We Are Bulletproof

Focus, Aaron. Eye on the prize.

Danny.

They were here because of Danny and for Danny--not for each other. That ship had set sail.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat softly to bring himself back into the moment. "They... tried to knock it down but some out of towner made a large donation, remember, and they had it turned into a heritage site? That eyesore's been up there ever since."

But now he wondered about the timeliness of that donation, and if it was mere coincidence or if there was higher design. It seemed suspicious... but everything seemed suspicious to Aaron now. Sighing, he ran a hand through his own hair and then leaned back against the couch. Outside a storm had moved in and rain soon pattered against the windows, as if knocking to get in.

"All that can wait until tomorrow though. You must be tired." Shit, he should've waited to brief Judah. After traveling all that way, he needed a shower and sleep, not for Aaron to be sighing all over the place and almost-touching his hair. "You should rest. I'll get you all caught up tomorrow and we can go out to the library together."

Judah was here so Aaron would have been stupid not to make use of his skills. Besides, Judah had always been better than him at... just about everything related to police work. Aaron didn't have confidence that he could make it in a big city but Judah was more than up to the task; he'd already made it in New York. If anyone could help solve this, Aaron was sure that Judah could.

He looked back at Judah but his heart felt sour. It wasn't geared towards him, it just... was hard to have him, but not really have him. There were still so many feelings simmering underneath, feelings he didn't have the time or the energy to explore even with Judah sitting right beside him. It wasn't appropriate, anyway—Judah was with someone else now, there was no way to get around that fact.

And Aaron? He had to find Danny before he even thought about a relationship.

But somehow it didn't stop him from starting to reach up, to neaten Judah's hair a touch, before he started and Aaron pulled that hand down real quick. "I think he did, when Lara first disappeared, but nothing came of it from what I recall. If there's nothing at the library, maybe we should start interviewing people." That meant showing his hand but hell, Aaron was reaching the end of his patience at this point. Anything to get a solid clue... he'd do anything, even sell his soul to the devil himself.

He was no good to Danny behind bars.

Aaron wasn't afraid of what could happen to him but the stakes were too high for him to start loudly announcing that he was looking into his brother's disappearance. Folks around here talked. Rumors and secrets abounded in sleepy little Hazleton, so it would only be a matter of time before Aaron, too, disappeared.

He did what he could from the shadows though. He watched, listened, skulked about in the shadows, hoping to find any little shred of information that could lead him down the right path. It was hard work; sometimes it was dispiriting and disappointing and frustrating, but Aaron knew that he could never give up. He was also constantly vigilant, knowing that one lapse could mean the end of all of his hard work.

The answers he gave Judah were short because he didn't have much and he knew it, and it hurt him down to the marrow. No witnesses, no evidence, nothing to go off of except a handful of vanished children and an old library. Aaron had planned to return there sometime at night to investigate the building properly, but almost as though the higher ups knew his intentions, suddenly he was flooded with work at the precinct. He would have quit just to be able to devote all of his time to Danny but being a cop had its perks and he needed access to the station and to its records.

He tensed as Judah's hand landed on his knee but the gesture lent him a small amount of comfort. Aaron finally looked up and over at him. "What you see there is what I have." Whoever wiped the files at the station had been thorough. Anything remotely close to these suspicious disappearances, past and present, had been removed. Aaron followed all the leads he could; he tried everything, tying in every lead and every tiny speck of evidence and all it amounted to was a handful of pictures--and memories. At least they hadn't taken his memories from him, and he had meticulously recorded everything he could recall onto the board, in the notes pinned at the very bottom.

But memories weren't enough. Notes and scraps of newspaper clippings weren't enough. Aaron took in a deep breath and let it out on a five-count. "Tomorrow night I'm going down to the old library. I'm going inside to see if I can find anything in back and downstairs. You remember, a few years back their pipes burst and flooded the main floor, and they moved a bunch of stuff down into storage? Most of it is still there. Maybe we can find some older newspapers and articles down there."

"Yeah," Aaron said to the coffee table, after a deep sigh. It shocked him too, when he first discovered the cover-up. Only problem was, he didn't know who took the files and digging too deep was dangerous to his health. The only people who had permission to remove files from the filing cabinets AND from the secure system—not just access and read them—were those in a position of power. He didn't have to think too hard about who might have taken them.

But that didn't mean Aaron couldn't investigate on his own, which was why he swiped the files he had now and then did his best to cover his tracks. Luckily, a friend in administration helped him with that, at great personal expense and risk. Well, Aaron sorta felt bad about that one but his desperation knew no bounds by the time they announced that they were calling off the search.

"Yeah. She lived down the street from us, I remember her mom inviting us over for Sunday dinner now and then."

