Hardy Boys fic: Our Red Sea
Hay haaaay, it's yuletide reveal time! :D
Surprising ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, I wrote Hardy Boys fic this year.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hardy Boys series, here's a quick crash course: (COME ON, REEEAAAD IT.) Frank, age 18, and Joe, age 17, are brothers who live in Bayport, a quiet yet oddly crime-ridden city somewhere in upstate(?) New York. Their father, Fenton Hardy, was a SUPER AWESOME detective who was, apparently, too super awesome to waste his talents on the NYPD, so he retired and began taking cases as a private detective. Despite this, he appears to be largely incompetent, and half the time his sons end up solving the cases for him. Sometimes he even gets kidnapped. Most of the original mysteries are about smugglers, counterfeiters, or general thievery. Since these books were originally written in the 20s, 30s, etc., Frank and Joe are squeaky-clean, all-American boys who respect their parents and are overly polite and play football at school. Also, they have a chubby friend named Chet who is the butt of many fat jokes.
CONGRATULATIONS. YOU NOW KNOW EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE HARDY BOYS.
Title: Our Red Sea
Fandom: The Hardy Boys
Rating: PG-13
Notes: In my head, this kinda-sorta takes place in the fifties. Or some comparable decade where cellphones do not yet exist. Thank you so much to nightwalker for wanting to know what kind of men Frank and Joe grew up to be, and to all the lovely people over at AO3 who have left such kind and wonderful comments. Particularly the person who said, I love how they're so real here and lastly, yes, it feels right that Joe turns out to be gay. Because that basically made my life.
The morning of Fenton Hardy's funeral is warm and beautiful, one of those strangely summer-like days that worm their way into November before the air grows thin and the frost infects the earth. Nearly two hundred people have come to pay their respects to the fallen detective. Relatives, colleagues, friends. Foreign diplomats who happened to be in town. The sun beats down on the backs of their necks and they silently bow their heads to the grass.
Joe stands in a small, uneven ring with his mother and Frank, shaking hands and accepting condolences from people he doesn't know. His father's sister hovers stoically in the background, looking, for all her years, like she plans to outlive them all.
Ezra Collig is there, long since retired. He says nothing, only presses his lips into a thin line and clasps Joe roughly on the shoulder. Chet hugs them fondly, reminding Mrs. Hardy that he'll take care of dinner for the rest of the week. Even Joe's ex-wife arrives, unattended. She takes Joe's hands in hers and all he can smell is the vanilla of her perfume. Later he asks his mother, "Why on earth did you invite her?" and Laura Hardy just wrings her hands and answers, "She knew him too."
Frank gives a speech that Joe stops listening to halfway through; he's heard it twice already, once at his mother's house and once in the car-it hasn't changed. Instead he studies the way the grass pokes up between his shoes, so unnaturally green.
The mortician had hidden the fine spray of cuts that fell delicately across Fenton Hardy's hairline, erased the long, angry gash that ran along his left cheek and over his jaw. No one could see the bruises on his collarbone, or beneath his eyes, or notice the way his arm didn't lay right because it was broken. Joe had heard from his aunt on more than one occasion that a good mortician could perform miracles. But chemicals and makeup and thread were worthless in his book. Flimsy magicians' tricks. They won't bring his father back.
After the funeral the tightest circle of family and friends convene at the Hardy house for coffee and cookies and bittersweet anecdotes. Joe sits on his mother's sofa with a cup in his lap, picking absently at the flowered upholstery. He remembers spilling a glass of punch all over the cushions when he was seven, begging Frank, please don't tell. He doesn't know how his mother ever got the stain out, but after twenty-five years, the sofa still looks like new.
One of his dad's friends from the FBI clinks his spoon against the rim of his teacup and rises to make a toast. Joe holds his coffee to his lips and watches the spectacle, listens as the man goes on about remembrance and tragedy and justice.
Justice, Joe thinks with disgust. There was a time when that word might have meant something. He sets his cup down on the end table and stands up without a word.
He slips away upstairs and opens the door to what used to be his bedroom, what his mother now uses for her quilting projects. There's still a twin bed in the corner, covered in one of her finished designs. Joe goes over to it and lies down, scrunching up his legs when his feet knock up against wall.
When he opens his eyes some time later, Frank is sitting on the bed beside him.
"I think we should keep the office closed for at least another day," Frank says, loosening his tie with one hand. "The Daniels case is at a standstill anyway. People will understand."
Joe rolls over to face the wall. "Do whatever you want," he says distantly. "I quit."
"You-you what?"
Joe can feel Frank tugging at his shoulder, trying to get him to roll over. "I quit," he repeats.
"What do you mean you quit? You can't quit. Your name's on the building, for god's sake."
"No, the Hardy name is on the building," Joe corrects him. "I can't do this anymore, Frank. These people with their problems-I can't. You'll be fine."
Frank doesn't say anything for a long time, then finally, "Have it your way."
