“I was going to eat all of it here.”

Toby smiled faintly at the joke. He drove a slightly battered, homely blue Honda, which seemed appropriate somehow. “If you want, I’ll take ‘em home for you. And that’s all, I promise, I’ll keep my fool mouth shut.”

“Do you know where I live?”

“No, I’m hoping you do.”

He smiled weakly at Toby’s joke. That had been a test, just to see if this guy was loony stalker material. He didn’t seem to be lying about not knowing where he lived, so he guessed not, which was a relief. He already had Matt in his life, and that seemed like enough. He figured why not - he couldn’t drink all this beer in one go without passing out - and shrugged, telling Toby, “Okay, yeah, I’d appreciate it. I don’t seem to be functioning too well today.”

“I’ve had weeks like that,” Toby commiserated. He left his Honda idling as he got out and opened the passenger side door and helped him load his groceries into passenger seat. Roan noticed a miniature flag hanging from the rearview mirror, and for a second he thought it was a rainbow flag, but a longer glance seemed to refute that. Was it a national flag of some sort? It seemed to have too many stripes, one each of blue, yellow, red, white, and orange. After staring at it for a moment, he asked, “What’s that?”

Toby glanced in to see what he was looking at, and said, “Oh, that’s the Buddhist flag.”

“Buddhists have a flag?”

He nodded as he shut the car door. “It symbolizes unity. You’d be surprised how many people see it and think it’s the Italian flag or the German one. Once, someone guessed it was Jamaican. I mean, I look like a Rastafarian, don‘t I? My dreadlocks are a dead giveaway.”

“You should keep a bobblehead Buddha on the dashboard. That’ll teach ‘em.”

Toby cracked a genuine smile as he walked back around to the driver’s side. “Hey, I’ve thought about it. But most of them have creepy kewpie doll faces. It’d freak me out.”

He never would have guessed Toby was a Buddhist, but then again, he almost never guessed anyone was a Buddhist. Unlike most religious people, they didn’t usually go around beating their chest and trying to force their belief system on others. Buddhists were about the only type of religious people he could tolerate - lucky for Toby. Did they hate gays? Actually, he didn’t think Buddhists had ever gone on record fag bashing. No wonder Toby was a Buddhist - it was pretty much the only religion which didn’t hate you for existing. (But Buddhists didn’t hate anything, did they?)

He drove home, trying very hard to pay attention to the road so he didn’t lose control of the bike or drift off into other lanes, and he wondered if driving was a skill you could lose. It almost felt like it.

Which was funny, really, since he seemed to lose the ability to drive and to cope, but he had not lost his ability to be a detective. Was it just easier to pry into other people’s business than simply live his life? He was thinking that was the case. Oh, a psychiatrist would have a field day analyzing him. That’s probably why he avoided them whenever possible.

He parked the bike in the driveway, and Toby pulled in behind him, keeping a safe distance. Had he seen his driving? Did he know how poorly he was doing? He must have.

Toby grabbed all the bags out of his front seat - the good thing about those stupid plastic bags was you could grab a bunch of them at once - and followed him to the front door, waiting quietly while Roan struggled to unlock it, wondering why it was so hard to get a key in the lock. Had the drugs worn off, or was it really hitting him now, his ravaged system now suffering some kind of backlash from all the toxins he’d been living off of for so long? His legs felt rubbery, weak, and his nausea was coming back. Wow, he was in really shitty shape.

Once inside, he pointed out the kitchen to Toby, and he obediently put the bags on the breakfast bar. He then turned to look at him, trying hard not to look too closely at the living room, trying hard not to judge, although someone must have dusted (probably Dee - he had obsessive-compulsive tendencies). “You got people looking in on you?” he finally asked, and that’s when Roan figured he looked as bad as he felt.

He eased himself down on the sofa, not wanting to collapse, and nodded. “Too damn many, as a matter of fact.”

Toby nodded, accepting that, although the sympathetic look never quite left his face. “Good, I’m glad.”

The silence was awkward, and Roan was torn between wanting to fill it and wanting him to go away. “So who’s this guy you lost?”

