Breathe In
Sandra Lee eyed her son carefully through the screen door, momentarily frozen. There were several things she took in nearly instantaneously; he was frightened, he was apologetic, and he was crushing hard on someoneShe knew these things in the space of moments between the flood of desperate relief and the blinding flash of anger. She gave voice to
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Which left him getting to the door, and not quite knowing what to say. So, he went with something extremely simple, and still wanted to kick himself for how it sounded; kind of rough-noted and anxious and cracked. "H'lo. Ma'am."
Sandra was still sort of staring, though now it was between her son and his... guest. Expression likely not easily readable, though Harold knew it to be thoughtful. Assessing.
Her eyes narrowed in confusion. Two guesses where Harold picked that particular quirk from. A look to Harold. One to the accented-- boy? Man? He looked young, but acted, even for his anxiousness, not at all like a school kid. "Hello," she said after a moment's further scrutiny, her tone entirely pleasant, as though she hadn't just sobbed her eyes out and then tried to parse the man's entire personality and intentions with one steady gaze.
Harold's eyes were closed, arms still wrapped around his mother. It was only then he remembered to release her, loosing a shuddering sort of breath. "Mom, Scotty. Scotty, Mom."
Sandra loosened the death grip on her son's waist, glancing up at him like he might fall through the landing if she didn't hold tight enough. Finally letting go, she extended a hand to Scotty in greeting, her motion the slow and considered sort that suggested someone in both a daze and in deep thought.
"Mrs. Lee." Scotty nodded, respectfully, though he was having a Hell of a time not ducking under that scrutiny. He shook her hand, drawing on every bit of formal bearing he had gotten in Starfleet Basic, and tried to ignore the fact that he was pretty much dressed in Harold's clothes, and looked a little disheveled. "I... uhm. I'm sorry t'... t' just drop in on ye. I mean..." Och, God, he was drowning. "...I mean, out o' th' blue like this."
He pulled his hand back, once they shook, and clasped both behind his back, just to keep from fidgeting. And finally realized that he should maybe try one more thing, even though he winced internally as he did. "A pleasure, ma'am."
"My son was missing. Three months. Missing." Her tone was still utterly pleasant, if a touch ragged. She trained her steady gaze back to Harold, looking up. "Drop in out of the blue. Please." The final word was some measure more broken than the others, lower in tone and sighed out. She nodded to Scotty, both acknowledgement and perhaps a bit of apology for her state. "Pleasure's mine."
She let out a shuddering breath, turning and heading inside with a wave of her hand to follow.
Harold looked to Scotty, head tilted, an apology written on his face. It was a quick motion, reaching out and brushing his hand over Scotty's shoulder. A bit of reassurance.
Scotty cringed a bit more, though he kept it off his face; aye... aye. Sounding stupid at a time like this was definitely not helping matters, and when she headed back in, he took a bare moment to shudder his nerves back under control. He looked at Harold, giving him a quick nod for the touch -- "I'm a'right." -- and then nodded for the door, eyebrows up some.
He had to admit, right off, that he liked Harold's mother. There was a shrewd intelligence there, though she likewise seemed the type to keep that half-hidden until it was needed. Despite that, he wasn't in any hurry to step into that house, and figured Harold should definitely go in first.
Harold lingered on the touch a moment, brushing his thumb back and forth. He closed his eyes, swallowed, and then nodded in return. In through the door.
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There was the terrible urge to march in there and interrogate her son in clipped, rapid tones. She wanted to scream, and rant, and cry. She wanted to give him a cold, stony look and stay silent, radiating shame at him. She wanted to hold onto him until the end of time, her eternity one long sigh of relief that Harold was home.
...the tea hardly deserved the abuse she was giving it with that spoon. She had to calm down. Breathe.
Striding from the kitchen, she laid the cups in front of her son and... guest, taking a seat of her own across the coffee table from the couch she'd smartly indicated they should use. Their living room was as white as the exterior of the house; it was always kept just a little bit cold, and the decor was understated. Clean.
A slow sip of the cup she'd made earlier, lukewarm from being abandoned for the doorbell, and she breathed once more before speaking, her voice tinged with a vague southern twang that decades in New Jersey had not quite erased.