The bed sighs as Frank's weight disappears, and Joe shuts his eyes, running his fingers along his mother's tiny, immaculate stitching.
Joe picks up a pack of cigarettes from the gas station and smokes five of them on the drive back to Manhattan. The disappointing truth is that they've never done much for him. "You must not have a very addictive personality," Callie had told him back when they were nineteen. The girl had smoked enough for three people, he figured she would know. He leaves the rest of the pack on a stone ledge just outside his apartment. Someone will take them.
Frank had suggested he stay in Bayport for the night. Take it easy at least until tomorrow, but Joe had only shaken his head, ticking off the number of houseguests on both hands. "There's no room," he'd insisted, and went to kiss his mother goodbye.
The phone interrupts the silence of his morning, ringing brightly on the nightstand by his head. He lets it go for nearly a minute, blinking wearily up at the ceiling before reaching out from beneath the covers.
"Yes?" he mumbles. It feels like someone set his lungs on fire.
"Joe?"
Joe rubs at his face, pressing his thumbs into his eyes until bright green spots appear. "Honestly Frank, who else would it be?"
The voice on the other end clucks its tongue. "I suppose that's none of my business. It didn't sound like you at first."
"Frank," Joe says impatiently. "What do you want? Is mom okay?"
"She's doing all right, I think," Frank says. "You really should have stayed another day. It would have meant a lot to her."
"Like there aren't enough people in that house."
"That's not the point."
Joe sighs. "Why'd you call, Frank?" He can hear the buzz of houseguests in the background. There's no doubt in his mind that his mother's cooking breakfast for every last one of them.
"You didn't mean what you said, did you?" Frank asks him seriously. "Yesterday. About leaving the business. Look, I understand if you need some time away. A vacation maybe, or-"
"No." Joe takes a deep breath. It makes his chest burn. "No, look. I just...I can't do that kind of work anymore."
"But why? I don't understand."
"I just can't. There's no point."
"I don't understand though," Frank insists. "Explain it to me so that I understand."
Joe sighs impatiently. "It doesn't matter. I can't explain it to you."
"You're not even trying! How can I help you if you won't even-"
"Maybe I don't want your help, okay?" Joe interrupts. "Just-I'm not coming back."
"Christ, Joe!" Frank snaps, and Joe can hear him straining to keep the anger out of his voice. It makes him feel vindicated. "Why are you acting like this? You want to walk out? Fine. You want me to take every last case that comes through that door by myself? Fine. Don't think that I won't."
"Good for you," Joe says dully, then adds, "Give everyone my love," and hangs up the phone.
It rings again ten minutes later, but Joe doesn't answer it. It rings and rings and rings, infiltrating his dreams as he drifts back to sleep, an unfamiliar school bell on some endless day of his childhood.
No matter how much he wants to, he can't bring himself to unhook the phone. He's afraid that maybe his mother will call, or his aunt. That they'll wonder what it means when they can't get through. That they'll worry. But it's never them. Never. It's Frank every time, and he already knows what Frank's going to say.
So he starts forcing himself out of the apartment, just so he doesn't have to deal with that incessant ringing, so he can say he wasn't around and have it be the truth. Five hour lunches, aimless walks around the city. Anything that'll get him away from that phone. Away from 64th Street, where the mirrored sign for Hardy Investigations gleams prominently in the sunlight.
He drives out to a bar in Queens, small and unassuming, but not exactly the kind of place a guy walks into on accident. Not the kind of place he'd take his friends.
"Campari and soda," he says when he sits down, propping one elbow up on the counter.
The bartender smiles coyly, gracefully dealing out a couple of cocktail napkins before pulling a bottle from the shelf. "You here all by yourself? A baby face like yours?"
Joe snorts at the empty flattery. "On the run."
"Is that so?" The bartender gives him a once-over, then sets his drink down with that sweet, musical clink of ice. "Better be careful then. Pretty blue eyes like those are hard to miss."
Joe lifts the corner of his mouth slightly. "I'll bet."
It's a cruel, bitter drink, even with the soda. He tips the glass gently in his hand, watching the ice drift absently across a sea of red. It burns on the way down, like memories being torn from his chest. The taste of who he went to bed with first time he drank it. The bottle he shared with Frank after they solved that kidnapping. The look in his wife's eyes the morning she confronted him at the breakfast table. It seems I've married a homosexual, she'd observed blandly, and all he could taste was that singular, bitter sweetness from the night before, wondering how in the world she knew. Of course, she'd always been a smart girl. It was one of the reasons he'd married her.
Joe doesn't look up when someone takes the seat next to his, just signals to the bartender to bring him another round. It tastes even stronger than the first.
"Hope I'm not intruding."
Joe turns his head, drumming his fingers lightly on the bar top. He smirks-college student most likely, with scruffy brown hair and eyelashes his own mother would kill for. It's not often he gets approached by the younger ones. He supposes he should take it as a compliment.
The boy cocks his head to the side. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Just started this one," Joe says, giving his ice another swirl.
