that Brody isn’t emotionally capable of making on his own.
He’ll show Brody it’s worth it.
Outside, he hesitates. This thought process is all well and good, and it’s going to work - Mitch is sure of that. But Brody’s been in a hot, dark shed for six hours. He was frustrated six hours ago in Mitch’s office. Now?
He’s going to be apoplectic and absolutely no fun to deal with.
He sighs. This is what family does, however. It pushes on even when it doesn’t want to. If that’s a lesson he wants Brody to learn, then it’s one that he better not forget himself.
With that, he opens the door and steps inside.
-o-
If anything, this storage shed is worse than Mitch remembers. It’s dark and horrible, overcrowded and stifling hot. He’d remembered it being bad, but not this bad. Maybe he does need to rethink the hazing procedures. He may also need to put in a note to have this damn place bulldozed to the ground.
Of course, everyone else who set foot in here had the same reaction. That was why no one ever finished the Rookie Inventory. Mitch hadn’t been nearly credulous enough to jump through those hoops.
So it figures then - it really does figure - that Brody would stick it out. The asshole bailed out on the team countless times in his first week. Now, three months in, he’s the only one naive enough to not quit even when he’s supposed to.
Sure, on the one hand, it’s a sign of growth. Brody is learning about family and how to adhere to his commitments.
But he’s got absolutely no perspective on it if he’s stuck out six hours in this. If Brody thinks family requires torture, then clearly Mitch still has a few things left to teach him.
Tonight, over a few beers. And a trip to the grocery store.
“Brody! Hey!” he calls out, his own voice muffled against the low ceiling and slatted walls. “It’s time to clock out!”
There is no response. Mitch steps in another foot or so, wondering if Brody’s left after all. He could have blown the gig off and gone off to relax on the beach. He could even be at home by now, and Mitch is getting all anxious about Brody’s concept of family for no reason whatsoever. More practically, it’s possible that they took different paths back and missed each other in transit.
“Brody!” he calls, edging down one of the rows. “You still here?”
He hears something, a faint murmur - so faint it could be from outside. The passing crowds; the sound of the waves.
“Brody?”
He makes his way down the first row, noting that it seems marginally more organized that he remembers. Things are grouped - and Mitch sees that his leftover clipboards have been straightened and organized.
So, clearly, Brody has spent some time here. How much time, Mitch doesn’t know, but he continues down the aisle with a faint sense of trepidation.
“Brody? It is time to go, man,” he says, stepping over a curious mess at the start of the next aisle. A few of the boxes have been turned, and there are fishing spears littered on the ground.
It’s a storage shed full of shit no one cares about. No one goes in here. There’s no reason to think that’s remotely weird.
But Mitch steps around it, squeezing through a small opening to the other side. He sees a flash of Baywatch red.
“Brody? What the hell-”
The words die in his throat as Mitch clears the mess. On the other side, he sees Brody slumped on the ground, flat on his back. His skin is soaked with sweat and red; his eyes are closed. At first, Mitch thinks he’s picked a weird place to take a nap. Then, he considers the heat and accounts for heat stroke.
Then, almost impossibly slow, his eyes make sense of the rest of the scene in front of him. Brody’s on his back, eyes closed, a fishing spear jammed through his shoulder and pinning him to the floor below.
That’s the point, then. The literal point.
Family’s the thing that’s supposed to save Matt Brody.
Mitch may have just let it kill him instead.
-o-
Mitch allows himself exactly two seconds for shock. Then, he gets three seconds to panic.
After that, it’s time to get to work.
First things first, he drops to his knees, quickly assessing Brody’s vitals. In his mind, this is not a wellness check. He can’t entertain the possibility that Brody is anything but unconscious in order to remain functional at this very critical juncture.
Fortunately, Brody cooperates. Beneath his flushed skin, his pulse is still thrumming frantically, lilting with a slight unsteadiness that reinforces that this has gone on too long.
“Brody,” he says, tapping the younger man’s face. “Brody, wake up.”
He makes it an order, keeping his tone clipped. Brody always responds well to structure, and Mitch doesn’t think he’ll hold it together if he’s anything less than professional in this moment.
Beneath his touch, Brody stirs slightly, but that’s the best he can do. He sighs softly and doesn’t open his eyes as he settles back into stillness.
“Brody,” he tries again, using his knuckles against Brody’s ribcage this time. “Come on, buddy. Rise and shine.”
Brody produces a groan this time, his eyelids fluttering. But that’s still the best he can get. Mitch keeps himself in check, and quickly assesses Brody for further injury. The good news is that there isn’t any sign of further injury. The bad news is that being impaled is still pretty bad. The wound is high - not likely to have hit anything vital - and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of bleeding. Likely, this is due to the fact that the spear is still in place. Once it’s removed, all bets are off.
Obviously, it needs to be removed, but Mitch is a lifeguard. He’s got no business touching the spear in Brody’s shoulder.
What he does have business doing, however, is getting help.
Right now.
He does the math - six hours - and wonders how the hell no one knew about this. He hopes that Brody hasn’t been lying here all that time. He’d probably be dead if that were the case.
Still, any time at all, alone and impaled in this place was too long.
Thankfully, Mitch had been checking out for the day - he’s got his phone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he wastes no time in calling 911. He keeps his details sparse and to the point, requesting immediate ambulance support. It requires a little creative description to explain where the victim is located, and Mitch does his best not to flinch when he explains what’s wrong.
“Yeah, he’s impaled on a fishing spear,” he says. “Probably an inch in diameter, right through the shoulder.”
“Yes, sir,” the voice on the other end of the line says. There’s a pause. “And how exactly did this happen?”
Mitch looks at Brody, his heart locked tight in his chest. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I honestly don’t know.”
He’s not he’s telling the truth, and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. Really, it doesn’t make it anything because Brody’s still impaled. He puts the phone away, reaching down and resting his hand on Brody’s uninjured shoulder in the solidarity he wished he’d shown all along.
“I’m right here, buddy,” he promises. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s probably what he should have said before, when it would have made a difference.
It might be too late now.
Mitch swallows back the fear and refuses to think it.
“So hang on, Brody,” he says, and the order is starting to sound like a plea now. “Just hang on.”
-o-
It seems to take ages for the ambulance to come, but Mitch knows they made good time. He recognizes the medics, who seem surprised about the location.
“Usually beach runs are on the sand,” one of them says. “What happened?”
“Inventory accident,” Mitch explains, helping clear away some of the debris to make room for the medics and equipment.
“Inventory?” the other says. “In here?”
“It’s supposed to be a joke,” Mitch explains, and it sounds stupid when he says it now. “Shit job to the new guy.”
“Hazing,” the first says, starting to assess Brody. He smiles sympathetically at Mitch. “It happens at every job.”
The other makes her way around, making room for herself on Brody’s other side. “Sounds like kind of a fluke, then,” she says, feeling for the edge of the spear jutting out from Brody’s shoulder. “Has he been awake?”
“No,” Mitch says. “I figure shock, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, probably,” the first says. “BP’s pretty low - pulse is kind of all over the place.”
“This spear hasn’t lodged in the cement at least,” the other reports while the first sets up an oxygen mask and IV. “That’s good.”
Mitch raises his eyebrows. “How is that good?”
“We can transport him with the spear in,” she says. “It helps minimize the bleeding until we can get him to the hospital.”
“Yeah, he’s probably missed most of the vital organs, but there are a lot of arteries and vessels there,” the first says. “We take this out-”
“And he’ll probably bleed to death, I know,” Mitch says, more terse than he intends. It’s not the fault of the medics, but the situation is stressful.
“We’re going to scoop and run - he’s stable enough,” the first continues. “You coming with us?”
Mitch blinks. “What?”
“To the hospital,” he repeats. “You coming with us?”
Mitch looks down at Brody, wondering why the question needs to be asked. Then he reminds himself, Brody spent six hours alone in this shed. Six hours thinking that family was about a pecking order and conditional acceptance. To think, Brody had passed out doing the best he could, wondering if his family would come back for him.
That’s not the lesson Mitch intended to teach: that family isn’t there when you need them most.
That’s not at all.
“Of course I’m coming,” he resolves, determined to get it right this time. “No other place I belong.”
“Then let’s do this time,” the first says, getting up and bringing the backboard over. “Looks like he’s waited long enough.”
Mitch watches, tense and anxious as they carefully stabilize Brody’s shoulder and transfer him to the backboard. He helps lift it while one of the medics clears the path ahead. They make their way into the glaring sunlight as it fades in the sky.
It seems so ridiculous there, in the plainness of the end of the day. The Rookie Inventory; hazing; a misunderstood definition of family. A fishing spear in the shoulder. Brody got the point, but it’s not the point Mitch ever intended - the point any of them had intended. It might kill him before this is over.
It very well could kill both of them.
All he wants to do is go back, relive the past six hours, the past six weeks.
Brody, secured to the stretcher, doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t flinch as he’s loaded onto the ambulance.
Mitch, climbing up beside him, has no choice but to move forward for the both of them.
-o-
In his line of work, Mitch is around death and injury on a fairly regular basis. That’s in the job description, after all. Lifeguards guard lives. He deals with everything to minor cuts and bruises to fatal drownings. He knows how this work.
But he’s never experienced quite like this before.
In the first person.
This isn’t the job.
This is family.
The difference is one that Mitch feels starkly. It doesn’t matter that Brody is stable during the journey. It doesn’t matter that his vitals stay strong, even improving with IV fluids and oxygen. It doesn’t matter because Brody’s still unconscious, and Mitch knows he didn’t technically shove the spear through Brody’s shoulder, but it feels like he did.