"He's on his way," she said sternly, instantly holding up a hand to silence the protest that hadn't yet even made it beyond an alarmed look on her son's face. "You were missing for months, Harold. I'm not going to be the one to tell him I knew you were home and waited to call him."
Harold blinked. Opening and closing his mouth. He looked down, blinking at the tea. He nodded, slowly.
Sandra breathed once more. Her thumb brushed absently over her teacup. "Explain this to your momma, Harold Lee."
That tea sure was interesting, Scotty thought. He could barely pick his eyes up from it. This woman was intimidating, though not in the worst ways. At the same time, though, he felt like he had to at least speak up some. After all, he and Harold were in this together. "He... couldna exactly contact ye, where he was, ma'am. Just like... like I couldna contact my own family." Oh, God. He hoped, somewhat desperately, that he didn't just make this worse. "There was no way to."
Harold's own tea untouched, he tried to find words. Only a vague sound of trapped air came. He nodded along with Scotty's explanation, and... wasn't so much happy when his mother's expression didn't change.
Sandra regarded Scotty thoughtfully. Interesting. This boy-- man not only felt he could answer for Harold, but they'd apparently been stuck somewhere together. A moment's consideration, before she spoke. "The last time I heard that was not long after being dragged in and cussed at by Homeland Security." She looked Scotty over once, flicking her gaze back to Harold. "Did you skip the country for a little vacation without telling us you were okay, again? Is that it? Well?"
Fuck. Harold was locking up. Not his desperate-to-breathe sort of panic lockup, either. Silent, calm, but totally unable to speak. He had to force it. "--kind of?"
...ah. Wrong thing. To say. Yes. Harold would have been quite happy to melt into the couch cushions at that look.
"Nae exactly." Scotty tried to head that one off at the pass, and then thoroughly wanted to melt into the cushions himself when Harold's mother turned her gaze back to him. "He didna... didna ken. That he wouldna be able t' just come back easily." It was the truth -- there was no way, from all Harold had told Scotty about how he had gotten there, that he had actually realized at the time what he was getting into. "I'm sorry, I ken he should be sayin' all this, but... but... he's nae really fair with himself, most o' th' time." Also a truth.
Of course, this was getting him a raised eyebrow, and God, he knew that look, it was like it was handed out to mother's right along with the newborn baby swaddled in blankets. That look. It was instantly recognizable.
Scotty chewed his lip a moment, then sighed out, "He didna ken what he was gettin' into. He didna go on a vacation, ma'am. If anything... it was probably th' exact opposite."
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Not quickly enough. Sandra caught it, one eyebrow quirking. She looked between the pair of them, already exceedingly irritated with the caginess. Still, hers was a stern patience. Harold knew the drill; he could explain it to her, now, or wait until his father got home. The fact of that dynamic hadn't changed in decades. Sandra knew who Harold would want for a go between. Peering at Scotty again, she sipped her tea before gesturing with the cup.
"Sounds familiar. Who are you, exactly, sweetheart?" Her question all politeness and gentleness. She gestured toward Harold, and then back at Scotty.
"Montgomery Edward Scott. Scotty, though, is mostly what I answer to. Officer candidate... or former, fer th' military. Nae th'... United States military." Scotty was drowning, but hopefully, by the time he got this rattled off, Harold could take over so he could breathe and unwind that bloody knot in his gut, which was starting to make his breaths short. "Afore that, I was a mechanic. I was born an' raised in Aberdeen, Scotland. I met Harold on a ship; I guess ye could say I was shanghaied somehow, I'm nae sure how I had gotten there even now, an' he was shanghaied in another way." He definitely didn't go clarifying that it was not a ship at sea. "We were both really bloody lost, an' alone, an' we sorta ended up bandin' together an' watchin' each others' backs, until we got away." Also the truth.
As to how much detail Harold wanted to add to the truth, though, Scotty had to leave that up to him. He tried to quell the shaking in his hands by wrapping them around the cup.
Harold definitely didn't want his mother asking any more questions. He had to control this conversation, and quickly. At least as far as anyone could control a conversation with Sandra Lee. He felt like a fucker on two fronts; lies of omission and Scotty bearing the brunt, thus far, of this really god awful conversation.