"I'm in no hurry. Are you?"
They talk for a while, superficial garbage mostly, but after four or five drinks the quality of the conversation is the last thing on Joe's mind. The kid's got a great smile and an easy laugh, and when Joe leans forward and whispers breathlessly against his neck, the boy just nods slowly and brushes his hand over the front of Joe's pants.
Joe takes him back to his apartment. Not something he'd normally do, but it's late and they're drunk, and he'd probably drop to his knees right there in the elevator if the ride weren't so short. He punches the button for the seventeenth floor, trying to remember where he put his keys.
The kid presses him up against the paneled wall and spreads Joe's legs apart with his knee. "Hey," he says suddenly, studying Joe's face with amusement. "Anyone ever tell you you look just like one of those famous detectives? You know, the two brothers. I forget their names."
The elevator gives a jolt as it starts its ascent, and Joe's fingers tighten around his keys. He shakes his head. "Sorry," he laughs, pushing his hips forward. "Don't think I know who you're talking about."
The elevator dings fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and the boy's mouth still tastes of Campari.
The Friday crossword in the Times has always been a matter of pride for Joe. Stealing a glance at the clock, he laughs derisively at the mesh of empty spaces. Twenty minutes and he's nowhere near finished.
Just as he's filling in the bottom left-hand corner, the phone begins to ring.
"Damn it." Joe throws his pen down on the table and puts his head in his hands. "Damn it, damn it, damn it." He tugs the phone over to where he's sitting and sighs. "Hello?"
"Didn't expect you to actually pick up. Granted, ten rings is a bit longer than what's considered polite."
Joe takes a drink from a mug of tepid coffee. "You always were persistent."
"You used to be too, if I recall," Frank says dryly. "The Mortons invited us out to dinner last night. I called, but you didn't answer."
"I was out."
"You're out a lot," Frank observes with vague amusement, then continues before Joe can say anything. "We met up outside the city. This new place-Antonio's, I think it was called."
"Original." Joe takes another drink of coffee. It tastes terrible.
"I had the linguine pescatore. You know, lots of seafood mixed in there. Clams and scallops, and this white wine sauce that was pretty good. We should take mom there one day. There were a few other things on the menu I'd really like to-"
"Frank," Joe cuts in as he sets his cup back down on the table. He almost wants to laugh. "Did you really call to tell me about the pasta you had for dinner?"
Frank huffs. "Can't a guy call up his brother for a chat? It's not like I've seen you lately."
"I told you, I've been-"
"Busy, right," Frank finishes for him. "With what, I don't know. It obviously wasn't stopping by to see mom, because I've been there every other day and I'm pretty sure there's been no sign of you. And you couldn't have been checking out the new lead on the Daniels case, because the files are in the office and I know you haven't been there in over a week."
"Jesus Christ, Frank," Joe says, bringing his arm down so violently that he knocks his coffee all over the table. "Shit. I mean, how many times are we going to have this conversation?"
"No, Joe," Frank says angrily. "The bigger question is when are you going to grow up and realize that you can't hide from the world for the rest of your life. Acting like a child isn't going to change the fact that dad is gone."
"Just shut up, Frank."
"No," his brother fires back at him. "What's wrong with you? You think you're the only one affected by this? That you're the only one who feels sad? Why don't you open your eyes and realize that you're not the only person in this family."
Joe trails his fingers aimlessly through the pool of coffee. It seems like so much more than he had in the cup. "I'm hanging up now."
"Don't you dare, I'm not finished yet!" Frank yells. "I don't understand how you can act this way. Why you're just giving up. You think that's what dad would have wanted? For you to curl up in a ball and shut everyone out? For you to quit the business? Dad spent his whole career trying to bring justice to people who couldn't do it by themselves, and now you're saying you don't want any part of that? What happened to your sense of justice, Joe?"
The coffee runs over Joe's half-finished crossword, wilting the corners and blurring the ink. "Where was the justice in the way dad died, Frank?" Joe asks coldly. "Well? He didn't die on the job, or saving someone's life. He had a heart attack. A goddamn heart attack. He plowed into the guardrail on Interstate 87 going sixty-five miles an hour, and any life that might have been left in him shattered right along with the windshield. I mean, of all the pointless ways to die! And there's nothing anyone-not the doctor, not any of us-could have done about it. Don't talk to me about justice, Frank. Where was the justice in that?"
"God, Joe, you're missing the point."
Joe shakes his head. "I'm hanging up now." And he does.
When the phone rings again twenty minutes later, he still hasn't moved from the table, empty cup lying on its side at his elbow. "Damn it, Frank!" he snaps, snatching the phone from its cradle. "I'm through talking about-"
"Joe?"
He grimaces at the sound of his mother's voice. "Sorry, I thought..."
"It's okay," she says.
Joe leans his head against his hand. "How are you?" he asks, more kindly. "Sorry I haven't been by."