In the ER, Brody is transferred to a waiting gurney, and his leads are hooked up to new monitors. There’s a fresh flurry of activity, and the doctor in charge is a gnarled looking man who lets out a whistle. “What the hell happened to this kid?”
Mitch knows it’s not an accusation, but he reddens anyway. “Accident on the job,” he says.
The doctor looks Mitch over, wizened expression. “You lifeguards taking up the javelin?”
Mitch feels flush. He forces himself to swallow and spread his sweaty hands in a vain attempt to collect himself. “Inventory accident,” he says. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”
Somehow, this admission makes it worse.
The doctor shrugs a little, though, accepting it at face value. “I recommend life preservers over spears next time,” he says, a little wryly, finally approaching Brody’s side and inspecting the wound more closely. He looks back, his expression a little kinder this time. “We’ll have to operate to take it out - hole this big, there’s no way around it - but he hasn’t lost any blood and it doesn’t look to have hit anything vital, so there’s a lot going in his favor.”
Mitch stares at him, blank for a moment. “Except the spear in his shoulder.”
The doctor clucked his tongue, unwinding the bandage for a better look. “Yes, there is that,” he muses. “Any allergies?”
“No-”
“Any medical history I should know about?”
“I don’t think so-”
“Family? Anyone we should call?”
“Just us, just Baywatch,” Mitch says. Brody is growing pale under the lights, his skin looking pallid and slack. “We’re his family.”
“Well, then call them,” the doctor says while a nurse neatly guides Mitch to the door. “Because you’ll be waiting for awhile and I don’t think you’d prefer to do it alone.”
Mitch is at the doorway now, and he feels his control slipping. “I need to stay with him.”
“Time for that is over, I’m afraid,” the doctor says, bending down to see what he could of the wound on Brody’s back. He doesn’t mean it in a cruel fashion, but the truth tightens in Mitch’s gut anyway. If he’d taken the chance earlier, when Brody had come to him in his office, this could have been avoided. This would have been avoided. The doctor straightens again, squinting through his glasses at Mitch impartially. “You haven’t got a place in here.”
Mitch has to learn his place.
Isn’t that ironic?
The nurse leads him to the waiting room, leaving him with vague assurances and promises that don’t mean anything. He sits down in a chair numbly, thinking about where he wants to be and where he belongs. He thinks about the disconnect, how the right answer is wrong sometimes, how the wrong answer is right.
He thinks about how he’s sorry, how he’s learned the lesson. He thinks about hazing, how it’s a trial by fire. They’re all still learning about family the hard way, it seems.
It’s not the lesson he thinks he needs to learn. It’s not a lesson he wants to learn.
He just hopes he learns it before it’s too late.
-o-
The thing about family is that you don’t have to ask.
At least, you shouldn’t have to ask.
Family knows. When it’s working right, when it’s doing what it should - it knows. Mitch sort of hates that fact right now, the fact that he has to wait 26 minutes when Brody waited six hours. And the whole Baywatch team comes rushing in to meet him in the waiting room.
“News is up and down the beach,” Stephanie reports. “We thought it was a rumor-”
“But you were gone,” CJ says, looking more than a bit concerned. “Is it true?”
“It can’t be true,” Ronnie says, and he sounds hopeful in his naivete. “I mean, it’s not-”
“But you’re here,” Summer says with a finality that the rest of them haven’t quite accepted yet. Summer’s expression trembles, even as her knowledge solidifies. “And Brody’s not.”
It’s a crushing realization, and Mitch feels it threaten to bury him all over again. As he watches the others threaten to crumble, he musters up what he can. “It’s not as bad as it probably sounds,” he says.
“So he wasn’t impaled?” Stephanie asks.
“No, he was,” Mitch says, having no way around that fact. “One of the old fishing spears in the shed. He must have been inventorying them, and they got knocked over.”
CJ closes her eyes guiltily; Ronnie is pale with grief.
Summer blinks her eyes rapidly, the blue unnaturally bright with the tears she hasn’t let herself shed. “But you said it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“The spear went through at the shoulder,” Mitch explains. He makes a small gesture to his own shoulder, as if to demonstrate. “Nothing vital. They’ve got him in surgery now.”
CJ open her eyes again, exhaling heavily. “So he’ll be okay?”
The question is simple, and Mitch knows its intent. He finds it hard to answer, however. He gives a stiff nod. “The doctor seemed optimistic anyway.”
The answer is truthful, even if not complete.
Stephanie is the first to sit down, perching herself in a chair across from Mitch. “I’m going to have that shed cleared out first thing tomorrow,” she says. “It all goes.”
“I’ll do it,” CJ volunteers.
“And I’ll help,” Ronnie says. “I can’t believe I egged him on with that. Rookie Inventory.”
“No, it’s a thing,” Stephanie commiserates. “We’ve all done it.”
“No, we’ve all been told to do it,” CJ says. “I mean, I didn’t do it.”
“Me neither,” Stephanie says. “I knew it was bullshit.”
“You guys didn’t ask me,” Ronnie says.
“Because Brody was the new guy,” Summer reminds them. She reaches up her fingers, flicking a tear away from her cheeks as she exhales heavily. “He always wanted to be more than the new guy, and I thought he’d get it, he’d get there-”
And the last piece clicks into place.
The new guy.
Brody doesn’t want to be the new guy.
That’s why hazing is so hard for him. Because he doesn’t understand give and take; he doesn’t understand compromise and unconditional love. And he doesn’t trust the family enough to know that he’s more than the new guy. The hazing had been a constant reminder of the impermanence of his position. It had hung over him like a threat that he chafed against in fear.
“He will,” Mitch says. It’s a promise, it’s a vow, it’s a hope. He bobs his head. “It’s up to us to make sure of that. When he wakes up.”
-o-
The wait seems long.
In fact, it seems interminable.
Mitch is aware of that, but he doesn’t dare complain. Not in the comfortable chair with air conditioning. Not with the comfort of friends nearby. Not with the blessings of safety and security that are so, so easy to take for granted.
Mitch almost hates that, right now. How much relief he gets from the companionship of his friends. He feels it palpably, a comfort deep in the beat of his heart.
It’s a relief Brody hadn’t had. For six long hours, Brody had been alone in that shed. He’s done the work by himself, and he’d faded out of consciousness without a single comfort, not a single reassurance. He’d lost the battle thinking that it was all part of learning his role.
This wasn’t intentional - this whole thing is clearly an unlikely, stupid accident - but it doesn’t matter. Their neglect has consequences, and Mitch is always telling Brody about consequences and how you have to live with them.
If Brody died - well, Mitch is the one who would have to live with that.
Even then, Mitch won’t do it alone. He can’t shake it, how good it feels to face this with others. This is what family is supposed to be. United and unbreakable. It’s supposed to be a source of reassurance and comfort and certainty.
It’s not an experience Brody has shared today - he hasn’t shared it for the past few weeks. His conversation with Brody earlier today had confirmed that, but Mitch had been too busy to listen, too confident to care. Now, he’s not sure Brody knows what family is.
No, he’s pretty sure Brody has some idea.
It’s just the wrong idea.
Reinforced like a spear in the chest.
That’s why Brody needs to be okay, why he needs to pull through this. Because Mitch has learned the lesson, and now it’s time to make sure Brody learns it the right way this time.
That’s Mitch’s promise.
Mostly, in that waiting room with Brody in surgery, it is Mitch’s hope.
-o-
He knows it’s supposed to take a long time, but it takes a long time. After several hours, Mitch can’t quite abide by it. He feels uncomfortable and sick to his stomach, so he excuses himself and slips into the nearest bathroom.
In the stall, his stomach threatens to turn, but there’s nothing to be done for it. He sits on the seat for awhile, but it doesn’t make him feel any better or any worse. Instead, he drops his head into his hands and cries for several moments, the stress of the day and the weight of the moment finally catching up with him.
He’s strong, smart and capable, but he’s not impenetrable. That’s the side of himself that he always shows, but there’s still a vulnerability there. He’s never made a point to hide that, but that vulnerability has never been so exposed since Brody came along.
He wonders about that. For all that Baywatch - that family - has changed Brody, Mitch can’t deny that it’s been mutual. Brody has changed him. Is changing him.
Brody is his, you see. Brody is his recruit, his project, his protege. Brody is his teammate, roommate, carpool pal. Brody is his friend.
Brody is his brother.
This all started as a favor to Brody, letting him crash at his place and offering him extra training on the job. It’s become more than that, and he’s never let himself acknowledge it. He’s never let it be acknowledged, mostly to Brody’s detriment. Maybe if he had understood, he never would have thought he had to prove himself with the Rookie Inventory. Maybe if Mitch had made it explicit, this could have been avoided.
He’s not usually the type to dwell on what-ifs, but they are pervasive now. Weary, he gets up and flushes, taking a long time to wash his hands and his face at the sinks. When he’s done, he feels no better than when he started, but there’s nothing else for him to do here. He steps back into the hall.
His steps falter, however, and he can’t bring himself to make his way back to the others. Instead, he wanders for a few minutes, ambling until he finally comes to a few vending machines. It’s not that he’s hungry, but it’s something to do, so he fishes out a few bills and buys himself a water, for whatever that is worth.
Opening the bottle, drinking it almost makes him feel more nauseous. He’s about to throw the whole thing out when he turns around and nearly runs right into CJ.
“Hey,” she says with an apologetic smile. “Ronnie was hungry. He eats when he’s anxious, so I said I’d come by and get him something.”