He kicked himself in the ass to just fucking speak up. Mind, it was about... two seconds too late, because his mother was already asking questions.
"A ship? Shang--" His mother made a short noise of disbelief; not accusatory, just confused. "Harold Lee, was this over another girl?" Sandra shook her head, frowning as she followed what she believed to be a connection. "You've got a crush, I can smell it. If this is another Guantanamo Bay, just come out and say it--"
"--stop. Mom. Please." Harold cringed and folded his arms across his chest. He hadn't meant to speak quite so sharply to her, but that... story still made him sick to think on, and he was not at all ready to tell Scotty the whole of it. His mother didn't even know the whole of it. He shut his eyes tight, sighing out. He had to get that look off her face. He had to get her to stop interrogating Scotty in his place. "It wasn't like--- that." Breathe. Breathe. Out with it. "I'm sorry. We're-- really tired," he muttered, looking at Scotty with a soft expression. He kept his eyes on Scotty for the rest of his tumble of words. "And this isn't easy. I can't tell you all of it. You'd never believe me. But-- Scotty's-- not entirely-- right. I walked away. I didn't-- so much know just how stuck I would get, but. My choice. Things were messed up. I made a mistake. I couldn't tell you I was okay, and I'm so sorry."
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Oh. Aye. Right. He winced. She was sitting there.
Scotty took a breath and huffed it out softly, looking back at Harold's mother. "He wasna told th' truth. Nae even by half, or a quarter." Then he looked back at Harold. "Fault where it's due, aye, but dinna take it all. It's nae like..." He told you he wanted to fuck you up and throw you aside. "...like ye were told th' whole truth, about where ye were goin', or what would happen."
Harold's was a loving sort of look at that. He even managed a sweet sort of half-smile, though he resisted the urge to touch.
Sandra's was one of... dawning. She could read her son like a book; it's how she had always known how to be the counterpoint to Myon's disciplinarian, tough love sort of parenting. Not that she didn't have her own brand of it. She just usually knew when to be stern, and when to be soft. She would never admit it to him, but this was an unusual moment for her in that she wasn't sure which was called for here. Her irritation and hurt were ever-present, but they were tempered with relief, love, and... well, for this she found gentle amusement.
Huh. It hadn't been over a girl, then. So she hadn't been off-base, back during her son's eyeliner and black nail polish days.
"...Cindy Kim was always your father's idea, you know," she uttered, a casual sort of tone. Glancing back and forth between the pair of them.
Harold's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Huh?"
She smirked, motioning with her cup toward Scotty.
Scotty blinked and looked back at her, confusion written all over him. Well, confusion and nerves and a sort of baffled weariness. "Huh?" It wasn't exactly the most enlightened echo, there.
She rolled her eyes, an affectionate sort of look. It appeared she was falling on the side of "soft". She'd heard enough, for now. Downing the remaining dregs of her tea, she stood.
Harold had no idea where his mother was going, but there was an alarm going off in his mind that sounded an awful lot like a shrill repetition of the word "fuck". Well, he figured he'd be obvious at some point, he was always fucking transparent to his mother no matter how hard he tried to hide something. He didn't know what he was hoping for. He was so busy waiting to be thrown out that he didn't so much process his mother's last sentence.
Wait. What?
She slipped a small object from the drawer on the chairside table, standing to pass it to him. It was a square, white. An entirely whut. sort of expression on his face, Harold turned it over, greeted by even stripes in a shift of rainbow. It was a little bumper sticker.
His mother took up Harold's now cold tea, along with her own empty cup, and took it through to the kitchen. "Jane always figured you and Kumar were a little off," she called back, referring to her best friend of a number of decades. "I never believed her. I know you too well. But then you started coming home with floppy hair and makeup more expensive than mine and nail polish..." Teacups in the sink, she stood in the kitchen doorway. "You're not shocking anyone, honey. Except maybe your daddy." She smiled kindly at Scotty. "You boys must be tired. Harold's got a nice bed upstairs. Why don't you go get a nap?" A gesture of silence. "I'll talk to your daddy. When he's calmed down, I'll wake you, Harold."
...nope. Harold Lee was staring at a rainbow flag, red as a stoplight, agape. No words yet.
