Who: Shailee Thakkar and Callum Westerberg What: Callum takes to the bottle upon hearing of Maren’s death, Shailee deals with the fallout. When: A few hours after this phone call. Where: Shailee’s apartment Warnings: Drunk Callum, language, some anger.
Shailee waited for approximately 45 seconds after Callum hung up on her to spring into motion. A quick message to her boss about an emergency, a folded note left on Scott’s desk to call her as soon as he came in, and she was out the door. She didn’t really know what her game plan was, what she would say to Callum when she found him. All she knew was that she had heard notes in his voice that took her straight back to Prague and she couldn’t, she wouldn’t let him become that man again and throw away everything they had worked on for the last few months. No, Shailee Thakkar was going to track down Callum Westerberg, wait for him to properly grieve his sister’s death, and make sure he did nothing rash.
Which, of course, was easier said than done, because Callum was nowhere to be found. She checked his motel, his usual lunch spot, and even the park he occasionally took his ridiculously adorable dog too. All she found was bupkis. An hour went by, then another, until Shailee was stuck driving in circles around the town, calling his cellphone every few minutes on the off chance that he had finally switched it back on. With its power off, the phone couldn’t be tracked via satellite either, leaving Shailee clueless and desperate, only thoughts of what Callum might have done and who he might have called keeping her company.
She finally pulled into her condo parking lot when her alarm went off, reminding her that regardless of whether Callum was in the wind, she had bandages to change. She would be quick. In and out and back on the road, spending all night looking for the miserable bastard if she had to. She was Shailee fucking Thakkar, and she didn’t give up, not when something this important was on the line.
Shailee didn’t have to look farther than her condo, however, for a figure was sitting in front of her building, back pressed up against the outer wall, a brown-paper wrapped bottle gripped loosely in one hand. His face was ruddy, one knee of his jeans torn open revealing ripped and bloodied skin beneath. If he noticed Shailee’s approach, he made no sign of it, instead taking another pull from the bottle and then tipping his head up towards the sky, eyes falling shut with a long, drawn-out sigh. Dead. The words kept echoing in his head, bouncing around until it had practically lost meaning, but nothing could have him forgetting that the place Maren was at now was not somewhere she would be returning from. Part of him felt like he shouldn’t care; he hadn’t been a fixture in her life for over a decade, hardly knew the girl when it came down to it. But she was the thing with her nose in a book growing up, a constant, quiet presence in the household, and Callum couldn’t forget that.
So he drowned himself in a bottle of cheap vodka, harsh upon his senses but slowly dulling everything, pain included, as he stared up into the Vegas night.
The unexpected figure outside the building caught Shailee off guard, and had she been any less coordinated an agent, the files she was carrying would have undoubtedly gone flying to the pavement. Instead, Shailee tucked them carefully under one arm, hurrying quickly towards the door to get the man who was clearly Callum and obviously drunk off her doorstep. “Westerberg,” she hissed, gritting her teeth with pain as she tried to pull him to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here?” She looked around, worried for a moment that someone might have seen him, jeopardizing everything they had worked towards. “How long have you been here? Has anyone seen you? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?”
The world moved in slow motion, and he couldn’t get his feet under him quickly enough without nearly pulling Shailee down to the steps with him, but eventually he did it, albeit unsteadily. Muffling a belch with the back of one hand, Callum tried to make sense of her barrage of questions, his face flushed as he stumbled one step backwards, back colliding with the wall behind him. “You gave me your address,” Callum started, holding one finger up to count the answers to her questions down, the only way he could keep track right then. “An hour? No one important, though I scared some chick with a tiny dog. And obviously a very long time because you. You are pissed.” He punctuated the obvious with a jab of his finger in her direction, following it up with another drink, belching into the crook of his arm.
The pull back downwards hurt bad enough to make Shailee think her stitches had split open, but she kept her feet, and forced Callum to do so as well. She caught his arm as he stumbled backwards, trying to keep him upright and scan her key fob on the reader at the same time. “I’m pissed? Jesus Christ, Westerberg. You’re the one who hung up on me screaming.” The door clicked open and she pushed it open, pulling him through behind her. “Get inside. We can’t risk anyone seeing you. Dammit, Westerberg, you shouldn’t even be here.”
