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"Tell me about the bird? I mean, how close were you—considering daemons?"
The question takes Marty by surprise. What does Rust’s owl have to do with the ‘95 case? It doesn’t help that he remembers exactly how close they got once with such fucking clarity.
It’s been seven years of work side by side—seven years—and that was the moment it finally happened. No, not finally, Marty mentally corrects himself, recollecting the events from ten years ago. Not finally, because it was never really supposed to happen.
He shakes himself mentally.
"We were partners, yes, and Bertha would sometimes talk to him and the owl would even sometimes talk to me, sure. You know, warnings or bits of info they wanted us both to know," or, in that damned shithole in 95, Bertha shouting in a panicked voice for Rust to stop him while he emptied the gun into Ledoux’s head," but they, we, uh, they weren’t really talking, or, eh, touching." Marty scratches his fingers absent-mindedly over the bull terrier’s head.
Back then, he doubted Berrie would touch Rust even if she had to physically drag him away from danger. Not even because it’s appalling—people in Lafayette were no high society and all kinds of things happened, and they were cops, after all, so she wouldn’t hesitate if something big was on the line. Hell, Bertha got scratched, bit and beaten along with him not once during a drunk brawl or while dealing with less than civilized suspects. It just wasn’t something he could imagine when Rust was concerned, period.
"Maybe it was that the guy’s daemon had always been… unusual. It took me months to learn that damned bird’s name." And even then, it really was the girls who managed to claw it out of Rust by sending their little ones—turned immediately into birds, he remembered—to bother her. "She, uh, she was mostly just silently spacing out, ignoring me and Berrie here altogether, so I wasn’t even sure she was awake until she would blink and stare at me with those creepy-ass eyes."
"Or just appear out of nowhere wherever I was hanging to give me some info she and Rust managed to dig up," Bertha raises her ears and elaborates, carefully ignoring Papania’s stare.
"Anyways, uh," Marty scratches behind her ear again, a little on edge, "Coire, the owl’s name was Coire."
"Scottish, right?" Papania inquires, the same edge in his questions, as if every detail of Rust’s weirdness is somehow incriminating Marty as well.
"Uh, yeah, some Celtic bullshit, I asked once but didn’t really get anything—well, I already told you how Rust could be. And the man’s name is Rustin Cohle, for God’s sake, so of course his bird got something equally weird. I still can’t even say it right, apparently, he would always say it’s not Corey or Cara when I tried, but I didn’t need to call her, not often anyway. Thought his mother was from there or something, dunno why she got a name like that."
"And why would you mention that, about the touching?" Papania nudges as he notices Marty drifting slightly.
"Well"you asked how they were, earlier, if they were weird with other daemons. I mean, yeah, she was weird, sure, but it never really got into work’s way. She was good at it, too, the way he was, and we got used to each other. But I wouldn’t touch her for nothing. And he wouldn’t touch Berrie, the way he was with people and how he never even seemed to touch his own damn daemon... ahem. Well, he wouldn’t touch Bertha." Except when he had.
It was hell. Everything red and blurring at the edges, the pain of hatred, of bitterness, the more familiar and comfortable sting of split knuckles, agonizing tightness in his ribcage with every attempt at breathing, but the weirdest of all"the dizzying, throbbing strain on his bond to Bertha. It took Marty several long seconds to realize she launched herself at Rust in full-body swing and sunk her teeth into his arm, and now Rust was trying to keep her at a distance with his free arm, hand splayed across her chest, Berrie going limp not so much from the strength of the hold but from the unfamiliar and unbearable sensation of prolonged touch from another human, Rust’s face blank and pale. Marty was still trying to get Rust with desperate hits and kicks, but the nausea and pain of the touch made his vision and movements wobbly and unstable. Only when they dragged Rust away with close to no resistance did the hellish sensation cease, Bertha limping to him immediately, shaking and clinging to his legs. Only after their talk with Salter, Bertha pressing herself anxiously against his leg, Coire’s unblinking stare from Rust’s shoulder unfocused and far away, did he realize the bird was nowhere to be seen in the parking lot.
Marty clears his throat.
"Uh, yes, there was a touch. The only time. In that parking lot. Well, I don’t blame him for that, not really," not after ten years of contemplating the whole shitshow, he adds mentally, "after all, Coire was away, and the way Berrie went all in…" Bertha bares her teeth in his lap, a warning to him and to the detectives across the table, Papania’s marten daemon visibly displeased, Gilbough’s iguana unfazed as ever.