Mitch nods woodenly, watching as CJ plugs a few bills into another machine, pushing a button and tracking a pack of M&Ms as it falls out of the machine. She retrieves and comes up to face Mitch again.
“Shouldn’t be much longer, right?” she asks, and it’s not clear if she’s just trying to make conversation or seeking actual affirmation. Mitch isn’t sure he can offer her either right now.
“Yeah,” he replies, a little dumb. “I guess.”
She nods and seems to hesitate, fiddling with the package of candy. “They were optimistic, though,” she says, and this time she does seem to be fishing for affirmation. “Right?”
“Overall,” Mitch says. “As much as you can be when there’s a spear in someone’s chest.”
She nods again, chewing the inside of her lips. She sighs, looking up and meeting Mitch’s gaze more steadily this time. “I’m sorry.”
It’s not what he’s expecting, though he’s not really expecting anything. “What?”
CJ is blonde and looks petite, but she’s a hell of a woman. She’s one of the most fearless, most capable guards on his watch, and Mitch shouldn’t be surprised by her fortitude now, but it’s kind of been a long day. “I’m sorry for sending Brody on the Rookie Inventory,” she says. “You shouldn’t have had to tell me to keep things in check. Brody’s been on the team for three months. I should have stopped hazing him a long time ago.”
He respects her frankness, even if he’s not totally sure what to do with it now. He lifts his shoulders, a little bit of futility in the gesture. “It’s not your fault. The whole thing was a fluke.”
He means what he’s saying, even if he can’t quite bring himself to believe it yet.
CJ forces a smile, more apologetic than before. “It was, but I still pushed it,” she says. “I know my role in this. I don’t have to be directly responsible to know I still played a part.”
“CJ, there’s no way you could have known this would happen,” he says. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me. Brody told me the hazing was too much for him, but I told him to get over it. If he hadn’t talked to me, he never would have gone and done the damn inventory at all.”
CJ scoffs. “Mitch, if it’s not my fault, then it’s sure as hell not yours.”
Her point is valid, and Mitch is too weary to try to argue with her. “Maybe,” he relents. “And maybe it’s both of our faults. All of our faults.”
It’s a truth CJ has already accepted, and she steps forward. “We’ll make it right. We all feel terrible it. We’ll make it right.”
Mitch is the one in charge; he’s supposed to have all the answers. Right now, however, all he has are questions. “How?”
The question is small, and Mitch feels like he’s diminutive. When he looks at her, now he’s the one seeking affirmation.
She’s ready to give it. “Well, I don’t know exactly, but we’re family,” she says. “Family isn’t perfect, it makes mistakes. And then it forgives, it grows. We’ll make it right.”
It’s funny how confident CJ is. Mitch can’t muster up anything resembling confidence. “And if it’s not enough?” he asks, tentative.
Her look in return is quizzical. “Mitch, it’s Brody.”
“I know,” Mitch says.
“Well, Brody loves this team more than any of us,” she says. “He did the Rookie Inventory with more gusto than any of us ever because he loves this team so much. Of course he’s going to forgive us. Not because we deserve it or something, but because he wants to.”
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” he asks. “Doesn’t that make it worse? That he’ll forgive us when we don’t deserve it?”
CJ shrugs. “Family isn’t about earning it,” she says. “I mean, if we believe in family like we say we do, then we owe it to Brody to keep trying.”
Mitch closes his eyes and he almost laughs. “Shit,” he says, opening them again while he shakes his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Brody all along.”
“And it’s true,” she says. “I guess we all need to be reminded every now and then.”
It’s truth, and it’s grace. Mitch smiles finally. “Thanks, CJ.”
She lifts her shoulders diffidently. “Well, I already said, this is mostly my fault,” she says. “So I have to make amends somehow.”
“I mean it,” he says, circumventing her self deprecation.
“I just know this is hard for you - because it’s hard for me, too,” she says. “I mean, I thought I knew what family was when I got up this morning.”
“And then Brody messed it all up,” Mitch agrees wryly.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “But I guess maybe we needed it to be messed up.”
He nods, his stomach still churning as it settles uneasily. “Yeah, maybe we did.”
She rallies herself, shaking the bag of candy. “Come on, I have to deliver this,” she says. “The others will wonder where we are, so we should head back.”
Mitch feels his limbs go heavy at the prospect. “I’m not sure I’m ready.”
She reaches out now, a gentle hand on his arm. “Well, the good news is that you don’t have to be,” she says. “We are.”
“This is the family we should have been this morning,” he tells her.
“This is the family we are, Mitch,” CJ counters. “We just have to learn to show it differently sometimes. We didn’t identify the need right in front of us.”
Mitch raises his eyebrows in concession. “He does make it easy,” he says. “The perfect butt to every bad joke.”
“He does,” she agrees, squeezing his arm and letting go. “And he makes it easy to forgive. You’ll see. When he wakes up.”
The emphasis on the word when is salient; it’s telling.
Mitch likes the sound of it.
He nods at CJ. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t feel better, but he doesn’t have to. He just feels ready. “Let’s go.”
-o-
Back in the waiting room, no one asks where he’s been. No one has to. They smile at each other and lean in close, expressing the solidarity that’s always been there. They’ve never had to say it to each other.
They should have said it to Brody.
They will, Mitch resolves.
When he wakes up.
-o-
It feels like a lifetime, but it’s really only another hour when one of the doctors comes out to meet them. At first, Mitch fears the worst when the doctor asks them to a private room. The man is calm and collected, and he leads with a smile and tells them that things went well. They repaired the damage and transfused Brody with enough blood to keep his vitals up. They have to monitor him for infection, but the prognosis is good.
Brody is about the only asshole in the world who can get speared in the chest and be just fine.
The doctor calls it luck.
Mitch, however, admits he’s not so sure.
“Anyway,” the doctor says. “He’s still in recovery, which is a protected ward. If one of you would like to come and spend time with him until he’s stable enough for a room…”
He leaves it open, the question, the offer.
Mitch looks uneasily at the others, not sure what the answer is.
The others look back without hesitation, and Mitch feels his cheeks burn slightly. “Well, Summer’s his girlfriend-”
She all but rolls her eyes at him. “It’s obviously you, Mitch,” she says.
He hesitates even more profoundly this time. “But-”
“But nothing,” CJ says, pushing his arm toward the doctor. “Shut up and go.”
The look of certainty has solidified over all their faces: Summer, CJ, Ronnie, Stephanie.
The family has decided.
And who is Mitch, in the end, to disagree with family?
-o-
It’s all good news, but Mitch feels his resolve slip when he finally makes it to Brody’s cubicle in the recovery ward. Brody may be in good condition with stable vitals, but he looks horrible. The surgery has left him pale and limp, and he looks smaller than normal as he’s stretched out on the bed with nothing but a thin sheet over the hospital gown that has clearly been draped over him. He’s still hooked up to a breathing tube - a precaution, he’s told, and it’ll be removed shortly - and there’s a bag of blood hanging at his bedside.
For a moment, Mitch’s determination threatens to leave him altogether, and when the doctor leaves them alone, Mitch has to fight off the urge to get the hell out of there. This isn’t what he wants; this isn’t what he signed up for.
To be fair, though, this isn’t what Brody wants, either. It’s certainly not when he signed up for when he joined Baywatch.
Yet, here he is.
If Brody’s here, then what choice does Mitch have?
He reminds himself Brody’s plea in the office earlier in the day. He can’t forget how alone Brody had looked, impaled on the storage shed floor.
Brody’s done most of this on his own.
Mitch owes it to him to stay now.
He takes several long strides, crossing over to the bed. He clears his throat, reaching out a tentative hand, letting it brush across the back of Brody’s hand. He hesitates a second longer, then he picks it up and folds Brody’s fingers inside his own.
Family makes mistakes, but family stays.
In the end, that has to count for something. It has to count for everything.
Family stays.
-o-
As promised, Brody is extubated within the hour, and the nurses are in often to check him. They say his drugs are wearing off, which means the sedation is lifting. It’s just a matter of time, they promise.
Mitch isn’t even sure what time it is, to be honest. All he knows is that when Brody finally starts to come to, it feels like it’s been more than long enough.
Sitting forward, Mitch scoots his chair closer to Brody’s bedside. He has to be patient - Brody wakes up in his own time - and Brody fades in and out of consciousness by a matter of degrees. There are several times Mitch greets him back to the world of the living, only to have Brody close his eyes and drift off again.
By the time Brody does keep his eyes open, Mitch is marginally less enthusiastic. But when Brody’s brow knits and he wets his lips, he asks, “Mitch?”
Just like that, the hours melt away. Awash with relief, Mitch leans forward and grins. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “About time you woke up.”
The comment only seems to confuse Brody. Weakly, his eyes flicker around but he seems to lack the strength to move his head for a good look where he is. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” Mitch asks, because he suspects this could be a long story, and he doubts Brody has the stamina to hear it all.
“I was...doing inventory,” he says faintly. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to drift off again, but his eyes widen. “Mitch, shit. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Mitch frowns, worrying that Brody is delusional. There’s no reason to suspect brain damage, but the answer doesn’t make any sense. “What? Why-”
“I screwed up,” Brody says, a little breathlessly. He still can’t lift his head, and his eyes blink rapidly against tears. “During the inventory. I knocked - the piles. There were - spears. I screwed up.”
The line of thought is mistaken, but it’s not hard for Mitch to follow. Brody is blaming himself for this. Worse, he thinks the inventory still matters.
Mitch shakes his head quickly and definitively. “You did not mess up,” he says. “That storage shed is a mess, and that’s not on you.”