Once inside the apartment, Shailee hurriedly dropped the files under her arm on the dark wooden dining table, and pushed Callum into the seat closest to him. “Sit down. And give me that.” She snatched the paper-wrapped bottle that was still in his hand and pulled back the paper, confirming the suspicions she had of just how much he had consumed. “Shit.” Into the kitchen, to the water dispenser and back, this time, a tall glass of cold water deposited in front of him. “No more of the cheap stuff. Drink this.” She paused, swallowing hard as she finally let herself look him in the eye. “Talk to me, Callum. Please.”
“You’re the one who gave me the god damned address,” Callum shot back as he was all but dragged into the condo, swaying beside the door before he was pushed into a seat, dropping down as heavily as a boulder. There was a brief struggle when she took the bottle from him, but it lasted only until she pulled it from his fingers, his arm dropping back heavily against his leg, giving an eye to the glass of water deposited in front of him. “If you don’t want me drinking the cheap shit,” Callum started, reaching forward for the glass of water, but not to actually pick it up. Instead, his fingers gave it a tiny push, inching it towards the edge of the table. “Then give me the expensive shit. I don’t fucking want water.” Water would just help clear his head, the last thing he wanted right then. Clear minds led to clear thoughts, and that would just lead to planning the death of Wayne Mumford, one way or another.
“I think you’ve had enough of shit in general, Westerberg,” she replied sternly. “Don’t drink the water if you don’t want to. But you’re not getting any more booze. Not until you talk to me.” Shailee knew he might see her as being unduly harsh, forcing him to talk instead of letting him mourn the way he wanted to, but she couldn’t care about that. She had seen what could happen when this man kept everything bottled in, and she couldn’t risk him putting that off and losing it somewhere. If he was going to fall apart, she would rather he do it here, with her. If he was going to throw punches, she would rather he do so at her. The violence that had once terrified her was now something she hoped for, so that she could be sure he stayed safe. “Talk to me. Say something, anything.”
“And if I talk, you’ll let me drink myself into a fucking coma? Awesome.” The words were full of acid, positively dripping with it, and he made absolutely no effort to hide it. Sitting still, without the constant drip of alcohol into his system, Callum felt the world was entirely too crisp and full of edges, lacking the softness he craved. “What the fuck do you want me to say?” Callum snapped a moment later, and that tall glass of cool water went flying, shattering against the wall nearby as he got to his feet. It wasn’t a graceful move, more of a lurch than anything as his body protested the quickness of his action, but he didn’t fall, just wavered dangerously as he glared at her. “Thanks for promising you’ll fucking take care of it? Awesome, that’ll make everything better, won’t it? Throw that asswipe in jail. Let him eat bread and water. My sister is fucking dead and I don’t even have a fucking body to bury! That asshole needs to be six feet under with a fucking bullet in his goddamned skull.” With each word, Callum advanced on her, his hands curled into fists, unpredictable and unsteady in every step.
It took every ounce of Shailee’s self control to not flinch as the glass went flying, but even she couldn’t control the sudden leap her pulse took to her throat. “The most talented agent I’ve heard of is out there looking for her right now,” she said, her voice carrying with it a confidence and evenness that surprised her. “If she’s out there, he will find her.” She stood her ground as he advanced on her, trying to read his wild eyes for any indication of what he might do next. “I know you’re hurting, Callum, and I’m sorry. I know you want to hurt him, to make him pay for what he might have done. I’m not saying you can’t feel how you feel. I’m just saying that you can’t send men after him. And you certainly can’t go after him yourself.” Her voice turned a hint more imploring. “If he’s actually mafia he’ll have you pegged before you even get close.”
He crowded up right against her, chest to chest, nose to nose, reeking of vodka, his shoulders rising and falling quickly with how fast he was breathing. “You can’t do this. You can’t do this. All these fucking rules,” Callum snapped out, his teeth clacking together as he formed the words, holding horribly still for several beats and then he was turning away, one hand pushing through his hair, the short strands standing on end. “And can’t forget the fact that you’re sorry. I’m sure you’re fucking sorry, but hell if that’s helping the situation.” He paced quickly, long, hard steps that thundered before he stopped abruptly, that hard gaze fixed on the floor. “You realise that I didn’t even get a chance to fucking see her since I came here? Talked to her over the fucking journals. Words. Words don’t do shit in this world. They mean nothing, and I gave her nothing. None of ‘em. I upped and left the first chance I had and I never even checked on them. And now she’s dead and I don’t even know what she looked like all grown up.” The pain was something hard in his voice, making words unsteady, drawn out and long. A harsh breath and Callum let out a laugh, a manic noise that was unsettling even to his ears.