"I know you're busy," she says. "Your aunt is still here, so it's hard to be lonely." She laughs lightly, a fragile, musical sigh. "I just called to tell you that Frank will be in Connecticut for the weekend, following a lead."
All Joe can think to say is, "Oh."
"He asked me to tell you that if you wanted to get anything from your office, he won't be there tomorrow or Sunday."
"Oh," Joe repeats. "Well, thanks. Um, maybe I'll drive up to Bayport on Sunday. We can have dinner."
"That'd be nice," his mother says.
"Okay."
He holds his breath in the heavy silence, waiting for the rest of it. But when she speaks again, it's only to say, "Take care of yourself, Joe."
He goes back to bed after that, shutting the blinds and pulling the covers up over his head. He doesn't wake up again until it's already dark, and the air is heavy with the stale aroma of coffee.
It's been nearly four years since they moved to the city. Not that business hadn't prospered back in Bayport-on the contrary. A man like Fenton Hardy had attracted enough clients to occupy an entire precinct. But they'd needed something bigger, something grander. Something of their own.
Surprisingly, it was Joe who'd found the office. He'd driven into the city one afternoon when Frank was out of town, accompanying their father on some urgent business out in Nevada. Frank had protested when he returned and saw the lease papers sitting in his office with one signature already scrawled across the bottom. "Is this truly necessary?" he'd asked, spreading them out across their father's old desk. "Dad never needed any of this."
"Maybe not," Joe had agreed, placing his hands on the back of Frank's chair. "But this is ours now. We need it."
Frank had worried that their father wouldn't like the idea of moving the business out of Bayport, that he would see it as an insult to the reputation he himself had built. But there he'd been one afternoon when they were painting, dragging a couple of the old office chairs in behind him.
"Good grief, where did you park, dad?" Frank had asked with some alarm, quickly climbing down from the ladder.
Their father had only chuckled. "I thought you could use these in the lobby. At least for now."
Now Joe slams his car door and pulls his collar up against the wind. He walks the four blocks to the office with his head down, watching the sidewalk pass beneath his feet. All of a sudden it feels like November.
They share the space with an accounting firm, so the front entrance isn't locked. He stops at the door, peering at his own reflection in the glass. Hardy Investigations cuts across his face in pristine black lettering, like jagged shadows on his skin. This is where he'd been when Chet had called from their mother's house. Chet had known even before he did, he realizes. His mother had called Chet, not them. Chet was closer, Chet was easier. Chet had been there, and Joe had been sitting at his desk eating his lunch. Ham and cheese on rye. Not enough mustard. That's all he can remember.
Joe walks down the hallway to their first-floor suite, feeling almost like a trespasser without his regular suit and tie. Nothing about it feels right. The quiet, the emptiness. It isn't until he slides his key into the lock that he realizes there's already someone in the waiting area.
A young woman, in her early twenties maybe, clutching the arms of one of Fenton Hardy's old chairs. Her eyes widen when Joe opens the door, glancing up at him with a gentle sort of anxiety.
"Oh," he says quickly, reaching around behind him to shut the door. "Um, pardon me, won't you?"
She smiles kindly. "Of course," she says, but the quiver in her voice betrays her.
Joe walks past his own office, moving silently through the hallway to the only door with any lights on. He stops, leaning his head against the frame. Frank doesn't even notice he's there.
He watches his brother, sitting there at his desk with his head cradled in his arms. It makes him want to disappear. Sink into the floor, or crawl back out into the cold and pretend he was never there. But his body won't cooperate, his feet won't move, and all he can do is lean in the doorway and ask, "What are you doing here?"
Frank jerks his head up off the desk, looking startled. "Oh," he says distantly. "I forgot to lock the door after me. Had a walk-in." He blinks against the harsh office light, and Joe pretends not to notice how red his eyes are.
"I thought you were going to Connecticut."
Frank gives a splintered sort of laugh. "Sorry to disappoint you," he says, and his voice sounds just as hollow. "I didn't go."
Joe folds his arms and looks down at his sleeves, studying the way the wool has gone smooth at the cuffs. There's something gnawing at the pit of his stomach, a cold sort of dread that begins to wash over him from the inside out. "Why?" he asks quietly, and Frank just looks up at him like a man who's slowly drowning.
"God, Joe," he whispers, pressing his hands to his eyes. "I can't do this by myself."
Joe swallows, shoving his hands deep inside his pockets. "I-I'm sorry," he says roughly, and he's gone before his brother can even react. Before he can slump forward on his desk and cry fuck you, Joe into his hands.
He goes back to the lobby where the girl is still waiting in restless silence, smoothing the tiny crescents in the armrests where her fingernails have dented the leather. He sits down next to her, trying to remember how this part goes.
"Are you Mr. Hardy?" she asks, studying his face carefully.
He leans over and takes her hand. "Sure am," he says, and she smiles warmly at him with lips the color of Campari. Like the smears on the dashboard that he wishes he could unsee. Like the juice he spilled across the flowers of his mother's sofa when he was a boy, crying out of guilt and love because it was Frank who'd taken the blame.