Brody still looks positively stricken. “But the inventory-”
“Was hazing, remember?” Mitch reminds him, doing his best not to flinch at the word. “It didn’t mean anything. You never should have bothered in the first place.”
Brody, weak as he is, struggles to make that parse. “But you said family-”
Mitch can’t take that one. He shakes his head again. “Forget what I said,” he says quickly.
Brody looks like he’s ready to cry again. “But family - my place-”
“Brody, you already have your place with us,” he says. “You don’t have to earn it, okay?”
This concept is entirely foreign to Brody. Mitch wants to attribute his confusion to drugs and weakness, but he suspects that Brody sincerely has no idea.
Wetting his own lips, Mitch sighs. “Look, there is still one thing about family you need to know.”
Earnestly, Brody keeps his tired eyes open. “What’s that?” he rasps.
“That families make mistakes,” he says. “They do the wrong thing, and sometimes people get hurt.”
Brody’s wide eyes are entirely credulous, and Mitch’s chest aches as he forces himself to continue.
“And families apologize,” he says. “They admit their mistakes and apologize.”
Drawing his brows together, Brody presses his pales lips together. “I don’t understand.”
Mitch reaches up, a hand on Brody’s arm. “I’m trying to say, I messed up - we all did,” he says. “The hazing thing was out of bonds. I told you it was in good fun, that it was to help you learn your place - but that’s shit. This isn’t your place, Brody. You didn’t deserve this any more than you deserved to be in that shed in the first place. I let this get out of hand, I should have stopped it, and I didn’t. So I’m the one who’s sorry.”
It’s a lot to take in, and Mitch worries Brody’s too weak to make sense of it. On the bed, Brody stares at him for a moment. He inhales slightly, then draws his brows together.
Mitch can’t let it stand. He pushes himself on, giving voice to the words that have been weighing him down this entire time. “You have every right to be pissed right now, because we messed up, I messed up,” he says. “So if this isn’t the place you want to be - here, on Baywatch - then that’s a legitimate choice. I get it. I’ll send you out with the best recommendation, and you can find your place anywhere you want. Any team up and down this coast would be lucky to have you, and you need to know that.”
That only seems to confuse Brody more. In fact, he looks increasingly distressed as he swallows hard. “Are you firing me?”
“What?” Mitch asks, wrinkling his nose.
“For messing up?” Brody asks. “Are you firing me?”
“Dude, of course not,” Mitch says.
With a staggered breath, Brody shakes his head, more adamant than before. “Then I still don’t get it.”
“It’s an apology,” Mitch says again, letting the words carry even more emphasis this time. “You shouldn’t have been in that storage shed, and that’s on me. You would be well within your rights to call us on our shit, because we talked big about family, but we let you down today. We let you down in a big way.”
Brody frowns. “Okay, sure,” he says slowly. “But why would I want to leave?”
“Because-” Mitch starts and falters. “We’re a bad family?”
Brody looks disconcerted. “You’re my only family,” he says. “I don’t want to leave. Why do you think I stayed in that shed so long in the first place?”
“But what happened today - it goes against everything I ever told you about family,” Mitch reminds him. “I messed up in a big way today, Brody. This isn’t family.”
“It’s the best version of family I’ve had,” Brody says. “I mean, Mitch. How often do you think someone has taken time to apologize to me? Me?”
It’s Mitch’s turn to frown. “Well, I’d like to think more than once-”
“Never, Mitch,” Brody says. He lets out a little breath, which is almost a laugh. “No one’s ever given a shit about me.”
“We sent you into that shed-”
“And you came for me, didn’t you?” Brody asks. He nods vaguely to the room around him. “That’s why I’m here, right? You came for me?”
Mitch hasn’t told him that. He’s made no indication of anything, but Brody had known anyway.
Brody had known. Hadn’t doubted. Known.
“But it shouldn’t have happened-” Mitch says, feeling his own throat start to tighten.
“But people make mistakes,” Brody says. “I mean, if I didn’t believe in second chances, I wouldn’t exactly be on Baywatch, would I?”
It’s a point.
It’s a good point.
It’s the only point.
Mitch swallows harder still. “So you’ll stay?”
“Hell yeah,” Brody says. He breaths out through his nose, adjusting himself minutely on the bed with a wince. “But I’m not cleaning out that shed alone next time.”
“Hey, next time, we’ll do it together,” Mitch says. “You and me.”
Brody nods, settling back restlessly onto his pillow. “I can live with that.”
The tension has eased, and Mitch allows himself a smirk. “Well, that’s kind of the point.”
It shouldn’t be a point made by the end of a spear, but it still stands. It’s impenetrable, really. A truth that cannot be denied. A point that can’t be blunted. Sometimes it hurts, but Brody doesn’t have to face it alone.
As it turns out, neither of them do.
PART TWO
As lieutenant, Mitch has a lot to do. That’s part of the job, and it’s a job he’s signed up for. Sometimes, he wishes he could spend more time on the beach and less time on paperwork, but you take the good with the bad. That’s the nature of commitment. That’s the way it is with a team.
Mitch knows that. He’s learned that, and it’s a lesson he makes sure to pass on to every recruit who passes through his program.
Most of them pick it up, no problem.
The ones who don’t usually wash out on their own.
But then there’s Brody.
Brody is an odd one, when you get right down to it. Mitch had him pegged for failure the first day he met him, and the kid tried his best to live up - or down, as it were - to that expectation. So it is almost counterintuitive that he’s not only stayed - but flourished. The change is nothing short of radical, and Mitch knows this. Brody is learning, growing, committing.
That’s not to say that it’s going perfectly.
Because it’s not.
Brody is still Brody.
He’s moody and inconsistent. He doesn’t think things through. He’s barely functional sometimes, and he’s the best worker Mitch has at other times. He’s late, he drinks too much, he swear and he’s too pretty for his own good. He is also, consequently, Mitch’s best friend.
That’s the kicker in all of this. That somehow, in all of this mess, Brody’s become more than a recruit, more than a teammate. He is family; Mitch has absolutely no doubt about that.
There are moments, however, when he wonders if Brody has doubts. Or if Brody even knows what that means. The kid is bad at relationships. Not just bad - abysmal. He tries but he doesn’t get that shit and none of it comes naturally. So maybe Mitch needs to take the time. Maybe he needs to make the time.
Brody had been upset earlier, and yeah, the kid is making way too big of deal out of some pranks, but he just needs to see that it’s because he’s one of them. It’s because they like him. It’s a growing bond, a camaraderie. He needs to learn the nuances of give and take and not assume a defensive position.
Mitch can help with that.
He swings by the locker room, looking for Brody as the crew clocks out for the day. Brody’s not at his locker, and he’s not in the shower. Mitch wanders through the breakroom and checks back up at his office just to be sure they haven’t missed each other. He is Brody’s ride, after all. They always go home together.
He’s on his way back to check the locker room again when he runs into CJ. “Oh, hey,” he says. “You seen Brody?”
She’s in her street clothes now. “What?” she asks distractedly, checking her phone.
“Brody,” he says. “He’s supposed to meet me so we can head back for the night.”
CJ looks up from what is clearly a text from Ronnie. “Brody?” she repeats. Then, she seems to remember. “Oh, right. Brody. I haven’t seen him since about lunch. But, you know how it is. We sent him on the Rookie Inventory today. I was going to ask Ronnie at dinner tonight all about it.”
None of this is news, necessarily. Brody had already complained - vociferously - about the Rookie Inventory. And yet, Mitch frowns. “You haven’t seen him since lunch?”
She nods. “More or less, I think.”
“But that was hours ago,” Mitch points out.
“Well, yeah,” she says. “But have you seen the storage shed?”
“I try not to, honestly,” Mitch admits. “That place is a disaster zone.”
She grins widely. “I know, right?” she asks, like this is the most perfect joke ever. “It’s just right for Brody.”
In some ways, it’s a joke Mitch can appreciate. Hell, it’s a joke Mitch has told time and again. Brody is the perfect punchline in all of this, with his two gold medals, cocky attitude and chiseled jaw. Most of the time, Brody himself is in on the joke.
That’s the thing, though. The thing that niggles in the bottom of Mitch’s gut. Most of the time.
Mitch shrugs, trying to maintain an air of indifference. “It’s just that it’s time to clock out,” he says, gesturing to the clock on the wall. “He probably should be back by now.”
She follows his gaze and seems to consider this. “I guess you’re right,” she says. “Most of the time, people quit after a few hours when they realize we’re messing with them.”
A few hours - and Brody has been gone nearly six. “Yeah, well, Brody’s not most people,” his says, the words more clipped than he intends.
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” she asks, and she looks like she’s ready to make this a punchline again but the overture falls flat. She chuckles to herself. “It’s all a part of bringing him back down to earth with the rest of us.”
Her point isn’t without validity, and yet it’s still somehow completely missing the point that Mitch isn’t sure he’s ready to make. Brody defies reason; he defies logic. All the predictable patterns in Mitch’s life have been turned upside down by one smart-ass Olympian.
But Mitch can’t do this now, not with CJ.
Just not at all.
He shakes his head. “He’s pretty grounded these days,” he says instead. “I mean, maybe it is time to lighten up on him a little.”
Her face contorts just slightly, showing a trace of petulance. “I know you’re right, I do,” she says. “And I have been trying to scale it back, but he just makes it so easy.”
Mitch can commiserate - he really can. He lives with Brody, so he gets it. “But he’s still part of the team,” he says, as much for CJ’s sake as for his own. “You can’t forget what makes Baywatch Baywatch.”