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Needless to say, that was an image worthy of an eyebrow. It couldn't get any higher than it was.
...face. On. Fire. Eyes shut tight, to the point of exaggerated laugh-lines, and Harold just... facepalmed. With the fucking sticker.
"...thanks, mom. And now for the potty training stories." An exasperated, manic sort of laugh, and he hid behind his hand. Was it possible to feel simultaneous soul-deep relief and crawl-into-a-hole embarrassment?
Yes. Yes, it was. Even his mother was laughing at him. He couldn't see it, though. Too busy facepalming. He wasn't even-- at least he didn't start out-- she thought that?! Really?! Fuck. But-- aw, fuck it.
"Go to bed, boys," Sandra said, chuckling. She winked Scotty's way, though she would never have done it if Harold could see. She was going to mother hen the living daylights out of the little Scot, she decided, once she got a handle on Myon.
Thankfully, Scotty did not realize he was in danger of being mother-henned. He blinked a few times at the wink, even more baffled, then looked at Harold again. But the prospect of hiding upstairs, in Harold's room, for several hours was a good one. He was more mentally beat than physically, and a chance to curl and and breathe and maybe sleep and definitely try to grasp at things more slowly was a welcomed one.
"I'm nae gonna argue with yer mum..." Scotty nodded, sagely, and that expression was one he had most certainly stolen, unwittingly, from the other Scott. "Lead on?"
Harold's noise was an affirmative, but not much beyond. An exhale, part sigh, part whimper. Holy fuck. How was he not out on his ass?
Yes. Hiding. In a room. Please. Anything to get out from under that damnable knowing look.
He tried not to look at his mother as he led the way.
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His was a double bed, and he breathed an internal sigh of relief that it wasn't made up with any of the more embarrassing sheets. Simple burgundy. Awesome.
All of these things were lit by low light through blue curtains. He led the way in, scrubbing a hand through his hair, still blushing some. Really hoping not to have to answer any more questions about floppy hair, or worse. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, taking a moment just to look down at his own knees and... laugh. That weary, disbelieving, well fuck sort of laugh.
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Unfortunately, none of those was actually coming easily. If at all. So, after a moment of looking around Harold's room -- aye, it was very familiar, at least insofar as definitely being a former boyhood room -- he sat down himself and just breathed.
Harold held the little sticker in his hands, turning it over. Shaking his head. He looked over at Scotty, holding the thing up. Sighing. Laughing again.
It was then he remembered that Scotty had no clue what the stupid sticker would mean. It was kinda hard to explain gay pride to someone who didn't understand gay-bashing. For that matter, Harold didn't have all that much experience with it from the-- err-- prideful end. "She thinks I was always--" he gestured with the thing, not sure how to say it. "--this is like, a pride thing. For people who want to-- I dunno. Say they're okay with the fact they're homosexual. Because a lot of people around here aren't." He took a breath. "She's saying she always figured me for liking guys. Funny thing is, I never did before. New one on me. Fuck. Trust me on that." He laid the thing on his knee. "She's probably putting me disappearing so hardcore down to me having a crisis of my sexuality or some shit. Probably why she didn't eat me alive for not having a good answer."
Scotty thought about that for a long moment, looking at one of the posters -- Star Wars? -- and the entirely lovely woman gracing it. "So, it's that label thing again?" he asked, thoughtfully. "We just... dinna do that. I guess. Nae on Earth, anyway, or th' colonies, nae that I've seen."
Well, obviously. He shook his head, rubbing on the bridge of his nose. "She probably is. Dinna ken if that's all bad, given that she's nae askin' too many more questions yet."
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"Dad's gonna murder me. But at least we've got someplace to fucking sleep for a little while. No idea how long it'll be okay to stay here, because I've got no fucking clue what those cops wanted and---" He still had to tell his mother about that.
Well, shit.
He shook his head. He just--- couldn't think about that now.
"Maybe we should just sleep like she said. Fuck everything else until we wake up."
"Aye." Scotty leaned over and got to untying and unlacing his boots. There just wasn't much else he could think to say. "Sorry if I o'erstepped down there. I didna want ye t'... think I was just..." He wasn't sure what. "...abandonin' ye t' handle this alone."