Toby grimaced, and in retrospect Roan realized he’d asked this far too casually. It sounded like he was dismissing it even as he asked. “Uh, I really don’t think this is a discussion we should have right now. You … I’ve got to get going, I’m working the evening shift tonight.” What was Toby going to say about him? He looked half dead? He clearly didn’t give a fuck? “But if you ever really want someone to talk to … you know where to find me. Just call Panic. Maybe we can get some coffee sometime.”

It would have seemed like a come on from anyone else, but Toby was so fucking earnest and transparent it was simply what it seemed: an invitation to coffee, to discuss dead loves. It sounded thrilling. Would he try to convert him to Buddhism? Would he try and convince him he’d find peace and enlightenment through meditation and the judicious application of incense? Roan was itching with curiosity, as well as several good lines about Xenu and his religion based on TV Guide crossword puzzles and garbled airport loudspeaker announcements. (“Oh holy white courtesy telephone!”) “Sure. Thanks for the help.”

“No problem. Next time, though, maybe you should bring a pack mule.”

“My life is full of asses - that shouldn’t be too hard to arrange.”

Toby chuckled kindly, and told him to take care of himself as he left. He wasn’t nearly as bad as Roan initially thought he was. Although if he was really a good guy, he’d have tossed him a beer so Roan didn’t have to get his ass up and go get one. Oh well.

As soon as he thought he could manage it, he levered himself off the sofa and got a beer out of the grocery bags, then staggered back to where he’d left the laptop from his earlier searching for Ron Dormer. After a minute or so, he figured out he’d have to use the scanner, which meant going upstairs. He gulped down his beer and felt a bit lightheaded, but it was almost liquid courage, and it was good enough. He went upstairs, not stumbling, and once in his bedroom, he was staggered by the smell of himself in this room. The rest of the house had been kept fairly neat and clean, mainly because all the other rooms were hardly used, but Roan couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed his bedding. He knew he should strip the bed, wash everything, but he didn’t feel like dragging everything down to the washer, so he just opened the bedroom window to air the place out. It occurred to him that the last time he’d opened this window, Paris was alive; they’d climbed out onto the roof from here. His gut clenched and churned, but he tried to set the thought aside as he went to his computer and slumped down in front of his desk.

He scanned the picture of Rononymous that Dalisay had given him, and typed out an email to the real Ron Dormer, attaching the picture of the fake one, asking if he recognized this man at all. It was possible that the real and fake Rons had crossed paths at some point in their lives; it was also equally possible that they’d had no contact at all. Identity thieves didn’t have to know their victims to take their credit ratings. That was the hell of identity theft: your life could be co-opted by someone else, but you might never know. Although actually, there was something worse than that, and that was the person who stole your identity having a much better life than you. They could just take the damn thing, but they didn’t have to rub it in your face.

He heard the sputtering purr of a car engine in the drive, and recognized the sound of Dee’s blue bug. God, how did that car keep going? It always seemed like it was on the verge of crapping out, but it never did. It was like a possessed car, only no demon could ever be lame enough to possess an ancient Volkswagen, could it?

Roan was too tired to let him in, so he stayed where he was and sifted through some more spam e-mails as Dee let himself in and came up the stairs. When he came in, he was still wearing his paramedic’s outfit, the shirt open to show the red t-shirt he wore beneath, and he was carrying a med-kit, that was about the size and shape of a large tackle box. “Wow. Matt told me you were up, but I didn’t believe him.”

“I even went to the store, smart ass.”

“Good for you. We’ll make you Human in no time. Roll up your sleeve.” He put the kit down on the end of his bed and cracked it open, pulling out whatever that thing was that measured your blood pressure. He once knew the name of it, but it was now amongst the many things he had forgotten.

Roan sighed, sagging back in his chair. “Fuck off. I don’t need you doing a work up on me.”

“It’s free medical care. Shut your mouth and take it like a man.”

“Wow, I just had a flashback to our second date.”

Dee made a sarcastically sour face at him. “You wish. Now stop being a jackass.”

“Jackasses seem to be a running theme today,” he noted, as Dee put the Velcro sleeve around his left upper arm.