Surprising ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, I wrote Hardy Boys fic this year.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hardy Boys series, here's a quick crash course: (COME ON, REEEAAAD IT.) Frank, age 18, and Joe, age 17, are brothers who live in Bayport, a quiet yet oddly crime-ridden city somewhere in upstate(?) New York. Their father, Fenton Hardy, was a SUPER AWESOME detective who was, apparently, too super awesome to waste his talents on the NYPD, so he retired and began taking cases as a private detective. Despite this, he appears to be largely incompetent, and half the time his sons end up solving the cases for him. Sometimes he even gets kidnapped. Most of the original mysteries are about smugglers, counterfeiters, or general thievery. Since these books were originally written in the 20s, 30s, etc., Frank and Joe are squeaky-clean, all-American boys who respect their parents and are overly polite and play football at school. Also, they have a chubby friend named Chet who is the butt of many fat jokes.
CONGRATULATIONS. YOU NOW KNOW EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE HARDY BOYS.
Title: Our Red Sea
Fandom: The Hardy Boys
Rating: PG-13
Notes: In my head, this kinda-sorta takes place in the fifties. Or some comparable decade where cellphones do not yet exist. Thank you so much to nightwalker for wanting to know what kind of men Frank and Joe grew up to be, and to all the lovely people over at AO3 who have left such kind and wonderful comments. Particularly the person who said, I love how they're so real here and lastly, yes, it feels right that Joe turns out to be gay. Because that basically made my life.
The morning of Fenton Hardy's funeral is warm and beautiful, one of those strangely summer-like days that worm their way into November before the air grows thin and the frost infects the earth. Nearly two hundred people have come to pay their respects to the fallen detective. Relatives, colleagues, friends. Foreign diplomats who happened to be in town. The sun beats down on the backs of their necks and they silently bow their heads to the grass.
Joe stands in a small, uneven ring with his mother and Frank, shaking hands and accepting condolences from people he doesn't know. His father's sister hovers stoically in the background, looking, for all her years, like she plans to outlive them all.
Ezra Collig is there, long since retired. He says nothing, only presses his lips into a thin line and clasps Joe roughly on the shoulder. Chet hugs them fondly, reminding Mrs. Hardy that he'll take care of dinner for the rest of the week. Even Joe's ex-wife arrives, unattended. She takes Joe's hands in hers and all he can smell is the vanilla of her perfume. Later he asks his mother, "Why on earth did you invite her?" and Laura Hardy just wrings her hands and answers, "She knew him too."
Frank gives a speech that Joe stops listening to halfway through; he's heard it twice already, once at his mother's house and once in the car-it hasn't changed. Instead he studies the way the grass pokes up between his shoes, so unnaturally green.
The mortician had hidden the fine spray of cuts that fell delicately across Fenton Hardy's hairline, erased the long, angry gash that ran along his left cheek and over his jaw. No one could see the bruises on his collarbone, or beneath his eyes, or notice the way his arm didn't lay right because it was broken. Joe had heard from his aunt on more than one occasion that a good mortician could perform miracles. But chemicals and makeup and thread were worthless in his book. Flimsy magicians' tricks. They won't bring his father back.
After the funeral the tightest circle of family and friends convene at the Hardy house for coffee and cookies and bittersweet anecdotes. Joe sits on his mother's sofa with a cup in his lap, picking absently at the flowered upholstery. He remembers spilling a glass of punch all over the cushions when he was seven, begging Frank, please don't tell. He doesn't know how his mother ever got the stain out, but after twenty-five years, the sofa still looks like new.
One of his dad's friends from the FBI clinks his spoon against the rim of his teacup and rises to make a toast. Joe holds his coffee to his lips and watches the spectacle, listens as the man goes on about remembrance and tragedy and justice.
Justice, Joe thinks with disgust. There was a time when that word might have meant something. He sets his cup down on the end table and stands up without a word.
He slips away upstairs and opens the door to what used to be his bedroom, what his mother now uses for her quilting projects. There's still a twin bed in the corner, covered in one of her finished designs. Joe goes over to it and lies down, scrunching up his legs when his feet knock up against wall.
When he opens his eyes some time later, Frank is sitting on the bed beside him.
"I think we should keep the office closed for at least another day," Frank says, loosening his tie with one hand. "The Daniels case is at a standstill anyway. People will understand."
Joe rolls over to face the wall. "Do whatever you want," he says distantly. "I quit."
"You-you what?"
Joe can feel Frank tugging at his shoulder, trying to get him to roll over. "I quit," he repeats.
"What do you mean you quit? You can't quit. Your name's on the building, for god's sake."
"No, the Hardy name is on the building," Joe corrects him. "I can't do this anymore, Frank. These people with their problems-I can't. You'll be fine."
Frank doesn't say anything for a long time, then finally, "Have it your way."
The bed sighs as Frank's weight disappears, and Joe shuts his eyes, running his fingers along his mother's tiny, immaculate stitching.
