Chapter Text
Ricky woke up because the Shitmobile stalled.
Again.
The engine coughed like it had a fifty-year smoking habit and a personal vendetta against him, then died with a pathetic little clunk. The sudden silence was worse than the noise. It left his head ringing, like the world had shut off without asking permission.
“Fuckin’ piece of shit,” Ricky muttered, eyes still closed.
He was folded half sideways across the front seats, boots on the dashboard, spine wrecked, neck bent at a bad angle that he’d regret later. His mouth tasted like cigarettes and old beer. There was a cramp in his left leg that felt personal.
He didn’t move right away.
He just lay there, breathing, listening.
No footsteps.
No voice outside.
No knock on the window.
That was wrong.
Usually by now Julian would’ve been around. Not early early—Julian wasn’t a psychopath—but sometime after Ricky passed out, sometime before noon. Leaning against the hood, drink in hand, acting like sleeping in a rusted-out car was a totally normal thing.
Ricky opened his eyes and stared at the cracked windshield.
Nothing.
The passenger seat was empty. No rum bottle rolling around. No stupid clean glass with ice melting down the sides. Just old fast-food bags, ash, and a wrench he couldn’t remember stealing.
Ricky sat up slowly.
His chest felt tight, and he didn’t like that.
“Whatever,” he said aloud, to nobody. “He’s busy.”
Julian was always busy. Schemes, plans, meetings with idiots who thought they were smarter than Julian and always ended up being wrong. That was normal.
Still.
Ricky lit a smoke with shaking hands and kicked the door open. Sunnyvale was already hot, already loud. Somewhere down the road, Cory and Jacob were yelling at each other about something dumb.
“—I told you to grab the fuckin’ batteries!”
“YOU DIDN’T SAY DOUBLE A’S!”
Ricky ignored them and leaned against the Shitmobile, taking a long drag.
Julian’s car wasn’t anywhere nearby.
That was not normal.
Ricky scanned the park. Bubbles’ shed. Lahey’s trailer. The road leading out. Nothing.
A weird, irritated buzz started under his skin.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
He told himself not to think about it. Julian disappeared sometimes. Not disappeared-disappeared, just… busy. He didn’t owe Ricky anything. They weren’t fuckin’ married or some shit.
The thought made Ricky scowl.
He flicked his cigarette and started walking, boots crunching gravel, like moving might knock the feeling loose.
Bubbles was in his shed, humming to himself while working on an engine part way too small for a human being to care about. He glanced up when Ricky approached.
“Hey, Rick.”
Ricky shrugged. “You see Julian?”
Bubbles paused.
That pause was a mistake.
Ricky caught it immediately.
“What,” Ricky said flatly.
Bubbles adjusted his glasses. “Uh… no. Not today.”
Ricky frowned. “Yesterday?”
“…No.”
Ricky stared at him.
Bubbles winced. “I mean—he came by real late last night, but he didn’t stay. Said he had stuff to take care of.”
Ricky felt that tightness again, sharper this time.
“Did he say where?”
Bubbles shook his head. “Just said he needed time.”
Time.
Ricky scoffed. “That’s fuckin’ vague.”
“Yeah,” Bubbles agreed quietly.
Ricky turned away before Bubbles could look at him like that. Like he was worried. Like this mattered.
It didn’t.
Julian always came back.
That night, Ricky sat in the Shitmobile with the engine off, drinking warm beer and watching the sky darken. The park lights flickered on one by one. Someone was blasting shitty music. Lahey yelled something incomprehensible at Randy.
Still no Julian.
Ricky told himself not to care.
By the second night, the Shitmobile felt smaller.
Ricky kept the passenger seat clear without meaning to. Didn’t pile his usual junk there. Didn’t throw trash on it. He caught himself doing it and swore loudly.
“Fuckin’ stupid,” he muttered.
On the third day, Cory and Jacob came by with half-assed news about a possible job stealing meat from a truck.
“Julian usually handles that,” Cory said.
Ricky snapped. “Yeah, well Julian’s not fuckin’ here, is he?”
They blinked at him.
Jacob shifted. “Is he… gone?”
Ricky glared. “He always leaves.”
That night, Ricky dreamed Julian was standing just outside the Shitmobile, knocking on the window, saying something Ricky couldn’t hear. When Ricky woke up, heart pounding, there was nobody there.
By the fifth day, Ricky was pissed.
By the sixth, he was scared.
He didn’t say that part out loud.
He drove the Shitmobile out past the park, just to see if Julian’s car was anywhere. It wasn’t. He drove back, engine rattling, hands tight on the wheel.
“Don’t fuckin’ do this,” he muttered, like Julian could hear him.
When Julian finally came back, it wasn’t dramatic.
No music. No slow walk. No drink in hand.
He just appeared one afternoon, standing near the road like he’d been there the whole time.
Ricky saw him from the Shitmobile and slammed the brakes so hard the engine stalled again.
Julian looked… tired. Same black shirt. Same posture. But his eyes were darker, guarded.
They stared at each other across the gravel.
Neither of them moved.
Ricky’s chest burned.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he demanded.
Julian opened his mouth.
Then hesitated.
And that hesitation told Ricky everything was about to change.