Aaron remembered Lara as a giggly girl with blonde pigtails, always peering in on him and his friends. She was the snoopy type—took after her father, who worked for the local paper. All the kids knew she was a snoop so it probably wasn't a surprise that she was taken. Probably got into something she shouldn't have, everybody said at the time.

"Not yet." His reply was short, clipped, terse. "Don't want to show my hand until I have something concrete."

In lieu of a response, Aaron opened the door to let Judah inside before tugging his luggage in and then entering himself. The lights were all on; he'd rushed down as soon as Judah texted him that he had arrived. Kicking off his shoes but placing them neatly in the rack by the door, Aaron was silent and thoughtful. There had been stories swirling about every part of the town, as far back as when he was a kid himself. The old library, the graveyard, the woods by the school, that giant manor which housed the Hazleton clan...

"All the files from the station were gone." He finally said as he led Judah into the living room, which doubled as his base of operations. The large cork board with all his notes, newspaper clippings, photographs—everything he could get his hands on was on display. "The old files I mean. About missing kids, about the old library. Somebody took them and I'm betting they destroyed them."

Aaron parked the luggage by the side of the couch and then sat down. Slowly, he put his head into his hands and massaged his temples with his thumbs, feeling drained and exhausted just thinking about all the work that there was left to do. With so much evidence missing, putting together a coherent case was nearly impossible.

"This is everything I could get."

"Yeah. No signs of a struggle, they said in the papers." Aaron shook his head again. No way that sounded like Danny, to give up without a fight. Aaron taught him better than that--if he was grabbed, he had to make a lot of noise, to shout and scream and holler and fight, scratch and bite and do everything he could to attract attention, to escape. He taught Danny never to trust strangers either, or to turn his back on them.

The elevator jolted as it came to his floor and he pulled Judah's luggage out into the brightly lit hallway. "Yeah," he said as he led the way down the hall. "I went there as soon as I found out the location. That's where they told me nobody heard anything at the time of the disappearance." And that just didn't add up at all.

"No, you came out all this way," Aaron insisted, because that was what Aarons did. They insisted. He hadn't thought through his offer to the evening, when Judah would have to actually lay in his bed--without him. But that was going to be better than laying in bed with him because... well...

Aaron would have insisted all night if Judah hadn't had the good sense to distract him from the topic. Immediately his expression grew dark and solemn. Aaron didn't speak until they were in the elevator headed up to his apartment, though, as he tried to collect his thoughts. "You probably already know what they're reporting in the news, so I won't start from the very beginning."

Judah was thorough--he was good at what he did, and he would have already read all the press clippings, same way Aaron had. He sighed and leaned against the wall of the elevator as it lurched upwards. "I haven't been able to find out much about his actual disappearance. He was playing around near the old library when he disappeared, so I went in there to ask around, see if somebody saw or heard something. Nobody heard anything." Aaron frowned as he looked over at Judah, shaking his head.

"You ever heard Danny to go anywhere without making a ruckus? Especially against his will? Seems suspicious that no one had any info, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." Aaron cleared his throat but his voice still came out rather gruff and rough. He cleared it again as Judah squeezed his arm but it did nothing for the loss he felt when they separated or for that embarrassing little tickle in the back of his nose.

Because Aaron knew, deep down in his heart, that they were meant to be together.

Everything slotted into place for them. It was easy to be in love, to be loved by Judah. They seemed to gravitate towards one another from the start and falling in love with each other was as uncomplicated as 1+1.

But Judah wanted more out of life than a tiny little podunk town, with its outdated police station and all paths leading to buttfuck nowhere. He was meant for greater things, bigger cities, brighter lights. Meanwhile, Aaron's homebody heart was firmly rooted; he couldn't leave his family, his little brother, to go gallivanting off to have adventures unknown.

In the end, they broke apart and broke up. Aaron was left here, heartbroken; he imagined that Judah was heartbroken too, wherever he happened to end up. It was hard for both of them to acknowledge their differences but when their relationship buckled under the pressure and strain, it was no longer worth it to destroy everything they had built together just to spend one more night in each other's arms.

Aaron couldn't keep Judah; Judah couldn't take Aaron with him.

Now Judah was back, though—of his own accord. It felt just like old times, except everything was out of sorts. Finding Danny was a preoccupation, a mania, nearly an obsession with Aaron. He barely slept or ate, growing thinner, haggard, more testy and irritable by the day. Today was the first day that he even felt a touch of happiness, all thanks to Judah.

"Ahem! Let me. Let me get that for ya." He reached down to pick up Judah's suitcase, recalling when they first met, that Judah had made gentle fun of his hometown twang. Aaron turned to lead him into the apartment lobby, narrowly avoiding taking his hand. Habit. He kept his free hand in his pocket, to curb its naughty desires.

"This way. I got everything ready. Figured you oughtta sleep on the bed since you came out all this way, so I made up the couch for myself."