"Away?" Gilbough interjects the silent confrontation. "As in, they could separate? That’s not anywhere in the records."
Shit. That’s exactly why he shouldn't have spilled it to these asses.
"I bet not," Bertha scoffs, playing it cool. Good girl. "He was an undercover narc though, a useful skill to have in that field. Fairly sure the guy taught himself, seemed to be his way."
"Taught himself, is that how you’d put it? So that was for work, huh?"
"What’re you implying?" Marty narrows his eyes, deciding the best defense is a good offense.
"Nothing. Just another peculiarity about Cohle, isn’t it? What’s a self-inflicted trauma to another ten or so?" Papania dejects flatly.
"Yes, it was one, and if you talked to him you should damn well know it didn’t make him lose it," Marty states, not budging even a little.
"I never said it had".
"Then what do you want, asking me about our daemon’s relationship and shit? To prove Rust’s a blood-thirsty psycho? Huh, good luck with showing me anything I haven’t seen myself already. I saw it all—and I didn’t hear anything more bullshit than your pet theory here." Marty clenches his jaw. "If you want anything from me, stop fucking around and give me something useful, or I’m out of here."
Berrie springs from his lap and is out the door before either detective decides to stop them or object. Marty hesitates at the doorstep, the dog tugging impatiently at his trouser leg.
"If you do have something...call me up, but cut the crap. You talk and I talk, and if you wanna play dumb, I will, too."
The door slams behind him.
***
They do call, and he sees the photos.
The interviews make Marty’s mind run in strange circular patterns around two things: Coire, and that it’s been ten years since he’s seen her or Rust. That it’s possibly much less before he sees them again. That his ex-partner has been up to some deranged bullshit right here, behind his back, for a couple years already. Despite how they part ways, it hurts his pride just a little bit. Partner. His hands curl into fists absent-mindedly, itching with faint memory of connecting with another’s bone.
"Quit it, Marty," Bertha nips at his leg lightly in disapproval. "You fucking miss them. Or," she interrupts him just as he opens his mouth to disagree, "if you’re dead set on denying it, I do. And I know you wanna know what the fuck they’re up to. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll snap your neck, okay?"
Marty sighs. He marvels briefly at how much Berrie’s changed—how they both have. Back then, she was the suspicious one, the angry one.
That night Rust showed up at his doorstep drunk and terrified, the thing that struck Marty the most wasn’t the flowers, or how close to his breaking point Rust looked, but the fact that the bird seemed completely indifferent, dragging herself behind Rust slowly instead of flying but not making any attempts at all to push herself closer to her human, to comfort him or herself, just sitting a couple feet away silently, blinking lazily at Bertha from time to time. And Bertha was snarling quietly all the way to the kitchen, as Marty made coffee, as he called up Chris to handle the situation without fuss, her fear and disgust at the obvious disconnect between a human and a daemon tangible in the air.
And she stayed weary since that evening, just as Marty always felt a curious itch of something tight and fragile at the memory. He watched Rust interact with the bird, how quiet they were, how they never seemed to really talk, and what he chalked up to them being so in tune they avoided unnecessary words turned more and more obviously into what it was"two creatures so deeply sick of each other that the only reasons for their wordless interactions were the need to appear normal and the physical inability to exist as fully separate entities. And as deeply unsettling as that was, he couldn’t help but feel the pang of sympathy at every moment Bertha snuggled up to him during quiet moments at home, acted as his voice of reason, was annoyed at him for being stubborn and unreasonable, or clung to him desperately in fear and disgust at each new morbid detail the Lange case brought their way. In those moments, he immediately remembered the eyes"human, red-rimmed and almost colorless from intoxication and tears, and amber-like yellow, half-closed in expression of boredom and disdain.
"Okay," he admits begrudgingly, shaking away the memory, "you’re right." He pets her soft nose slowly. "So what do you suggest? You know well we won’t find them if they don’t wanna be found."
She hums thoughtfully.
"Somehow, I won’t be surprised if they find us soon."
***
Every minute since meeting Rust again Marty feels like it’s a fever dream, the man before him looking like the ghost of himself except for that same overwhelming obsession with doing his job right"and the same invisible barricade between him and his daemon.