Joe picks up a pack of cigarettes from the gas station and smokes five of them on the drive back to Manhattan. The disappointing truth is that they've never done much for him. "You must not have a very addictive personality," Callie had told him back when they were nineteen. The girl had smoked enough for three people, he figured she would know. He leaves the rest of the pack on a stone ledge just outside his apartment. Someone will take them.
Frank had suggested he stay in Bayport for the night. Take it easy at least until tomorrow, but Joe had only shaken his head, ticking off the number of houseguests on both hands. "There's no room," he'd insisted, and went to kiss his mother goodbye.
The phone interrupts the silence of his morning, ringing brightly on the nightstand by his head. He lets it go for nearly a minute, blinking wearily up at the ceiling before reaching out from beneath the covers.
"Yes?" he mumbles. It feels like someone set his lungs on fire.
"Joe?"
Joe rubs at his face, pressing his thumbs into his eyes until bright green spots appear. "Honestly Frank, who else would it be?"
The voice on the other end clucks its tongue. "I suppose that's none of my business. It didn't sound like you at first."
"Frank," Joe says impatiently. "What do you want? Is mom okay?"
"She's doing all right, I think," Frank says. "You really should have stayed another day. It would have meant a lot to her."
"Like there aren't enough people in that house."
"That's not the point."
Joe sighs. "Why'd you call, Frank?" He can hear the buzz of houseguests in the background. There's no doubt in his mind that his mother's cooking breakfast for every last one of them.
"You didn't mean what you said, did you?" Frank asks him seriously. "Yesterday. About leaving the business. Look, I understand if you need some time away. A vacation maybe, or-"
"No." Joe takes a deep breath. It makes his chest burn. "No, look. I just...I can't do that kind of work anymore."
"But why? I don't understand."
"I just can't. There's no point."
"I don't understand though," Frank insists. "Explain it to me so that I understand."
Joe sighs impatiently. "It doesn't matter. I can't explain it to you."
"You're not even trying! How can I help you if you won't even-"
"Maybe I don't want your help, okay?" Joe interrupts. "Just-I'm not coming back."
"Christ, Joe!" Frank snaps, and Joe can hear him straining to keep the anger out of his voice. It makes him feel vindicated. "Why are you acting like this? You want to walk out? Fine. You want me to take every last case that comes through that door by myself? Fine. Don't think that I won't."
"Good for you," Joe says dully, then adds, "Give everyone my love," and hangs up the phone.
It rings again ten minutes later, but Joe doesn't answer it. It rings and rings and rings, infiltrating his dreams as he drifts back to sleep, an unfamiliar school bell on some endless day of his childhood.
No matter how much he wants to, he can't bring himself to unhook the phone. He's afraid that maybe his mother will call, or his aunt. That they'll wonder what it means when they can't get through. That they'll worry. But it's never them. Never. It's Frank every time, and he already knows what Frank's going to say.
So he starts forcing himself out of the apartment, just so he doesn't have to deal with that incessant ringing, so he can say he wasn't around and have it be the truth. Five hour lunches, aimless walks around the city. Anything that'll get him away from that phone. Away from 64th Street, where the mirrored sign for Hardy Investigations gleams prominently in the sunlight.
He drives out to a bar in Queens, small and unassuming, but not exactly the kind of place a guy walks into on accident. Not the kind of place he'd take his friends.
"Campari and soda," he says when he sits down, propping one elbow up on the counter.
The bartender smiles coyly, gracefully dealing out a couple of cocktail napkins before pulling a bottle from the shelf. "You here all by yourself? A baby face like yours?"
Joe snorts at the empty flattery. "On the run."
"Is that so?" The bartender gives him a once-over, then sets his drink down with that sweet, musical clink of ice. "Better be careful then. Pretty blue eyes like those are hard to miss."
Joe lifts the corner of his mouth slightly. "I'll bet."
It's a cruel, bitter drink, even with the soda. He tips the glass gently in his hand, watching the ice drift absently across a sea of red. It burns on the way down, like memories being torn from his chest. The taste of who he went to bed with first time he drank it. The bottle he shared with Frank after they solved that kidnapping. The look in his wife's eyes the morning she confronted him at the breakfast table. It seems I've married a homosexual, she'd observed blandly, and all he could taste was that singular, bitter sweetness from the night before, wondering how in the world she knew. Of course, she'd always been a smart girl. It was one of the reasons he'd married her.
Joe doesn't look up when someone takes the seat next to his, just signals to the bartender to bring him another round. It tastes even stronger than the first.
"Hope I'm not intruding."
Joe turns his head, drumming his fingers lightly on the bar top. He smirks-college student most likely, with scruffy brown hair and eyelashes his own mother would kill for. It's not often he gets approached by the younger ones. He supposes he should take it as a compliment.
The boy cocks his head to the side. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Just started this one," Joe says, giving his ice another swirl.
"I'm in no hurry. Are you?"