"Hey Jude~"

Stupid joke. Totally the wrong time for it. Aaron didn't even know why that was the first thing to come out of his mouth.

Old joke. Their old inside joke that wasn't really an inside joke because the leap from 'Judah' to 'Jude' wasn't actually that far and didn't everyone of a certain age know that famous song? But he liked it. Judah liked it. It was theirs and nobody could take that from them, not--time or distance or a new boyfriend.

Aaron's arms were out before he realized that they were out. No mistaking that gait, that look, the way that Judah threw down his luggage or the haste in his steps as he came up. Aaron's arms were out because he wanted to hold him, to close his hands around a fistful of Judah's shirt, to clutch them so tight that his hands shook.

His heart ached abominably.

He didn't know how much it took out of him to miss someone for so long, to love them and not be with them when everything--heart, mind, body and soul--knew that they belonged with him. Nobody ever came close to Judah. There were short-lived relationships here and there, but Aaron didn't want to settle. He didn't want to be with someone that he couldn't see himself with long-term. Commitment wasn't a problem for him but he wasn't going to short-change himself or the person that he was with so he had a night here and a night there with whomever caught his eye. But his heart, it longed for Judah.

"I--" love you. I'm still in love with you. "--missed you too."

His cheek was pressed against Judah's shoulder too, face turned towards him. He breathed him in, a scent that Aaron no longer knew but still... comforting. The body in his arms was a little different too, maybe a bit more filled out. The hair was different, cut stylishly in that 'city slicker' way Aaron always joked wasn't for him, but his smile... His smile was the same.

Aaron felt like he'd been stuck in time all these years. Still dressed the same, had his hair the same, parted on the same side, neat and tidy. Still drove the same old jalopy, although he'd upgraded to a slightly larger apartment--but only because his old one was knocked down to make room for the new clinic. He was still here doing the same old things, unable to move on--not without Judah.

"Ahh... shit..."

Aaron let his phone drop onto the couch beside him with a long sigh and ran a hand over his face. He covered his eyes for a moment with his palm and stared into the darkness behind his closed lids. Shit. That conversation with Judah didn't exactly go the way he'd planned. Actually... he had no plan going into it, since Judah hit him up first, but the latter half of their exchange seemed to go rapidly downhill.

Or... uphill?

He didn't know if he should be happy or not. When Judah left, a lot of lingering feelings remained. It wasn't like they'd parted on bitter terms. Judah had a lucrative job offer that was too good to pass up some years ago and Aaron was needed back home in Hazleton. How long ago was that anyway? Two, getting close to three years? A long time, actually. They kept in touch but Aaron always felt a little uncomfortable having to sit on his feelings around Judah. He was a plain man, not a nuanced or subtle one. His thoughts, his heart, both were kept on his sleeve.

Well. Whatever. He couldn't take back what he said. Part of him was relieved just to get the words out, and part of him hated that he was potentially getting between Judah and his new... partner. Aaron wasn't the petty type or he would've felt good about what Judah confessed; as it was, all he felt was maybe a little bit guilty towards the other guy. It wasn't like he was asking to get back together, either. Aaron had so much on his plate with Danny's disappearance—and the disappearance of those other kids—that it was all he could focus on.

After a moment he got up, shuffled into the bathroom and ran the taps until warm water gushed out. Aaron washed his face and then stared at his dripping reflection for a long moment. His heart ached. It was hard to carry the torch for somebody so far away, for so long, and until today—until his confession earlier—he never realized how taxing that really was.

"Shit, Aaron," he muttered to his own reflection, before wiping the water off with a towel and re-entering his living room. His eyes caught immediately on the large cork board set up against one wall, where pictures of the missing kids and case notes were pinned in profusion. Aaron wandered over to it and ran his gaze along the various papers, newspaper clippings, photographs and hand-written notes. He'd perused these more than a hundred times over by now, but a lot of things still weren't connecting.

Maybe Judah could connect the dots, add a fresh set of eyes and some new perspective...

Time passed without his knowing it, as Aaron mused over more case files. When his phone rang again, he absently picked it up and then gave a start. Judah. Was he here already? Aaron glanced outside, where the sun was beginning to set. Wasn't it just morning? Flinging down the manila folder that he had in his other hand, Aaron hastened outside to let Judah into the building—the lobby door was locked so that only those who lived in the building could get inside. His heart pounded and his palms felt suspiciously, nervously sweaty. Jesus. What the hell was wrong with him?

He felt like he was twelve again, going on his first date.

Aaron licked dry lips as the elevator doors clanked open and hurried over to the front door to push it open, feeling strangely breathless. As he realized a moment later, he'd completely forgotten how to breathe when his gaze fell onto an all-too-familiar—yet oddly foreign—figure.