Rust is even more acidic and irritable than Marty remembers, Coire still just as impassive, and at one point in that dreadful storage unit Marty almost forgets everything except the old anger and distrust, almost thinks the detectives were right about Rust losing it"when Bertha comes up to the man and nuzzles at his boot carefully.
No pain comes.
Rust freezes, staring at the daemon, and Marty gets it, suddenly"he’s defensive. He’s fairly sure he’s not the first person to treat Rust with immediate suspicion during his renewed investigation of the damned murders. And sure, Rust doesn’t give a fuck what people think or say as long as the job’s done, but he did care about what Marty thought back when they were partners"even if Marty only realises it now. How they left things… it means he’s likely Rust’s last call in this, the one person he believes will listen to him now in order to finish what he—they—started.
And if Bertha’s trust is anything to go by, Rust is right. He will.
***
The moment Rust stops answering his calls through the stifling nightmare of tunnels, the moment he stops hearing Coire’s wings flap from ahead, he knows surely Bertha would absolutely drag Rust away from danger with her teeth, paws and everything it takes. He feels her anxiety, her rushing ahead so fierce it tugs on their bond, makes him lose focus.
He isn’t surprised to find the abomination of Childress is daemon-less.
He is even less surprised that as soon as the ringing from the shots stops hammering at their ears, Bertha drags herself over to Rust instead of him, pressing her full body-length into his side, whining from their own pain as well as from the cold, desperate fear that grips him at the sight of Rust dragging the knife inch by torturous inch out of his abdomen.
The last thing he remembers before his mind gives out is a mess of bloodied feathers settling slowly against the back of his hand cradling Rust’s peaceful face. For a moment, he’s sure Coire will dissipate now, turning into silvery dust, but a couple beats of his heart later she’s still there, and the darkness washing over him is calm.
***
Marty told the detectives he didn’t know what was up with the owl’s name. It’s a lie—Rust told him once, the night before the shit went down with the Crusaders and Ledoux.
"See Coire here? I gave her that name," he said, casually, after rolling the shirt down the exposed scarred skin of his ribcage.
"You-—what?" Marty frowned, staring at the owl, who sat on the open case’s lid indifferently, her back to him." Not your parents?
"When I first went in as Crash. She needed a new face too, you know.
"Sure," Marty agreed without confidence. "I know I’m gonna regret asking, but what’s it mean?"
"Depends how you look at it," is all Rust offered, turning back to checking his gun.
"Whirlpool. Pit or hollow," a low raspy voice suggested then, startling Marty a bit. Coire’s voice was something he heard so rarely and so briefly he did a double-take every time. "Or it can be blame, or fault. My personal favorite is damage."
"Cheerful as usual," Marty commented as Rust flipped him off half-heartedly. "What is... what was your name? Before, you know." Marty eyed the bird hesitantly as she stared through him without moving her body, in this uncanny owlish way of hers, her neck going almost full-circle. She ignored his question, promptly turning away, which was a relief. He turned his gaze back to Rust, still questioning. Rust just shrugged, as if to say ‘that’s her business’.
"Marty," Rust’s quiet voice drags him out of the memory. "You with us? You’re awfully quiet for someone that never shuts up during baseball." Rust glances at the TV in front of them, now muted.
Marty gives him a finger silently, which doesn’t have nearly as much impact when Rust’s feet are in his lap, both of them half-lying on the worn sofa, the scene so domestic Marty feels it could be in a damn IKEA catalog.
"Coire," Marty blurts out, surprising himself and not even sure if he’s addressing the bird or asking Rust about her. Rust’s shoulders tense immediately, just a fraction, but Bertha nips at Marty’s hand in disapproval. "Uh, I mean... I just remembered how we talked about names. Your name," he finally decides he’s speaking to the owl, who opens her eyes and leaves the armrest Rust’s head is resting on to sit on the windowsill. Bertha sighs as Marty curses himself inwardly. Of course, the topic would break a fragile equilibrium Rust built with his fucking daemon . It’s not supposed to be like this in the first place, Marty thinks, but it is. Nothing he can do about it besides not being too much of a dick, but Rust is Rust. Some things are probably never gonna be normal with him. "Your name. I thought—That’s because you learned to separate, right? It was easier this way? I had this, well—maybe you’ll be okay with the old one, now that..." That you’re talking to each other again? Marty suppresses a nervous giggle.