“I know,” she says with a solemn nod. “But I swear to you, our motives aren’t bad. We like Brody. It’s in good fun.”
“For you, sure,” Mitch says, thinking of Brody’s flouncing earlier in the day. At the time, Mitch had been quick to write it off as another one of Brody’s vapid protestations. But the guy spent all afternoon in a storage shed doing an inventory that didn’t need to be done. It’s pretty clear to Mitch that Brody’s not just putting on a show; he genuinely doesn’t understand that this is family. Because Brody’s only concept of family is Baywatch, and they might have to be a little careful about how they inform that concept. “But I’m not sure he knows it.”
CJ is many things, but she’s not mean spirited. She can take as good as she gives, but she’s a good person, through and through. She’s not trying to hurt anyone, and Mitch knows that. The second any implication of misunderstanding becomes clear to her, her entire disposition changes. “You’re right,” she says. “We’ve been pushing it awfully hard - harder than we would on anyone else. It’s not fair. I’ll talk to the others, and we’ll scale it back. Really.”
Mitch nods, having no doubts that she is telling him the truth. “Good,” he says.
“In fact,” she offers. “I can go get him right now. Apologize. Clear this up.”
Mitch waves his hand at her. “No, it’s fine,” he says. “We were going out tonight anyway to pick up a few things - I’ll swing over there and get him. You can talk to him tomorrow. He’ll probably be in a pissy mood tonight anyway. He’ll be more open to listening tomorrow.”
CJ winces a little. “Yeah, six hours in the storage shed,” she reflects. “I can’t believe he didn’t come back already. Everyone always comes back.”
“Brody is a special case,” Mitch reminds her with a thin smile. He cocks his head, feeling rueful now. “A very special case.”
-o-
It’s not a short walk down to the storage shed. He knows this beach like the back of his hand, and it still surprises him how long it takes. In his job, he frequents every part of the beach and every Baywatch facility. He has been to this storage shed exactly three times in the last year. Once to dump an extra box of clipboards that was taking up too much space in his office. The second time he’d been looking for a lost item someone was desperate to find. The last time had been to look for spare boating parts to support a few repairs on some of their more outdated vessels. A few of them are retrofitted fishing vessels, and it’s often cheaper to scrounge up used parts than custom ordering new ones.
In those three instances, he’d tried to spend as little time as possible in the shed. It’s a dark, dirty, crowded, hot building. No one wants to spend time there.
Besides, Mitch remembers his own experience with the Rookie Inventory. It’d been the height of his hazing experience at Baywatch. After several weeks of being the team’s whipping boy, he’d been assigned to inventory the shed. He’d started the process, skimmed over the fact that there was outdated medical supplies and damn fishing spears, and taken the checklist back to HQ and told everyone to piss off.
The rest of the team had broken out into laughter and taken Mitch out that night for a few beers. The next day, Mitch was a full fledged member of Baywatch - not just in name, but in practice, too. He got the shifts he wanted; he was rotated freely through the duty schedule. And no one ever asked him to go to the inventory shed again.
Because that was how hazing worked. You endured it, learned your place, and then called out the others on their shit. Everyone laughed and had a good time, and that was it. You were family, then. Shared experiences matter. Initiation procedures create unity. It’s an ebb and flow, and every other recruit gets it.
That’s how family works, after all.
Everyone knows how family works.
But not Brody.
Mitch chews the inside of his lip as he approaches the shed. He has to say it again and again and again until he really understands the implications of it. Family dynamics require a foundational trust that is easy to take for granted. But for people that don’t have that naturally, it’s a much different ballgame.
And Mitch knows this about Brody better than anyone. He’s lived with the dude; he knows how hard he’s tried and how much he’s struggled. Mitch has seen since the start that the kid needs to keep his ego in check, but it’s taken him more time to see that ego and self esteem are not the same thing. Brody’s weird like that: full of himself but completely lacking any confidence in himself whatsoever. The brashness of his bravado - which Mitch had called out on day one - is a cover for his deep rooted insecurities.
That’s taken longer for Mitch to see. Longer still for him to understand. He’s still grappling with how to deal with it.
The simple fact is that Mitch can’t treat Brody like everyone else. That’s not to say he needs special treatment - because no, definitely not. Brody needs to learn the hard knocks. He needs to learn responsibility the hard way sometimes. But he also needs validation in a way that the rest of the team doesn’t. He needs to know that when he puts himself out there, there’s going to be a payoff.
A payoff that doesn’t involve the Rookie Inventory.
Hazing is not designed for people like Brody.
But Mitch can make it up to him. He’ll take the kid to the store tonight and they’ll pick up some extra beer and they’ll sit back and tell stories about the weird shit you find in the storage shed. Mitch can make this experience mean something. Mitch can draw the connection that Brody isn’t emotionally capable of making on his own.
He’ll show Brody it’s worth it.
Outside, he hesitates. This thought process is all well and good, and it’s going to work - Mitch is sure of that. But Brody’s been in a hot, dark shed for six hours. He was frustrated six hours ago in Mitch’s office. Now?
He’s going to be apoplectic and absolutely no fun to deal with.
He sighs. This is what family does, however. It pushes on even when it doesn’t want to. If that’s a lesson he wants Brody to learn, then it’s one that he better not forget himself.
With that, he opens the door and steps inside.
-o-
If anything, this storage shed is worse than Mitch remembers. It’s dark and horrible, overcrowded and stifling hot. He’d remembered it being bad, but not this bad. Maybe he does need to rethink the hazing procedures. He may also need to put in a note to have this damn place bulldozed to the ground.
Of course, everyone else who set foot in here had the same reaction. That was why no one ever finished the Rookie Inventory. Mitch hadn’t been nearly credulous enough to jump through those hoops.
So it figures then - it really does figure - that Brody would stick it out. The asshole bailed out on the team countless times in his first week. Now, three months in, he’s the only one naive enough to not quit even when he’s supposed to.
Sure, on the one hand, it’s a sign of growth. Brody is learning about family and how to adhere to his commitments.
But he’s got absolutely no perspective on it if he’s stuck out six hours in this. If Brody thinks family requires torture, then clearly Mitch still has a few things left to teach him.
Tonight, over a few beers. And a trip to the grocery store.
“Brody! Hey!” he calls out, his own voice muffled against the low ceiling and slatted walls. “It’s time to clock out!”
There is no response. Mitch steps in another foot or so, wondering if Brody’s left after all. He could have blown the gig off and gone off to relax on the beach. He could even be at home by now, and Mitch is getting all anxious about Brody’s concept of family for no reason whatsoever. More practically, it’s possible that they took different paths back and missed each other in transit.
“Brody!” he calls, edging down one of the rows. “You still here?”
He hears something, a faint murmur - so faint it could be from outside. The passing crowds; the sound of the waves.
“Brody?”
He makes his way down the first row, noting that it seems marginally more organized that he remembers. Things are grouped - and Mitch sees that his leftover clipboards have been straightened and organized.
So, clearly, Brody has spent some time here. How much time, Mitch doesn’t know, but he continues down the aisle with a faint sense of trepidation.
“Brody? It is time to go, man,” he says, stepping over a curious mess at the start of the next aisle. A few of the boxes have been turned, and there are fishing spears littered on the ground.
It’s a storage shed full of shit no one cares about. No one goes in here. There’s no reason to think that’s remotely weird.
But Mitch steps around it, squeezing through a small opening to the other side. He sees a flash of Baywatch red.
“Brody? What the hell-”
The words die in his throat as Mitch clears the mess. On the other side, he sees Brody slumped on the ground, flat on his back. His skin is soaked with sweat and red; his eyes are closed. At first, Mitch thinks he’s picked a weird place to take a nap. Then, he considers the heat and accounts for heat stroke.
Then, almost impossibly slow, his eyes make sense of the rest of the scene in front of him. Brody’s on his back, eyes closed, a fishing spear jammed through his shoulder and pinning him to the floor below.
That’s the point, then. The literal point.
Family’s the thing that’s supposed to save Matt Brody.
Mitch may have just let it kill him instead.
-o-
Mitch allows himself exactly two seconds for shock. Then, he gets three seconds to panic.
After that, it’s time to get to work.
First things first, he drops to his knees, quickly assessing Brody’s vitals. In his mind, this is not a wellness check. He can’t entertain the possibility that Brody is anything but unconscious in order to remain functional at this very critical juncture.
Fortunately, Brody cooperates. Beneath his flushed skin, his pulse is still thrumming frantically, lilting with a slight unsteadiness that reinforces that this has gone on too long.
“Brody,” he says, tapping the younger man’s face. “Brody, wake up.”
He makes it an order, keeping his tone clipped. Brody always responds well to structure, and Mitch doesn’t think he’ll hold it together if he’s anything less than professional in this moment.
Beneath his touch, Brody stirs slightly, but that’s the best he can do. He sighs softly and doesn’t open his eyes as he settles back into stillness.
“Brody,” he tries again, using his knuckles against Brody’s ribcage this time. “Come on, buddy. Rise and shine.”
Brody produces a groan this time, his eyelids fluttering. But that’s still the best he can get. Mitch keeps himself in check, and quickly assesses Brody for further injury. The good news is that there isn’t any sign of further injury. The bad news is that being impaled is still pretty bad. The wound is high - not likely to have hit anything vital - and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of bleeding. Likely, this is due to the fact that the spear is still in place. Once it’s removed, all bets are off.
Obviously, it needs to be removed, but Mitch is a lifeguard. He’s got no business touching the spear in Brody’s shoulder.
