'Like shit,' Bran said, but Archer analyzed the meaning behind the words, the tone, and decided that his friend sounded a little better than the last time he saw him. Better was good. He stood there with his hands in his pockets a couple of seconds longer, watching his partner open up the blanket fort, the literal barrier between them, and nodded his understanding. Okay, so, Brannon felt like shit. Archer didn't have any empty sort of platitude to fling at him; that wasn't his way and they both knew it. Instead, he mustered up the briefest of brief half-grins, an acknowledgement. "Well. Y'don't look half bad," allowed Archer. His way of saying Brannon looked better, in addition to sounding better.
In the reading light from under the blanket fort, brighter now that Brannon had opened it up some, Archer glanced at the book that his friend had closed. Couldn't quite see the title. He wondered if it was the Sherlock Holmes one. They'd talked about getting it to read together and Archer couldn't help feeling a little bit of a pang as he turned away to flip the light switch, snapping it up and pausing once he'd turned back around. He got that his job was important. He got that he needed to be the one doing it. He got that there was shit he had to keep to his fucking self and that all of it was just driving him up a fucking wall right now. Boo-fucking-hoo. But there were some moments where it hit him harder than he wanted it to where Archer missed Samuel Grady for really selfish fucking reasons. Grady and Roccolini both. If even one of them had stayed alive and away from the fucking virus, Archer wouldn't be dealing with all of this shit and maybe he'd get home at a decent fucking hour and remember what it was like to read a fucking book and--
Fuck, none of that was fair.
Archer wasn't sure what all showed on his face but was sure something did, too tired to keep holding all of his shields in place. Certainly not in front of Brannon. Bran, who was the one person he knew for whom his defenses had started relaxing on their own without Archer having to do jack shit about it, a process that had started years ago. The new chief didn't know he'd looked a little lost in thought at Brannon's question, that he'd looked first angry, then sad, and finally just despairing before giving his head a small shake to clear it.
He couldn't quite clear the mad and sad and bad from his eyes, though, and he wasn't fully aware that Bran was even watching him as he turned aside and began to empty his pockets onto his bedside table. "Fine," answered Archer; he didn't know of a better word to use. 'Good' was out of the question. 'Bad' was a relative concept: he hadn't had to do anything with blobs or zombies, so that meant it had to be at least okay, right? "Yeah. It was busy. Weekly sit-down with Lansing. Other shit. Not interesting. But busy."