Coire narrows her eyes, as does Rust. It’s almost endearing, except Marty has no idea where he was going with it and is scared shitless he overstepped some line he forgot to think about and that Rust... shit, he’s not even scared Rust won’t talk to him, Marty thinks, surprised. He’s just scared it will cause him more pain. He rubs his thumb across Rust’s foot lightly. The man sits up slowly, hugging his knees close to his chest, pointedly removing the point of contact between them. Bertha jumps into his lap instead, curling herself there sheepishly.
"I never learned to separate, Marty," he offers dryly, sharing a glance with the owl, who holds it and takes a step back towards him, which Rust seems to take for permission. "I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m not a masochist," Marty can’t hold back a snort. "I’m not," Rust insists warily, "even if I have a penchant for self-flagellation, I wouldn’t take the pain for the sake of pain. Surely not for an undercover job I didn’t give a shit about when everything else was fucked around me." Rust swallows slowly. "And even the shitheads I was working under weren’t so far gone as to ask that of me," he holds Marty’s gaze for a couple of seconds, "but they did find it useful for the job they gave me."
"You did it—it happened before the job," Marty realizes, not wanting to think about the implications of the revelation. He suddenly feels the beat of his heart up in his throat. "Oh." He blinks. "Shit. Your daughter."
Rust hangs his head, staring at some spot on the floor for some seconds.
"Her daemon," he says then, voice raspy, as if from the strain of holding back, "he would always turn into an owl chick and follow us around." It’s the first time Marty’s heard Rust talk about him and Coire the way most people do. Most of the time it's me, as if she was never around to begin with. "I mean, he also loved being this small round weasel, Claire, hers was one." Rust’s mouth almost twists into a smile, but then his face is empty again. "But most of the time it was as if he’d already settled. He loved Coire so much—Sofia was so happy when she first taught him to fly." Rust goes quiet, hair strand falling slowly from behind his ear to cover his face, curling at the end. Marty still notices he has this faraway look he always gets when it’s about this past life he had, his eyes almost empty and alive with barely contained emotion all at once. "Yeah. Anyway—she tried to stop it."
Marty thinks he hears a weird echo of the last sentence until he sees Rust’s head snap up, Coire back at the armrest, just behind his shoulder now.
"I tried to stop it," the daemon repeats quietly, her voice still not fully resembling a voice, more of a rustle. "I saw the car coming, sitting on the fence, and I flew out there. He was in the backyard, other side of the house, didn’t see anything. I just flew out there."
Everything goes still as Marty parses what he’s heard.
"God," he exhales after it hits him," and you—you broke it like that? How aren't you..."
"Dead?" Rust’s gaze is piercing now, but Marty knows he’s still not seeing him, lost in that driveway instead. "No fucking clue. Hurt like that anyway." Marty imagines, if the memories of the parking lot are anything to go by. "But I wasn’t. Told you I wasn’t supposed to be here," Rust almost smirks, prickling. "The shit is, it didn’t help. Proved useful for the job later, though. And I couldn’t really talk to her since," he nods at the owl, almost unsure.
"You wouldn’t," she corrects, voice deceptively toneless.
Rust gives a half-shrug, acknowledging her for once.
"You called for me," Coire insists, her eyes intense on Rust, unlike the barely-present look Marty is used for.
Rust stares back, defensive and lost, and Marty feels like he’s intruding on something way too personal for his attention.
"And I didn’t want to call for you again," Rust offers softly, as if he’s giving up. Marty’s not the sharpest guy out there, but by that name left unsaid is plain as day in that sentence. He clears his throat awkwardly.
"I’m—" He almost says ‘sorry’, until Bertha shuffles in his lap uncomfortably, "That’s fucked up, man. You’re probably actually an immortal bastard." He tries for levity, air in the room too thick to breathe. Rust glances back up at him, uncurls himself back into lounging across the sofa, not touching Marty anymore, but sitting close enough they can feel each other’s warmth.
"I probably am," he offers as he reaches for the remote on the table to turn the volume back up. Coire creeps along the back of the sofa, settling between them where their shoulders almost touch now, feathers brushing Marty’s ear with the movement.