Shailee tried to stay where she was, planting her feet until she was bodily pushed backwards, the counter top pressing into her back as he growled in her face. This wasn’t about her, she knew. Sure, she was telling him what he could and could not do, but this was about his sister, her death, and everything that had not been said and done. She stood there silently as he paced, walking back and forth, deriding her sympathy, even though it was genuine. She kept her tongue as he spoke of not having contacted Maren except in writing, of not knowing what she even looked like anymore. There was no reason for Shailee to bring up the fact that she had suggested he make good with his siblings long ago, no point at all. What was done was done, and neither of them could go back and fix what was broken. Shailee watched Callum teeter at the brink of breaking down, the raw agony in his voice pulling her forward, sending her stumbling towards him as she blinked back her own tears, trying to think of something she could say, something she could do to help.
But there was nothing. Nothing that would bring Maren back, nothing that would save him from the pain. This time it was her coming close to him, hesitantly putting a hand on his arm, ready for him to push her away. “Callum, I--” she stopped short, shaking her head as she realized there was absolutely nothing she could say.
He was a solid mass of tension when she approached, and while he was aware that her hand found a home upon his arm, he made no visible notice of it. Instead, he lifted his hands to cover his face, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes, staying like that for some time. When he finally pulled his hands away, there was a grim expression settled upon his face, and he glanced over towards Shailee, the pain overflowing, numbing him to his very core. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he finally said, his voice rough and hoarse. “And I’m sorry I got you worried ‘bout me.” The hollowness in his words was something rarely heard from the man, going from this peak of anger, of frustration and grief, to this nothingness that permeated him through and through. Reaching up, he dislodged her fingers from his arm, giving her hand a squeeze before he started to move away.
Shailee waited for the cord of tension to snap, but the release never came. Callum pulled himself from the brink, stepping back, calming down, regaining control. Shailee hadn’t taken more than a few psychology classes in college, but she still knew that it would be better for him to let it all out rather than hold it in, for him to let go of himself and allow the grieving process to begin. “No,” she said firmly, tightening her grip on the hand she was holding. “You did the right thing. I was out looking for you anyway. I’d rather have you here than drinking out alone.” The hollow notes in his voice worried her, and she pulled him back towards the table. “Stay, Callum.” At the very least, Shailee had to keep him in one place until he was sober enough to drive. “You don’t need to talk. Just stay.”
When Shailee refused to let him go, Callum jerked his his hand as though to test the grip she had on him, something dark in his eyes before he closed them, drawing in another breath and letting it out, willing himself not to take this out on her. She wasn’t the reason Maren was dead, wasn’t at fault for anything that had happened. When he opened his eyes again, the anger was gone and he gave a small nod of his head, relenting and giving in. Sitting down heavily in the chair he had occupied only moments before, Callum ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll stay. Only because you asked me to.” It was the least he could do for all the shit he had put her through in the short time they had known one another. Their connection spanned a much longer period of time, but back then, back in Prague, that was a lifetime ago. Here, there was honesty, vulnerability, and none of it was something he was used to.
“Thank you.” Shailee let out the breath she had been holding when Callum sank into the chair, though she was still worried that he had calmed down so much in such little time. She went back to the kitchen to pour two glasses of water before taking the seat across him, waiting in silence until he was ready to speak again. There was still a pile of broken glass lying in a puddle by the wall, but that could be tended to later. She took a sip of water and stretched her neck, trying to ease some of the stiffness that had crept up on her during a full day of desk work. She was still recovering from her Argentinian wounds, and even though the painkillers helped numb the worst of it, Shailee still found many of her habitual physical positions profoundly uncomfortable. “How--” Shailee began to ask him how his head wounds out over customary concern before stopping short. This wasn’t the time, or the place. The last thing Callum gave a shit about right then were the cuts on the back of his head. The only thing that would come out of that question was a distraction, and that was not the goal here. She took another sip of her water, and waited.
It was a credit to Shailee that he reached out to take one of the glasses of water, draining nearly half of it back before he sat it back down, fingers curled lightly around the glass. The silence was loud, but he felt no inclination to fill it with anything right now. It let his thoughts wander more than he was comfortable with, but at least he didn’t have to respond to those meandering thoughts, the doubts and worries. It was Shailee’s stretch that drew him out of his quiet, the way she tried to ease the tension that had built up there. For a long moment, he didn’t move, didn’t say a word, her cut-off question passing him by as though she hadn’t said a word. But finally, Callum rose, leaving the glass of water behind, and coming up behind her chair, large hands, warm and strong, came to rest against her shoulders. He was silent as his thumbs worked at the back of her neck, finding some amount of comfort and security in being able to do this, in having something other than the loss to focus on.
