Searching for After

Sending a Message

A/N: Some graphic violence ahead, but I'm sure you're all used to that by now.

The water spewed out of Damien's mouth and all over Shayne who sat across from him at the dining table. Shayne looked at his soaked meal and then at him with a mixture of disgust and shock. His mouth opened to ask what that was all about but was stopped when Damien raised a finger up to his sputtering lips.

"Mr. Haas? You okay?"

Damien forcefully cleared his throat to expel the last drops of water that went down the wrong pipe. He helplessly watched Shayne, who dabbed at his face and hoodie with a paper towel.

"Uh – yeah, yeah. All good, ma'am." Damien answered with a decided lack of certainty in his tone. Shayne observed Damien with a suspicious glint in his eye as he poked at his waterlogged Thai leftovers.

"Is this a bad time?" Courtney asked over the line.

Shayne was raising his soppy noodles up to his mouth while he watched the exchange. Damien cleared his throat once more as he answered, "Not at all, ma'am. Just – uh – caught me off guard."

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, save for what Damien guessed to be the gentle blowing of wind, and the singsong chirping of birds.

"Mr. Haas, I know you two were close. I thought if he'd turn to anyone, maybe he'd turn to you." The fact that that appeared to be such public knowledge made Damien uneasy. If Schoonover and the mysterious Courtney were able to put two and two together, there was no telling who else could.

Damien begrudgingly realized the connection couldn't be that difficult to make for anyone who truly searched for it. He was Shayne's only one-legged blue-haired friend with a combat and medical background. Not exactly hard to pick him out.

Damien tried to reestablish control over the situation. "Please, ma'am, call me Damien."

Before he could continue, the woman matched him in kind, "Call me Courtney, Damien."

Shayne was leaning in now, damp noodles forgotten. His head was tilted to the side to try and get a better read on the voice on the phone. At the corner of his eye, he continued to watch Damien. The man probably already deduced who was on the other end.

Damien made a show of heaving a heavy sigh into the receiver, "I'm sorry, Courtney." He glanced at the twitch in Shayne's eye before continuing, "Shayne was like a brother to me. I..."

He audibly gulped in an attempt to play up the drama, "I wish he turned to me, y'know? I always told him he didn't have to do this alone. Maybe if he accepted my help, we wouldn't have lost him."

Damien ignored the glare Shayne fixed him with. He instead listened to Courtney's levelled reply, "I just... can't believe he's gone. How are you holding up?"

He blinked once and scrambled to reply appropriately, "I'm just coming to terms with it, I guess."

There was a hum over the line that bordered on doubting.

Fuck.

"I-it's rough. After everything he's been through," Damien mimicked Schoonover's words from the night prior, "It's crazy to think that a fireball is what does him in."

The silence on the other end intensified the sense of unease in Damien's gut. It was the same kind of discomfort he felt right before he lost his leg. It was the feeling knowing that he was done for – that someone (in this case, Courtney) had figured him out.

Damien went into damage control in case she decided to visit, "I – uh – I'm out of town for a bit, but feel free to call me here. If you really think he's out there and you find any... any leads, I'd be happy to help you find him."