“Today? I thought it was your life in total.” He pumped up the … thing, whatever it was, and the cuff tightened until it was incredibly painful; it felt like it was cutting off the blood circulation to his arm. He was sure Dee was doing this on purpose, but he had on his “professional” face, which was emotionless without being stony. Basically it was his Vulcan look, and Roan knew he was in professional mode; he wouldn’t be fucking around in this mood.

Dee frowned slightly as he looked at the numbers and ripped the cuff off his arm. “Your blood pressure is low. I think you’re dehydrated too.”

“Great. Why don’t you go get me a beer?”

Dee’s eyes were lasers that tried to bore into the back of his skull. “Technically, I can run you in with numbers like these.”

He meant run him into the emergency room, and Roan sighed and shook his head. “C’mon, I did good today. I don’t need to end up back in a bed again. I’m working on a case.”

“Are you?” Dee didn’t sound very interested. He pulled out a digital thermometer and popped it in his mouth, just assuming he knew what it was and what he was supposed to do. Of course he did, because Dee seemed to be always taking his damn temperature, but at least he wasn’t using a rectal thermometer.

After several seconds, which Dee used to take his pulse while looking at his watch (he still didn’t get it - he could never find a pulse in a wrist, not even his own), the thermometer beeped, and Dee took it away. “Huh.”

“Is my temperature low too?” Roan guessed.

Dee shook his head as he returned to his medical kit, putting his gear away. “It’s one hundred and two point seven. You’re sick. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sick.”

“Maybe it’s just a high cycle point; body temperature rises with the virus.”

Dee finished rummaging in his kit, and looked at him askance. “You just came out of your transformational stage four days ago.”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I do. It’s just the days have kinda blurred together.” No, he didn’t remember at all, but Roan didn’t want to get into this right now. “So what do you think I have?”

Dee seemed reluctant to take the bait and move on to another topic, but he did. “I don’t know. What are your symptoms?”

Roan shrugged. “I’m tired.”

“Lethergy’s common with fevers as well as low blood pressure and dehydration. Do you have a cough, any pains?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Dee bit his lower lip in thought, and was looking towards him but not at him, lost in thought. “I’m going to put dinner on. I’ll be back with some water.”

“I’d rather have a beer.”

Dee waved his hand like he was swatting a fly before disappearing out the bedroom door. Roan was going to tell him he could make his own damn dinner, but then it occurred to him he’d have to go back downstairs to do it, and he decided he could swallow his pride for one more night.

If you didn’t count migraines and the occasional hangover, Roan couldn’t remember the last time he was sick. Well, there was also the fact that he was infected and technically always sick - that’s why people treated him like a pariah, right? He was full of icky germs.

But that was it, isn’t? He’d always been healthy, so the virus was held in check. He was weak now, and it decided to come out and play. As soon as he got rehydrated and ate regularly, he’d probably be okay. He’d just lived with this virus for so long, he forgot what it actually was. “I’m part virus,” he muttered to himself, disgusted. “How can it make me sick? That’d be like being allergic to myself.”

“No one is part virus,” Paris argued. He was leaning in the open bathroom doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s actually a kind of racist - specist? - thought, isn’t it? Just because you were born with the virus and born different than most viral children, the virus was somehow a part of you.”

“But it is. They confirmed it with DNA tests. I’m Human, yeah, but there’s something wacky going on.”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t mean you’re part virus; it just means the virus adapted to your system. Viruses are good at that.” He sighed, aware that both of them really didn’t care about this argument, and said, “At least we know why I’m here: guilt, loneliness, and a constant fever.”

“Please don’t start,” Roan sighed, trying to lever himself out of his chair. It took him two tries, but he got it. It felt like someone was ruffling the back of his hair, but it was just a breeze through the window.

“I can’t start anything,” Paris countered. “Only the living can do that.”

Roan stumbled downstairs, finding the “Comfortably Numb” song running through his head. He wished he was comfortably numb - right now, he was just uncomfortably feverish.

Downstairs, Dee didn’t mention his illness, and Roan figured that he guessed it was simply his virus and his immune system now having words, meaning there was really nothing he could do about it except get him back up to full strength. They had soup - which really didn’t surprise him in retrospect, as it was full of liquid and salt, both of which were good for the dehydrated - and Dee told him about his shift. Day shifts were usually quiet, but they encountered Chief again, which was a surprise since both Dee and Roan assumed he was dead.