Shailee watched Callum as he got to his feet, her eyes tracking him like a cat on the prowl. She didn’t know what his next move would be, so when his warm hands came to rest on her shoulders, she almost jumped out of her skin. There was no time to question what he was doing before she felt his thumbs dig down, releasing the worst of the tension that had built up. “You don’t need to do that,” she insisted, but her protests were half-hearted at best. As much as she knew they needed to be focusing on him right now, the unwinding of the knots in her shoulder just felt so damn good. It had been a harrying couple of days since their return from their mission, what with mandated medical leave simply getting her behind on all the paperwork and debriefing she was required to complete. Tilting her neck to one side to help stretch the taut muscles, Shailee hated herself for getting sidetracked like this. She was here to help the man mourn his sister, and instead, he was the one helping her. What the hell was wrong with her? “Really, Callum. You don’t.”
“I know I don’t have to do it,” Callum said quietly, his fingers never stilling, moving with a certain instinct to search out the kinks and knots that had built up in her neck and shoulders. “Just let me be useful to you, alright?” His fingers pressed against the side of her neck on either side, thumbs rubbing up the back of her neck, to the base of her skull. “Besides. If you ever demanded something like this from me,” Callum started a moment later, his voice rough. “I’d tell you to go fuck yourself. So stop bitching and just-” He broke off with a sigh, fingers finding her shoulders, pressing and massaging, and he said nothing more. Loss was a peculiar, unfamiliar thing to him, something he had no experience in dealing with. So he did what felt right, even if everything inside of him felt like it was shattering and flaking away into something less than stable.
If Callum needed to feel useful, Shailee wasn’t going to deny him that. She did, however, let out a short laugh, as the insanely realistic image of him telling her to go fuck herself popped into her head. “I believe you there.” Shailee bit her lip to keep in the moan of relief threatening to escape, a sound that though only pure instinct and not even remotely sexual, she knew was better kept to herself. She let him work out whatever he need to work out on her neck and shoulders, until she finally felt like a semblance of herself. “You’re really good at that,” she finally said, reaching a hand up to still his as she got to her feet. “You work any jobs with masseuses that we don’t know about?” Pushing him to talk about what he was feeling clearly wasn’t working, so she was going to try a lighter tack.
With his hands stilled of the action that had been something to focus on, Callum felt awkward standing there in front of her, shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans in order to simply hide them. “Nothing like that,” he said after a moment, glancing down to the ground and then shifting to the side. “Just. Something I got good at along the road. That’s all.” Quiet again gripped him for a long while, occupying himself with a drink of water, and then he paced several feet away, unsure what was next in this meeting. He didn’t want to go back to his hotel room, empty except for his dog, though he knew he couldn’t stay away for long without Max expressing his displeasure. The thought of Max, of Maren’s reaction to the Westerbergs getting yet another dog, sent a jolt through him, a sudden memory that had his breath caught in his throat, growing still where he stood, gaze fixed some distance away. Just memories. That’s all had left, and even those were sparse and undefined.
Shailee shrugged, not bothering to press the issue any further. Leaning back against the table, she watched him pace, the awkwardness apparent in whatever decision he was trying to make. She had a feeling he was at a loss for what to do now that he had nothing else to concentrate on, and that staying still meant going back to the dark place, where the only thing waiting for him was a black hole filled with anger, betrayal, and pain. She pushed herself upright with the arm on her good side at the sound of the the hitch in his throat, coming up beside him as he grew stone still. “Come on,” she said softly, linking an arm around his elbow, leading him forward towards the couches in the living room. “I don’t want you to step on glass.” It was utter bullshit, as far as excuses went. The truth of the matter was that there just wasn’t a lot of room in the area that functioned as her dining room, and all the pacing had left her a little dizzy. “Are you hungry?” Food was something people always offered when something bad happened, and Shailee was beginning to realize that it wasn’t as much about feeding the person in pain as much as it was an attempt to try and help, however little one could.