What he does have business doing, however, is getting help.
Right now.
He does the math - six hours - and wonders how the hell no one knew about this. He hopes that Brody hasn’t been lying here all that time. He’d probably be dead if that were the case.
Still, any time at all, alone and impaled in this place was too long.
Thankfully, Mitch had been checking out for the day - he’s got his phone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he wastes no time in calling 911. He keeps his details sparse and to the point, requesting immediate ambulance support. It requires a little creative description to explain where the victim is located, and Mitch does his best not to flinch when he explains what’s wrong.
“Yeah, he’s impaled on a fishing spear,” he says. “Probably an inch in diameter, right through the shoulder.”
“Yes, sir,” the voice on the other end of the line says. There’s a pause. “And how exactly did this happen?”
Mitch looks at Brody, his heart locked tight in his chest. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I honestly don’t know.”
He’s not he’s telling the truth, and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. Really, it doesn’t make it anything because Brody’s still impaled. He puts the phone away, reaching down and resting his hand on Brody’s uninjured shoulder in the solidarity he wished he’d shown all along.
“I’m right here, buddy,” he promises. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s probably what he should have said before, when it would have made a difference.
It might be too late now.
Mitch swallows back the fear and refuses to think it.
“So hang on, Brody,” he says, and the order is starting to sound like a plea now. “Just hang on.”
-o-
It seems to take ages for the ambulance to come, but Mitch knows they made good time. He recognizes the medics, who seem surprised about the location.
“Usually beach runs are on the sand,” one of them says. “What happened?”
“Inventory accident,” Mitch explains, helping clear away some of the debris to make room for the medics and equipment.
“Inventory?” the other says. “In here?”
“It’s supposed to be a joke,” Mitch explains, and it sounds stupid when he says it now. “Shit job to the new guy.”
“Hazing,” the first says, starting to assess Brody. He smiles sympathetically at Mitch. “It happens at every job.”
The other makes her way around, making room for herself on Brody’s other side. “Sounds like kind of a fluke, then,” she says, feeling for the edge of the spear jutting out from Brody’s shoulder. “Has he been awake?”
“No,” Mitch says. “I figure shock, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, probably,” the first says. “BP’s pretty low - pulse is kind of all over the place.”
“This spear hasn’t lodged in the cement at least,” the other reports while the first sets up an oxygen mask and IV. “That’s good.”
Mitch raises his eyebrows. “How is that good?”
“We can transport him with the spear in,” she says. “It helps minimize the bleeding until we can get him to the hospital.”
“Yeah, he’s probably missed most of the vital organs, but there are a lot of arteries and vessels there,” the first says. “We take this out-”
“And he’ll probably bleed to death, I know,” Mitch says, more terse than he intends. It’s not the fault of the medics, but the situation is stressful.
“We’re going to scoop and run - he’s stable enough,” the first continues. “You coming with us?”
Mitch blinks. “What?”
“To the hospital,” he repeats. “You coming with us?”
Mitch looks down at Brody, wondering why the question needs to be asked. Then he reminds himself, Brody spent six hours alone in this shed. Six hours thinking that family was about a pecking order and conditional acceptance. To think, Brody had passed out doing the best he could, wondering if his family would come back for him.
That’s not the lesson Mitch intended to teach: that family isn’t there when you need them most.
That’s not at all.
“Of course I’m coming,” he resolves, determined to get it right this time. “No other place I belong.”
“Then let’s do this time,” the first says, getting up and bringing the backboard over. “Looks like he’s waited long enough.”
Mitch watches, tense and anxious as they carefully stabilize Brody’s shoulder and transfer him to the backboard. He helps lift it while one of the medics clears the path ahead. They make their way into the glaring sunlight as it fades in the sky.
It seems so ridiculous there, in the plainness of the end of the day. The Rookie Inventory; hazing; a misunderstood definition of family. A fishing spear in the shoulder. Brody got the point, but it’s not the point Mitch ever intended - the point any of them had intended. It might kill him before this is over.
It very well could kill both of them.
All he wants to do is go back, relive the past six hours, the past six weeks.
Brody, secured to the stretcher, doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t flinch as he’s loaded onto the ambulance.
Mitch, climbing up beside him, has no choice but to move forward for the both of them.
-o-
In his line of work, Mitch is around death and injury on a fairly regular basis. That’s in the job description, after all. Lifeguards guard lives. He deals with everything to minor cuts and bruises to fatal drownings. He knows how this work.
But he’s never experienced quite like this before.
In the first person.
This isn’t the job.
This is family.
The difference is one that Mitch feels starkly. It doesn’t matter that Brody is stable during the journey. It doesn’t matter that his vitals stay strong, even improving with IV fluids and oxygen. It doesn’t matter because Brody’s still unconscious, and Mitch knows he didn’t technically shove the spear through Brody’s shoulder, but it feels like he did.
In the ER, Brody is transferred to a waiting gurney, and his leads are hooked up to new monitors. There’s a fresh flurry of activity, and the doctor in charge is a gnarled looking man who lets out a whistle. “What the hell happened to this kid?”
Mitch knows it’s not an accusation, but he reddens anyway. “Accident on the job,” he says.
The doctor looks Mitch over, wizened expression. “You lifeguards taking up the javelin?”
Mitch feels flush. He forces himself to swallow and spread his sweaty hands in a vain attempt to collect himself. “Inventory accident,” he says. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”
Somehow, this admission makes it worse.
The doctor shrugs a little, though, accepting it at face value. “I recommend life preservers over spears next time,” he says, a little wryly, finally approaching Brody’s side and inspecting the wound more closely. He looks back, his expression a little kinder this time. “We’ll have to operate to take it out - hole this big, there’s no way around it - but he hasn’t lost any blood and it doesn’t look to have hit anything vital, so there’s a lot going in his favor.”
Mitch stares at him, blank for a moment. “Except the spear in his shoulder.”
The doctor clucked his tongue, unwinding the bandage for a better look. “Yes, there is that,” he muses. “Any allergies?”
“No-”
“Any medical history I should know about?”
“I don’t think so-”
“Family? Anyone we should call?”
“Just us, just Baywatch,” Mitch says. Brody is growing pale under the lights, his skin looking pallid and slack. “We’re his family.”
“Well, then call them,” the doctor says while a nurse neatly guides Mitch to the door. “Because you’ll be waiting for awhile and I don’t think you’d prefer to do it alone.”
Mitch is at the doorway now, and he feels his control slipping. “I need to stay with him.”
“Time for that is over, I’m afraid,” the doctor says, bending down to see what he could of the wound on Brody’s back. He doesn’t mean it in a cruel fashion, but the truth tightens in Mitch’s gut anyway. If he’d taken the chance earlier, when Brody had come to him in his office, this could have been avoided. This would have been avoided. The doctor straightens again, squinting through his glasses at Mitch impartially. “You haven’t got a place in here.”
Mitch has to learn his place.
Isn’t that ironic?
The nurse leads him to the waiting room, leaving him with vague assurances and promises that don’t mean anything. He sits down in a chair numbly, thinking about where he wants to be and where he belongs. He thinks about the disconnect, how the right answer is wrong sometimes, how the wrong answer is right.
He thinks about how he’s sorry, how he’s learned the lesson. He thinks about hazing, how it’s a trial by fire. They’re all still learning about family the hard way, it seems.
It’s not the lesson he thinks he needs to learn. It’s not a lesson he wants to learn.
He just hopes he learns it before it’s too late.
-o-
The thing about family is that you don’t have to ask.
At least, you shouldn’t have to ask.
Family knows. When it’s working right, when it’s doing what it should - it knows. Mitch sort of hates that fact right now, the fact that he has to wait 26 minutes when Brody waited six hours. And the whole Baywatch team comes rushing in to meet him in the waiting room.
“News is up and down the beach,” Stephanie reports. “We thought it was a rumor-”
“But you were gone,” CJ says, looking more than a bit concerned. “Is it true?”
“It can’t be true,” Ronnie says, and he sounds hopeful in his naivete. “I mean, it’s not-”
“But you’re here,” Summer says with a finality that the rest of them haven’t quite accepted yet. Summer’s expression trembles, even as her knowledge solidifies. “And Brody’s not.”
It’s a crushing realization, and Mitch feels it threaten to bury him all over again. As he watches the others threaten to crumble, he musters up what he can. “It’s not as bad as it probably sounds,” he says.
“So he wasn’t impaled?” Stephanie asks.
“No, he was,” Mitch says, having no way around that fact. “One of the old fishing spears in the shed. He must have been inventorying them, and they got knocked over.”
CJ closes her eyes guiltily; Ronnie is pale with grief.
Summer blinks her eyes rapidly, the blue unnaturally bright with the tears she hasn’t let herself shed. “But you said it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“The spear went through at the shoulder,” Mitch explains. He makes a small gesture to his own shoulder, as if to demonstrate. “Nothing vital. They’ve got him in surgery now.”
CJ open her eyes again, exhaling heavily. “So he’ll be okay?”
The question is simple, and Mitch knows its intent. He finds it hard to answer, however. He gives a stiff nod. “The doctor seemed optimistic anyway.”
The answer is truthful, even if not complete.
Stephanie is the first to sit down, perching herself in a chair across from Mitch. “I’m going to have that shed cleared out first thing tomorrow,” she says. “It all goes.”
“I’ll do it,” CJ volunteers.
“And I’ll help,” Ronnie says. “I can’t believe I egged him on with that. Rookie Inventory.”