“Chief” was a homeless man and sad alcoholic, the type who would drink sterno or rubbing alcohol to get a buzz if necessary. He looked about sixty, but was probably in his forties and flirting hard with liver failure. No one knew his real name, not even him; they called him “Chief” because that’s how he addressed everyone else - “Hey Chief,” “I’m not doin’ anything, Chief,” “He started it, Chief”. Unless he was very drunk or in a pissy mood, then he’d call everyone “motherfucker”.

He was an excellent example of both the holes in the safety net of society, and how a person could simply disappear, erase their own identity. He was someone at some point; he must have had a name, a family even. But they ran his fingerprints through the database when they brought him in on a drunk and disorderly (he and a homeless crack addict got in a fight; they were both so fucked up it was more noise and fury than actual damage, which was probably a good thing), but he’d never been arrested before with a real name. He was a terminal John Doe. They actually circulated a flyer with his photo, asking the public if they knew him and could identify him, hoping to get him some help more than anything, but nothing ever came of it. If someone knew who he was, no one would admit it.

Dee and Steve were called on a possible person in distress on Elmore, and found Chief passed out at the head of an alley, a small cut on his forehead where he had met the asphalt too hard. The cut was superficial, and they brought him around with smelling salts, but he was still rather drunk and incoherent, although Dee assumed he’d have been belligerent if he could have managed it. Roan imagined that Dee was telling him this as a warning, that if he kept on the way he was he’d end up as pathetic as Chief, but he owned his home - he bought it reasonably cheap as a fixer upper. After growing up with no steady home, he was always eager to find one solid place he could call his own. So even if he became a pathetic wet brain, at least he wouldn’t be homeless.

“Not the point,” Paris said. After a moment, he added, “You should tell him Abman Toby gave your groceries a lift home. He’ll go into one of his “How come all the hot guys are attracted to your lame ass” rants. That’s always entertaining.”

It was, but Toby wasn’t actually attracted to him, he just felt bad for him, and there was a huge difference. Besides, he felt he had had enough Dee rants for a while.

Dinner wasn’t bad, though, and listening to someone else talk was kind of soothing, even if it was the run down of a paramedic’s day. Paramedics and cops probably were decent matches, as each had their horror stories, and each could try and one up each other with them. The paramedics usually had the most bloody stories, but not always.

He asked Dee about his social life, which he knew would run him off. Dee was not the luckiest guy in the world when it came to relationships; he admitted he never quite got the “knack” for them. It didn’t help that he dated fuck ups like him, or his married doctor pal. (What was his name, Ethan? A macho emergency room doctor with a wife and a couple of kids, who apparently liked being on the down low. Why Dee put up with that shit for a couple of months he had no idea - he must have been desperate, or Ethan was really attractive, or perhaps both.) Dee was happy to go off for a bit on how lame most of the men on the dating scene were, and how wildly idiotic most of the young guys were nowadays. He didn’t care if it was just a trick, but if he actually wanted to date them he wanted a guy with a brain cell or two, which he had a hard time finding. Roan had heard this speech in several variations since they broke up and became friendly exes, and he realized eventually that Dee stayed friends with him because he actually thought he was relatively intelligent. It was flattering, but Dee probably would have been disappointed if he knew it took him a while to figure that out. (He wasn’t so intelligent after all, apparently.)

As he expected, being reminded of his dismal love life made Dee a bit depressed, and he left soon after, possibly to mope over a video game. Roan felt a bit better for having eaten, which meant he got to get up and help himself to a beer - they drank tea with dinner, but at least it was a decent herbal tea - and he found one of Paris’s unused B-12 shots in the kitchen first aid kit. He didn’t know if it wise to use it or not, but he did, and he felt a little less tired.

In fact it started to work too well, as he was suddenly certain he was too restless to sleep. He checked his email, and saw that the real Ron Dormer had already gotten back to him. According to Ron, he did recognize the man in the photo - he wondered why he was asking him about Vance Ladowski, his ex-roommate.