She was something steady he could rely on, that he could trust, and that was never more apparent than now as he allowed her to lead him to the living room and the couches, dropping down to sit on one. Her question took a few moments to register, but eventually, Callum glanced up, giving a shake of his head in response. “No food,” he responded. “I’ll take the rest of my vodka, though. If you don’t mind. Give it anyways, even if you do mind.” The smile that came was hollow and without emotion, a mask he put on because he knew that was what he was supposed to right then. The couch was soft against his back, and there was no helping the way he sunk down into it, head tilted back, neck cushioned against the plush material. It was more comfortable than his bed at the motel, a firm mattress that was about as unforgiving as a pile of bricks. This... this he could get used to.
A debate raged in her head as Shailee stood over him, the pros and cons of submitting to his request being hashed out in full detail. It was his body language that decided it for her, the way he slumped against the blue-grey cushions. He had put himself through the ringer while on her stoop, that much was obvious. But there was more to it than that. More to it than just Maren dying. Shailee hadn’t seen him relax like this in the entire time she had known him, and for some reason she couldn’t bear to be the one who put a stop to it. So she went back to the kitchen, where she had stashed his bottle, and brought it back out with two short glasses. Sure, she was giving him more booze, but she was going to make him drink it like a civilized person. Mama didn’t raise no heathens. “Only because you asked me to,” she said as she placed all three items on the coffee table, repeating his own words back to him.
Callum had never been a drinker, not when it came down to it. He would enjoy a beer now and then, but he was never one to drink to excess. Exceptions could be made for every rule, and this was certainly one of them, though he gave a look at the addition of two glasses to the bottle of vodka. “Going to make me drink from a glass like a big boy?” Callum asked as he leaned back forward, too tired, too gone to even pitch a fight about that. Instead, he opened the bottle and poured them both a glass, hers a respectable serving, his own nearing the rim. “Your house. Your rules. Not arguing.” And then he tipped the thing back, downing half of it in one swallow. It was warmth flooding through him, chasing away all that darkness, giving him someplace to crawl into and hide away from the world.
“You’re damn right you’re not arguing,” Shailee responded, folding one leg under her as she dropped down onto the couch next to him. Her eyes grew wide as he swallowed half a glass of vodka in one swallow, and she hurriedly caught his hand as it came down. “Jesus Christ, Westerberg. Slow the hell down. First rule about drinking at my house? We do not give ourselves fucking alcohol poisoning.” Sure, she had given him access to alcohol again, but not so that he could use it to excess. Once again, Shailee was very glad that he was here where she could keep an eye on him and not on the streets getting into fistfights.
“Last I checked,” Callum started, not moving to take another drink, instead putting the glass down on the table besides her own, the burn still living in his chest, roughening up his voice. “People didn’t drink cheap vodka straight because it’s enjoyable to sip,” he finished, giving her a look before he settled back against the couch once more, kicking off his boots and pulling one leg up, tucking it beneath the other leg as he got himself comfortable. “I’m not gonna die. Not getting alcohol poisoning. You gave me water, remember? I’ll be fine.” As if a glass of water would keep anything from happening, but honestly, the world was fuzzy and nondescript enough that he didn’t feel the need to continue down that path. His words were slip-sliding together, a slur of thought that was getting progressively worse, but even as it did, that pressure in his chest abated. The sharp memories, the anger and the guilt, their edges had softened, no longer cutting so deeply.
“You clearly haven’t been around college students who don’t know better.” Shailee watched as he made himself more comfortable, giving her glass a sniff and wincing reflexively. She had to hand it to him, down the hatch was the only way to go with this stuff. “You drank a half glass, so we both know that’s bullshit,” she said, rolling her eyes, but there was no sting to her words. His slurring had calmed down to actual exhaustion, and Shailee could tell just from looking at his face that he was about to have real trouble keeping his eyes open for long. Grabbing the blanket draped over the arm of the couch, Shailee rose carefully to her feet. “Here, I’m up.” She tapped his knee, pushing his leg gently towards the side of the couch she had just emptied. “Go ahead and stretch out.” She slapped one of the throw pillows by the other end a couple of times to fluff it up. “Get some rest.”
Callum didn’t need a lot more prompting than that before he moved as directed, too tired, too worn out to even think of fighting or doing anything other than what he was told. So he stretched out, shoulder burying itself in the cushions as he got comfortable on his side, head landing on the pillow as he let out a sigh that was pure comfort. “Shai?” Callum asked moments later, his voice quiet, one hand reaching out towards her though his fingers fell short and his hand simply fell back down, hanging off the couch. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she replied softly, tucking in the blankets around him as he fell into his boozy stupor. There would be hell to pay when he woke up, both physically and emotionally, but she’d be right there, just as she promised, to get him through it. “Now sleep.”