“No, it’s a thing,” Stephanie commiserates. “We’ve all done it.”
“No, we’ve all been told to do it,” CJ says. “I mean, I didn’t do it.”
“Me neither,” Stephanie says. “I knew it was bullshit.”
“You guys didn’t ask me,” Ronnie says.
“Because Brody was the new guy,” Summer reminds them. She reaches up her fingers, flicking a tear away from her cheeks as she exhales heavily. “He always wanted to be more than the new guy, and I thought he’d get it, he’d get there-”
And the last piece clicks into place.
The new guy.
Brody doesn’t want to be the new guy.
That’s why hazing is so hard for him. Because he doesn’t understand give and take; he doesn’t understand compromise and unconditional love. And he doesn’t trust the family enough to know that he’s more than the new guy. The hazing had been a constant reminder of the impermanence of his position. It had hung over him like a threat that he chafed against in fear.
“He will,” Mitch says. It’s a promise, it’s a vow, it’s a hope. He bobs his head. “It’s up to us to make sure of that. When he wakes up.”
-o-
The wait seems long.
In fact, it seems interminable.
Mitch is aware of that, but he doesn’t dare complain. Not in the comfortable chair with air conditioning. Not with the comfort of friends nearby. Not with the blessings of safety and security that are so, so easy to take for granted.
Mitch almost hates that, right now. How much relief he gets from the companionship of his friends. He feels it palpably, a comfort deep in the beat of his heart.
It’s a relief Brody hadn’t had. For six long hours, Brody had been alone in that shed. He’s done the work by himself, and he’d faded out of consciousness without a single comfort, not a single reassurance. He’d lost the battle thinking that it was all part of learning his role.
This wasn’t intentional - this whole thing is clearly an unlikely, stupid accident - but it doesn’t matter. Their neglect has consequences, and Mitch is always telling Brody about consequences and how you have to live with them.
If Brody died - well, Mitch is the one who would have to live with that.
Even then, Mitch won’t do it alone. He can’t shake it, how good it feels to face this with others. This is what family is supposed to be. United and unbreakable. It’s supposed to be a source of reassurance and comfort and certainty.
It’s not an experience Brody has shared today - he hasn’t shared it for the past few weeks. His conversation with Brody earlier today had confirmed that, but Mitch had been too busy to listen, too confident to care. Now, he’s not sure Brody knows what family is.
No, he’s pretty sure Brody has some idea.
It’s just the wrong idea.
Reinforced like a spear in the chest.
That’s why Brody needs to be okay, why he needs to pull through this. Because Mitch has learned the lesson, and now it’s time to make sure Brody learns it the right way this time.
That’s Mitch’s promise.
Mostly, in that waiting room with Brody in surgery, it is Mitch’s hope.
-o-
He knows it’s supposed to take a long time, but it takes a long time. After several hours, Mitch can’t quite abide by it. He feels uncomfortable and sick to his stomach, so he excuses himself and slips into the nearest bathroom.
In the stall, his stomach threatens to turn, but there’s nothing to be done for it. He sits on the seat for awhile, but it doesn’t make him feel any better or any worse. Instead, he drops his head into his hands and cries for several moments, the stress of the day and the weight of the moment finally catching up with him.
He’s strong, smart and capable, but he’s not impenetrable. That’s the side of himself that he always shows, but there’s still a vulnerability there. He’s never made a point to hide that, but that vulnerability has never been so exposed since Brody came along.
He wonders about that. For all that Baywatch - that family - has changed Brody, Mitch can’t deny that it’s been mutual. Brody has changed him. Is changing him.
Brody is his, you see. Brody is his recruit, his project, his protege. Brody is his teammate, roommate, carpool pal. Brody is his friend.
Brody is his brother.
This all started as a favor to Brody, letting him crash at his place and offering him extra training on the job. It’s become more than that, and he’s never let himself acknowledge it. He’s never let it be acknowledged, mostly to Brody’s detriment. Maybe if he had understood, he never would have thought he had to prove himself with the Rookie Inventory. Maybe if Mitch had made it explicit, this could have been avoided.
He’s not usually the type to dwell on what-ifs, but they are pervasive now. Weary, he gets up and flushes, taking a long time to wash his hands and his face at the sinks. When he’s done, he feels no better than when he started, but there’s nothing else for him to do here. He steps back into the hall.
His steps falter, however, and he can’t bring himself to make his way back to the others. Instead, he wanders for a few minutes, ambling until he finally comes to a few vending machines. It’s not that he’s hungry, but it’s something to do, so he fishes out a few bills and buys himself a water, for whatever that is worth.
Opening the bottle, drinking it almost makes him feel more nauseous. He’s about to throw the whole thing out when he turns around and nearly runs right into CJ.
“Hey,” she says with an apologetic smile. “Ronnie was hungry. He eats when he’s anxious, so I said I’d come by and get him something.”
Mitch nods woodenly, watching as CJ plugs a few bills into another machine, pushing a button and tracking a pack of M&Ms as it falls out of the machine. She retrieves and comes up to face Mitch again.
“Shouldn’t be much longer, right?” she asks, and it’s not clear if she’s just trying to make conversation or seeking actual affirmation. Mitch isn’t sure he can offer her either right now.
“Yeah,” he replies, a little dumb. “I guess.”
She nods and seems to hesitate, fiddling with the package of candy. “They were optimistic, though,” she says, and this time she does seem to be fishing for affirmation. “Right?”
“Overall,” Mitch says. “As much as you can be when there’s a spear in someone’s chest.”
She nods again, chewing the inside of her lips. She sighs, looking up and meeting Mitch’s gaze more steadily this time. “I’m sorry.”
It’s not what he’s expecting, though he’s not really expecting anything. “What?”
CJ is blonde and looks petite, but she’s a hell of a woman. She’s one of the most fearless, most capable guards on his watch, and Mitch shouldn’t be surprised by her fortitude now, but it’s kind of been a long day. “I’m sorry for sending Brody on the Rookie Inventory,” she says. “You shouldn’t have had to tell me to keep things in check. Brody’s been on the team for three months. I should have stopped hazing him a long time ago.”
He respects her frankness, even if he’s not totally sure what to do with it now. He lifts his shoulders, a little bit of futility in the gesture. “It’s not your fault. The whole thing was a fluke.”
He means what he’s saying, even if he can’t quite bring himself to believe it yet.
CJ forces a smile, more apologetic than before. “It was, but I still pushed it,” she says. “I know my role in this. I don’t have to be directly responsible to know I still played a part.”
“CJ, there’s no way you could have known this would happen,” he says. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me. Brody told me the hazing was too much for him, but I told him to get over it. If he hadn’t talked to me, he never would have gone and done the damn inventory at all.”
CJ scoffs. “Mitch, if it’s not my fault, then it’s sure as hell not yours.”
Her point is valid, and Mitch is too weary to try to argue with her. “Maybe,” he relents. “And maybe it’s both of our faults. All of our faults.”
It’s a truth CJ has already accepted, and she steps forward. “We’ll make it right. We all feel terrible it. We’ll make it right.”
Mitch is the one in charge; he’s supposed to have all the answers. Right now, however, all he has are questions. “How?”
The question is small, and Mitch feels like he’s diminutive. When he looks at her, now he’s the one seeking affirmation.
She’s ready to give it. “Well, I don’t know exactly, but we’re family,” she says. “Family isn’t perfect, it makes mistakes. And then it forgives, it grows. We’ll make it right.”
It’s funny how confident CJ is. Mitch can’t muster up anything resembling confidence. “And if it’s not enough?” he asks, tentative.
Her look in return is quizzical. “Mitch, it’s Brody.”
“I know,” Mitch says.
“Well, Brody loves this team more than any of us,” she says. “He did the Rookie Inventory with more gusto than any of us ever because he loves this team so much. Of course he’s going to forgive us. Not because we deserve it or something, but because he wants to.”
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” he asks. “Doesn’t that make it worse? That he’ll forgive us when we don’t deserve it?”
CJ shrugs. “Family isn’t about earning it,” she says. “I mean, if we believe in family like we say we do, then we owe it to Brody to keep trying.”
Mitch closes his eyes and he almost laughs. “Shit,” he says, opening them again while he shakes his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Brody all along.”
“And it’s true,” she says. “I guess we all need to be reminded every now and then.”
It’s truth, and it’s grace. Mitch smiles finally. “Thanks, CJ.”
She lifts her shoulders diffidently. “Well, I already said, this is mostly my fault,” she says. “So I have to make amends somehow.”
“I mean it,” he says, circumventing her self deprecation.
“I just know this is hard for you - because it’s hard for me, too,” she says. “I mean, I thought I knew what family was when I got up this morning.”
“And then Brody messed it all up,” Mitch agrees wryly.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “But I guess maybe we needed it to be messed up.”
He nods, his stomach still churning as it settles uneasily. “Yeah, maybe we did.”
She rallies herself, shaking the bag of candy. “Come on, I have to deliver this,” she says. “The others will wonder where we are, so we should head back.”
Mitch feels his limbs go heavy at the prospect. “I’m not sure I’m ready.”
She reaches out now, a gentle hand on his arm. “Well, the good news is that you don’t have to be,” she says. “We are.”
“This is the family we should have been this morning,” he tells her.
“This is the family we are, Mitch,” CJ counters. “We just have to learn to show it differently sometimes. We didn’t identify the need right in front of us.”
Mitch raises his eyebrows in concession. “He does make it easy,” he says. “The perfect butt to every bad joke.”
“He does,” she agrees, squeezing his arm and letting go. “And he makes it easy to forgive. You’ll see. When he wakes up.”