They talk for a while, superficial garbage mostly, but after four or five drinks the quality of the conversation is the last thing on Joe's mind. The kid's got a great smile and an easy laugh, and when Joe leans forward and whispers breathlessly against his neck, the boy just nods slowly and brushes his hand over the front of Joe's pants.
Joe takes him back to his apartment. Not something he'd normally do, but it's late and they're drunk, and he'd probably drop to his knees right there in the elevator if the ride weren't so short. He punches the button for the seventeenth floor, trying to remember where he put his keys.
The kid presses him up against the paneled wall and spreads Joe's legs apart with his knee. "Hey," he says suddenly, studying Joe's face with amusement. "Anyone ever tell you you look just like one of those famous detectives? You know, the two brothers. I forget their names."
The elevator gives a jolt as it starts its ascent, and Joe's fingers tighten around his keys. He shakes his head. "Sorry," he laughs, pushing his hips forward. "Don't think I know who you're talking about."
The elevator dings fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and the boy's mouth still tastes of Campari.
The Friday crossword in the Times has always been a matter of pride for Joe. Stealing a glance at the clock, he laughs derisively at the mesh of empty spaces. Twenty minutes and he's nowhere near finished.
Just as he's filling in the bottom left-hand corner, the phone begins to ring.
"Damn it." Joe throws his pen down on the table and puts his head in his hands. "Damn it, damn it, damn it." He tugs the phone over to where he's sitting and sighs. "Hello?"
"Didn't expect you to actually pick up. Granted, ten rings is a bit longer than what's considered polite."
Joe takes a drink from a mug of tepid coffee. "You always were persistent."
"You used to be too, if I recall," Frank says dryly. "The Mortons invited us out to dinner last night. I called, but you didn't answer."
"I was out."
"You're out a lot," Frank observes with vague amusement, then continues before Joe can say anything. "We met up outside the city. This new place-Antonio's, I think it was called."
"Original." Joe takes another drink of coffee. It tastes terrible.
"I had the linguine pescatore. You know, lots of seafood mixed in there. Clams and scallops, and this white wine sauce that was pretty good. We should take mom there one day. There were a few other things on the menu I'd really like to-"
"Frank," Joe cuts in as he sets his cup back down on the table. He almost wants to laugh. "Did you really call to tell me about the pasta you had for dinner?"
Frank huffs. "Can't a guy call up his brother for a chat? It's not like I've seen you lately."
"I told you, I've been-"
"Busy, right," Frank finishes for him. "With what, I don't know. It obviously wasn't stopping by to see mom, because I've been there every other day and I'm pretty sure there's been no sign of you. And you couldn't have been checking out the new lead on the Daniels case, because the files are in the office and I know you haven't been there in over a week."
"Jesus Christ, Frank," Joe says, bringing his arm down so violently that he knocks his coffee all over the table. "Shit. I mean, how many times are we going to have this conversation?"
"No, Joe," Frank says angrily. "The bigger question is when are you going to grow up and realize that you can't hide from the world for the rest of your life. Acting like a child isn't going to change the fact that dad is gone."
"Just shut up, Frank."
"No," his brother fires back at him. "What's wrong with you? You think you're the only one affected by this? That you're the only one who feels sad? Why don't you open your eyes and realize that you're not the only person in this family."
Joe trails his fingers aimlessly through the pool of coffee. It seems like so much more than he had in the cup. "I'm hanging up now."
"Don't you dare, I'm not finished yet!" Frank yells. "I don't understand how you can act this way. Why you're just giving up. You think that's what dad would have wanted? For you to curl up in a ball and shut everyone out? For you to quit the business? Dad spent his whole career trying to bring justice to people who couldn't do it by themselves, and now you're saying you don't want any part of that? What happened to your sense of justice, Joe?"
The coffee runs over Joe's half-finished crossword, wilting the corners and blurring the ink. "Where was the justice in the way dad died, Frank?" Joe asks coldly. "Well? He didn't die on the job, or saving someone's life. He had a heart attack. A goddamn heart attack. He plowed into the guardrail on Interstate 87 going sixty-five miles an hour, and any life that might have been left in him shattered right along with the windshield. I mean, of all the pointless ways to die! And there's nothing anyone-not the doctor, not any of us-could have done about it. Don't talk to me about justice, Frank. Where was the justice in that?"
"God, Joe, you're missing the point."
Joe shakes his head. "I'm hanging up now." And he does.
When the phone rings again twenty minutes later, he still hasn't moved from the table, empty cup lying on its side at his elbow. "Damn it, Frank!" he snaps, snatching the phone from its cradle. "I'm through talking about-"
"Joe?"
He grimaces at the sound of his mother's voice. "Sorry, I thought..."
"It's okay," she says.
Joe leans his head against his hand. "How are you?" he asks, more kindly. "Sorry I haven't been by."
"I know you're busy," she says. "Your aunt is still here, so it's hard to be lonely." She laughs lightly, a fragile, musical sigh. "I just called to tell you that Frank will be in Connecticut for the weekend, following a lead."