"Hey." His expression softened. "You can't-- overstep. You're fine. It helped." Harold leaned over a little, offering Scotty a half-smile that was genuine if a little weary. "Thank you. So much. We've got-- so much shit to worry about. Don't stress over that, okay?"
Scotty nodded after a moment, slipping his boots off and setting them aside. He wasn't quite sure if he was more weary or more anxious, really. This whole being-a-fugitive-and-refugee thing was getting old, now that they were at the mercy of someone else; at least in Harold's apartment, it was his. "I'll try nae t' snore," he said, as he climbed up the bed and under the covers with an answering half-joking smile.
Harold knew the feeling. The whole mess seemed so insurmountable as to render them both quite powerless; a feeling he'd known quite well before. There was nothing to do for now but sleep, or at least lay down. He stood, covering the window more fully with the curtains. Hesitating a moment - just because... he did - he climbed carefully in the bed beside. Elbow to pillow and head in hand, couldn't help being a sappy fucker. "Nah, I've got a feeling even your snores would be beautiful."
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"Maybe. Flirting on the run. Nuts, that's me." That smile gave Harold some strange feeling of victory over the universe. Probably stupid, but he felt it, and he ran with it. They didn't have a whole lot to call a win at the moment. He'd take it. "Still beautiful, though."
"Wait til ye ken me better." Scotty chuckled, quietly, closing his eyes. Teasing, though, at least in some part. "Then ye'll be goin', 'Aye, I might be crazy, but he's even crazier.'"
"Love in the nuthouse?" Muttered with a half-sleepy grin, and it was a split second or so before Harold realized just what he said there. Blushing, he blinked, quirking his eyebrows. Well done, Lee. Well... done.
Scotty winced slightly, though mostly it was internal. But not so much for the love thing. "Hopefully nae. Love's nae supposed t' be locked up like that; we'll just have t' avoid 'em catchin' us."
"They won't," Harold muttered, resting against the pillow. He took the slight wince for being for the love thing, really, and was mentally bitch-slapping himself. He sighed, quietly, sleepily, and risked a brush of his hand down Scotty's shoulder. A small apology. "I'm the one with ID and an apartment they're searching. If nothing else... you can just bolt, if they arrest me, yeah? I mean, why would they be interested in locking you up?"
"I wouldna." Scotty shook his head slightly, pretty much expressionless. "I wouldna bolt."
"...I know. I shouldn't have said that, I just-- I'm sorry." Harold risked another touch, brushing down that arm. "If it's anything like-- yeah, I know how fucking frightening this has to be." Whether 'yeah' meant his little trip through 23rd century Wonderland or something before, Harold was happy to leave open. He was just pretty damn sorry to have been Scotty's white rabbit, however unwittingly.
"It's a'right." Scotty reached up and pet briefly on Harold's arm where it was rested, then went back to being fairly still and quiet. "At least one o' us has an idea o' how it all works, which is more'n either o' us had where we were. It's just... makin' use o' that knowledge ye've got, t' keep us a'right."
Harold had no idea what to say to that. He didn't feel especially knowledgeable, but he wasn't about to say that. Scotty did have a point; you couldn't fucking grow up in a place and not know anything about it. Still, Harold felt just about as lost as he ever had. Didn't so much feel like home as just another dangerous place.
He brought his hand up to Scotty's shoulder, not far from his neck, brushing back and forth with his thumb. Well. Maybe not quite so lost.
Harold opened his mouth to say something. Anything. For some reason he found precisely nothing. He closed his mouth again. Just petting lightly.
Scotty pet on Harold's arm once more, but he really had nothing else he could say. He took a moment to rub at his eyes, weariness wearing down on him like lead weight across his forehead and shoulders, then just did his best to relax as much as possible under the circumstances.
Maybe they'd have a direction, or at least a glimmer of one, when they woke back up.
Harold was a little frightened to properly close his eyes, knowing that likely when he opened them next, it would be because his father was ready to see him. Still, he allowed himself to close his eyes, swallowing the flutter of holyfuck in his gut at that prospect.
"Sleep well, beautiful," Harold whispered after a little while, not even sure Scotty was awake for the words.
Probably not appropriate, but at this point... yeah.
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