The emphasis on the word when is salient; it’s telling.
Mitch likes the sound of it.
He nods at CJ. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t feel better, but he doesn’t have to. He just feels ready. “Let’s go.”
-o-
Back in the waiting room, no one asks where he’s been. No one has to. They smile at each other and lean in close, expressing the solidarity that’s always been there. They’ve never had to say it to each other.
They should have said it to Brody.
They will, Mitch resolves.
When he wakes up.
-o-
It feels like a lifetime, but it’s really only another hour when one of the doctors comes out to meet them. At first, Mitch fears the worst when the doctor asks them to a private room. The man is calm and collected, and he leads with a smile and tells them that things went well. They repaired the damage and transfused Brody with enough blood to keep his vitals up. They have to monitor him for infection, but the prognosis is good.
Brody is about the only asshole in the world who can get speared in the chest and be just fine.
The doctor calls it luck.
Mitch, however, admits he’s not so sure.
“Anyway,” the doctor says. “He’s still in recovery, which is a protected ward. If one of you would like to come and spend time with him until he’s stable enough for a room…”
He leaves it open, the question, the offer.
Mitch looks uneasily at the others, not sure what the answer is.
The others look back without hesitation, and Mitch feels his cheeks burn slightly. “Well, Summer’s his girlfriend-”
She all but rolls her eyes at him. “It’s obviously you, Mitch,” she says.
He hesitates even more profoundly this time. “But-”
“But nothing,” CJ says, pushing his arm toward the doctor. “Shut up and go.”
The look of certainty has solidified over all their faces: Summer, CJ, Ronnie, Stephanie.
The family has decided.
And who is Mitch, in the end, to disagree with family?
-o-
It’s all good news, but Mitch feels his resolve slip when he finally makes it to Brody’s cubicle in the recovery ward. Brody may be in good condition with stable vitals, but he looks horrible. The surgery has left him pale and limp, and he looks smaller than normal as he’s stretched out on the bed with nothing but a thin sheet over the hospital gown that has clearly been draped over him. He’s still hooked up to a breathing tube - a precaution, he’s told, and it’ll be removed shortly - and there’s a bag of blood hanging at his bedside.
For a moment, Mitch’s determination threatens to leave him altogether, and when the doctor leaves them alone, Mitch has to fight off the urge to get the hell out of there. This isn’t what he wants; this isn’t what he signed up for.
To be fair, though, this isn’t what Brody wants, either. It’s certainly not when he signed up for when he joined Baywatch.
Yet, here he is.
If Brody’s here, then what choice does Mitch have?
He reminds himself Brody’s plea in the office earlier in the day. He can’t forget how alone Brody had looked, impaled on the storage shed floor.
Brody’s done most of this on his own.
Mitch owes it to him to stay now.
He takes several long strides, crossing over to the bed. He clears his throat, reaching out a tentative hand, letting it brush across the back of Brody’s hand. He hesitates a second longer, then he picks it up and folds Brody’s fingers inside his own.
Family makes mistakes, but family stays.
In the end, that has to count for something. It has to count for everything.
Family stays.
-o-
As promised, Brody is extubated within the hour, and the nurses are in often to check him. They say his drugs are wearing off, which means the sedation is lifting. It’s just a matter of time, they promise.
Mitch isn’t even sure what time it is, to be honest. All he knows is that when Brody finally starts to come to, it feels like it’s been more than long enough.
Sitting forward, Mitch scoots his chair closer to Brody’s bedside. He has to be patient - Brody wakes up in his own time - and Brody fades in and out of consciousness by a matter of degrees. There are several times Mitch greets him back to the world of the living, only to have Brody close his eyes and drift off again.
By the time Brody does keep his eyes open, Mitch is marginally less enthusiastic. But when Brody’s brow knits and he wets his lips, he asks, “Mitch?”
Just like that, the hours melt away. Awash with relief, Mitch leans forward and grins. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “About time you woke up.”
The comment only seems to confuse Brody. Weakly, his eyes flicker around but he seems to lack the strength to move his head for a good look where he is. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” Mitch asks, because he suspects this could be a long story, and he doubts Brody has the stamina to hear it all.
“I was...doing inventory,” he says faintly. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to drift off again, but his eyes widen. “Mitch, shit. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Mitch frowns, worrying that Brody is delusional. There’s no reason to suspect brain damage, but the answer doesn’t make any sense. “What? Why-”
“I screwed up,” Brody says, a little breathlessly. He still can’t lift his head, and his eyes blink rapidly against tears. “During the inventory. I knocked - the piles. There were - spears. I screwed up.”
The line of thought is mistaken, but it’s not hard for Mitch to follow. Brody is blaming himself for this. Worse, he thinks the inventory still matters.
Mitch shakes his head quickly and definitively. “You did not mess up,” he says. “That storage shed is a mess, and that’s not on you.”
Brody still looks positively stricken. “But the inventory-”
“Was hazing, remember?” Mitch reminds him, doing his best not to flinch at the word. “It didn’t mean anything. You never should have bothered in the first place.”
Brody, weak as he is, struggles to make that parse. “But you said family-”
Mitch can’t take that one. He shakes his head again. “Forget what I said,” he says quickly.
Brody looks like he’s ready to cry again. “But family - my place-”
“Brody, you already have your place with us,” he says. “You don’t have to earn it, okay?”
This concept is entirely foreign to Brody. Mitch wants to attribute his confusion to drugs and weakness, but he suspects that Brody sincerely has no idea.
Wetting his own lips, Mitch sighs. “Look, there is still one thing about family you need to know.”
Earnestly, Brody keeps his tired eyes open. “What’s that?” he rasps.
“That families make mistakes,” he says. “They do the wrong thing, and sometimes people get hurt.”
Brody’s wide eyes are entirely credulous, and Mitch’s chest aches as he forces himself to continue.
“And families apologize,” he says. “They admit their mistakes and apologize.”
Drawing his brows together, Brody presses his pales lips together. “I don’t understand.”
Mitch reaches up, a hand on Brody’s arm. “I’m trying to say, I messed up - we all did,” he says. “The hazing thing was out of bonds. I told you it was in good fun, that it was to help you learn your place - but that’s shit. This isn’t your place, Brody. You didn’t deserve this any more than you deserved to be in that shed in the first place. I let this get out of hand, I should have stopped it, and I didn’t. So I’m the one who’s sorry.”
It’s a lot to take in, and Mitch worries Brody’s too weak to make sense of it. On the bed, Brody stares at him for a moment. He inhales slightly, then draws his brows together.
Mitch can’t let it stand. He pushes himself on, giving voice to the words that have been weighing him down this entire time. “You have every right to be pissed right now, because we messed up, I messed up,” he says. “So if this isn’t the place you want to be - here, on Baywatch - then that’s a legitimate choice. I get it. I’ll send you out with the best recommendation, and you can find your place anywhere you want. Any team up and down this coast would be lucky to have you, and you need to know that.”
That only seems to confuse Brody more. In fact, he looks increasingly distressed as he swallows hard. “Are you firing me?”
“What?” Mitch asks, wrinkling his nose.
“For messing up?” Brody asks. “Are you firing me?”
“Dude, of course not,” Mitch says.
With a staggered breath, Brody shakes his head, more adamant than before. “Then I still don’t get it.”
“It’s an apology,” Mitch says again, letting the words carry even more emphasis this time. “You shouldn’t have been in that storage shed, and that’s on me. You would be well within your rights to call us on our shit, because we talked big about family, but we let you down today. We let you down in a big way.”
Brody frowns. “Okay, sure,” he says slowly. “But why would I want to leave?”
“Because-” Mitch starts and falters. “We’re a bad family?”
Brody looks disconcerted. “You’re my only family,” he says. “I don’t want to leave. Why do you think I stayed in that shed so long in the first place?”
“But what happened today - it goes against everything I ever told you about family,” Mitch reminds him. “I messed up in a big way today, Brody. This isn’t family.”
“It’s the best version of family I’ve had,” Brody says. “I mean, Mitch. How often do you think someone has taken time to apologize to me? Me?”
It’s Mitch’s turn to frown. “Well, I’d like to think more than once-”
“Never, Mitch,” Brody says. He lets out a little breath, which is almost a laugh. “No one’s ever given a shit about me.”
“We sent you into that shed-”
“And you came for me, didn’t you?” Brody asks. He nods vaguely to the room around him. “That’s why I’m here, right? You came for me?”
Mitch hasn’t told him that. He’s made no indication of anything, but Brody had known anyway.
Brody had known. Hadn’t doubted. Known.
“But it shouldn’t have happened-” Mitch says, feeling his own throat start to tighten.
“But people make mistakes,” Brody says. “I mean, if I didn’t believe in second chances, I wouldn’t exactly be on Baywatch, would I?”
It’s a point.
It’s a good point.
It’s the only point.
Mitch swallows harder still. “So you’ll stay?”
“Hell yeah,” Brody says. He breaths out through his nose, adjusting himself minutely on the bed with a wince. “But I’m not cleaning out that shed alone next time.”
“Hey, next time, we’ll do it together,” Mitch says. “You and me.”
Brody nods, settling back restlessly onto his pillow. “I can live with that.”
The tension has eased, and Mitch allows himself a smirk. “Well, that’s kind of the point.”
It shouldn’t be a point made by the end of a spear, but it still stands. It’s impenetrable, really. A truth that cannot be denied. A point that can’t be blunted. Sometimes it hurts, but Brody doesn’t have to face it alone.
As it turns out, neither of them do.