All Joe can think to say is, "Oh."
"He asked me to tell you that if you wanted to get anything from your office, he won't be there tomorrow or Sunday."
"Oh," Joe repeats. "Well, thanks. Um, maybe I'll drive up to Bayport on Sunday. We can have dinner."
"That'd be nice," his mother says.
"Okay."
He holds his breath in the heavy silence, waiting for the rest of it. But when she speaks again, it's only to say, "Take care of yourself, Joe."
He goes back to bed after that, shutting the blinds and pulling the covers up over his head. He doesn't wake up again until it's already dark, and the air is heavy with the stale aroma of coffee.
It's been nearly four years since they moved to the city. Not that business hadn't prospered back in Bayport-on the contrary. A man like Fenton Hardy had attracted enough clients to occupy an entire precinct. But they'd needed something bigger, something grander. Something of their own.
Surprisingly, it was Joe who'd found the office. He'd driven into the city one afternoon when Frank was out of town, accompanying their father on some urgent business out in Nevada. Frank had protested when he returned and saw the lease papers sitting in his office with one signature already scrawled across the bottom. "Is this truly necessary?" he'd asked, spreading them out across their father's old desk. "Dad never needed any of this."
"Maybe not," Joe had agreed, placing his hands on the back of Frank's chair. "But this is ours now. We need it."
Frank had worried that their father wouldn't like the idea of moving the business out of Bayport, that he would see it as an insult to the reputation he himself had built. But there he'd been one afternoon when they were painting, dragging a couple of the old office chairs in behind him.
"Good grief, where did you park, dad?" Frank had asked with some alarm, quickly climbing down from the ladder.
Their father had only chuckled. "I thought you could use these in the lobby. At least for now."
Now Joe slams his car door and pulls his collar up against the wind. He walks the four blocks to the office with his head down, watching the sidewalk pass beneath his feet. All of a sudden it feels like November.
They share the space with an accounting firm, so the front entrance isn't locked. He stops at the door, peering at his own reflection in the glass. Hardy Investigations cuts across his face in pristine black lettering, like jagged shadows on his skin. This is where he'd been when Chet had called from their mother's house. Chet had known even before he did, he realizes. His mother had called Chet, not them. Chet was closer, Chet was easier. Chet had been there, and Joe had been sitting at his desk eating his lunch. Ham and cheese on rye. Not enough mustard. That's all he can remember.
Joe walks down the hallway to their first-floor suite, feeling almost like a trespasser without his regular suit and tie. Nothing about it feels right. The quiet, the emptiness. It isn't until he slides his key into the lock that he realizes there's already someone in the waiting area.
A young woman, in her early twenties maybe, clutching the arms of one of Fenton Hardy's old chairs. Her eyes widen when Joe opens the door, glancing up at him with a gentle sort of anxiety.
"Oh," he says quickly, reaching around behind him to shut the door. "Um, pardon me, won't you?"
She smiles kindly. "Of course," she says, but the quiver in her voice betrays her.
Joe walks past his own office, moving silently through the hallway to the only door with any lights on. He stops, leaning his head against the frame. Frank doesn't even notice he's there.
He watches his brother, sitting there at his desk with his head cradled in his arms. It makes him want to disappear. Sink into the floor, or crawl back out into the cold and pretend he was never there. But his body won't cooperate, his feet won't move, and all he can do is lean in the doorway and ask, "What are you doing here?"
Frank jerks his head up off the desk, looking startled. "Oh," he says distantly. "I forgot to lock the door after me. Had a walk-in." He blinks against the harsh office light, and Joe pretends not to notice how red his eyes are.
"I thought you were going to Connecticut."
Frank gives a splintered sort of laugh. "Sorry to disappoint you," he says, and his voice sounds just as hollow. "I didn't go."
Joe folds his arms and looks down at his sleeves, studying the way the wool has gone smooth at the cuffs. There's something gnawing at the pit of his stomach, a cold sort of dread that begins to wash over him from the inside out. "Why?" he asks quietly, and Frank just looks up at him like a man who's slowly drowning.
"God, Joe," he whispers, pressing his hands to his eyes. "I can't do this by myself."
Joe swallows, shoving his hands deep inside his pockets. "I-I'm sorry," he says roughly, and he's gone before his brother can even react. Before he can slump forward on his desk and cry fuck you, Joe into his hands.
He goes back to the lobby where the girl is still waiting in restless silence, smoothing the tiny crescents in the armrests where her fingernails have dented the leather. He sits down next to her, trying to remember how this part goes.
"Are you Mr. Hardy?" she asks, studying his face carefully.
He leans over and takes her hand. "Sure am," he says, and she smiles warmly at him with lips the color of Campari. Like the smears on the dashboard that he wishes he could unsee. Like the juice he spilled across the flowers of his mother's sofa when he was a boy, crying out of guilt and love because it was Frank who'd taken the blame.