***
Marty descends the stairs into the kitchen, carrying still half-asleep Bertha in his arms, only to find Rust, hips leaned onto the windowsill, talking to Coire perched on his shoulder quietly. He’s gesturing with one hand, coffee in the other, pausing occasionally to take a drag from his cigarette. Marty feels something tight and tender clench behind his ribs at the scene, even more so when he realizes it’s not some philosophical problem he’s half-expecting (what would someone like Rust even talk to their daemon about? ) but him they’re discussing. They don’t see him yet, so he backs a couple steps up the stairs, unwilling to interrupt the rare moment and, honestly, curious.
"He did want me dead, in case you forgot," Rust drawls. Berrie is wide awake now, glaring at Marty, who raises his eyebrows apologetically.
"Yeah, well, remind me, when have you last heard Marty say something and then do as he said? Facts are you’re here—because he wanted you here, you like it here." Marty can practically hear Rust roll his eyes. "You have nowhere else to go, and, if there’s everything sane left about us, you probably don’t want anywhere else to go—I don’t.
"I have my room. Still have my job at the bar," he objects thoughtfully.
"Rust," the owl sighs, exasperated, "even if you really, honestly want to drink yourself to death just because you didn’t manage to pull off your heroic end in Carcosa"—Marty winces at the word and sees Rust’s face twitch through the smoke wisps as well—"I don’t anymore. I’m tired of being barely lucid and bitter with you. Or rather without you. I’m tired of you taking out your self-deprecation on me, I’m tired of being a mascot for your trauma, I’m tired of you pretending you didn’t miss them all those years and that you didn’t get attached even more now that they actually attained a brain cell between them. I know how you love sulking like it’s a fucking revelation, but you’re fifty, not fifteen, and I’m your daemon," she finishes almost in a hiss.
"I’ve missed you, too," Rust admits softly after a stunned pause, and strokes her wing with his knuckles thoughtfully. "I don’t know what to say. But I heard you"—a beat—"and Marty," he flicks the cigarette butt out the window, and walks towards the stairs, Coire following immediately, "I can hear you two thinking from up there. Come on and have your fucking eggs already."
Marty comes on and doesn’t know if his ears burn from eavesdropping or from how full his heart is with tenderness.
***
One night Marty finds Rust unsurprisingly awake and smoking in the kitchen, the owl on his shoulder.
"Why’re you up?" Rust asks as he hears Marty’s steps, not even turning to face him.
"Right back at you," Marty parries.
"You know I don’t sleep," Rust drawls as Marty joins him at the window, snatching the cigarette for a drag and blinking at the heavy sense of deja-vu the gesture brings as Rust watches him with amusement in his eyes. Bertha jumps onto the windowsill and sneezes from the smoke, disapproving.
"Well, then you can imagine why," Marty returns the cigarette, fingers brushing against Rust’s with ease.
"Yeah."
The silence is companionable, and Marty’s heart is warm again at the ease of it, of Rust and Coire looking as if they were never separated by silence and space.
"So," Marty starts, anxious.
"So?" Rust is immediately defensive.
"Will you stay?"
Rust stares at him pensively.
"You keeping the barbell?" Marty notices he’s biting back a smirk and scoffs.
"I am, you spiteful bastard."
Suddenly, the daemon flies off Rust’s shoulder, circles the house, wings flapping in the quiet, a darker spot against the dark sky, Bertha following her with curious eyes"they’ve never really seen the bird just fly for the sake of it until this moment.
After some time, Rust takes Marty’s hand. It’s warm and dry, and before Marty can open his mouth and demand an explanation, Rust puts his head out the window and beckons.
"Acantha," he calls softly. The owl stops in mid-air so suddenly it looks like she’s going to fall, but then planes gracefully back to the window, wide-eyed when she stares up at Rust, "is it?" he adds, questioning.
"Yeah," she shakes her head fondly, "it is," and she nuzzles at the palm of his open hand. She turns to Marty.
"I know you’re dying to know the meaning, yeah? It’s ‘thorn’. As in, anything prickly. Our parents really did have a wicked sense of humor, huh?" she offers with a smile in her voice. Rust snorts. Marty can’t believe he’s not still dreaming. Bertha pads forward softly and curls herself around the bird protectively.
"Hello, Acantha," she murmurs, touching her nose to the tip of the owl’s wing. It flutters.
Rust squeezes Marty’s fingers—it’s an offering. I trust you with this, it says, and, thank you for reminding me. Marty holds his breath, and, as he squeezes back, he knows Rust will stay.