Title: TRUST

Author: Candy Apple

Email: blair_lady@yahoo.com

Website: https://www.squidge.org/~candy_a

Direct to Nip/Tuck Page: https://www.squidge.org/~candy_a/NTPage.htm

Permission to archive: Yes

Fandom(s): Nip/Tuck

Genre: Pre-Slash

Pairing/Characters: Sean/Christian

Rating: FRT-13

Summary: Christian has been cleared of being The Carver, but the issue of Sean's doubts about his innocence still stands between them.

Warnings: None I can think of.

Notes: This story only takes into account canon through the Granville Trapp episode. It may or may not be the start of a series. <g>

Acknowledgments:

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TRUST

by

Candy Apple

Christian walked into the break room, heading for the coffee maker. Sean was sitting at the table, still in his scrubs from a procedure he'd finished with Quentin. Neither man spoke; the tension in the air was so thick that Christian found himself wishing he had a scalpel handy.

The fact Sean had doubted his innocence still rested on his heart like a lead weight. Even with DNA at the scene, even with the tranquilizer at his condo, how could Sean seriously believe...? Then Sean actually judged him because he called Andrea Hall and did the only thing he could think of to save himself–it was apparent no one else was interested in saving him.

If he planned to keep working with Sean every day, they couldn't go on not speaking or looking at each other, and he knew that Sean wasn't as fascinated as he pretended to be with the newspaper he had spread on the table. When he sat down, he frowned at the appearance of a large, healing cut on Sean's left arm.

"What did you do to your arm?" he asked, taking a drink of coffee.

"I cut myself," he responded without looking up.

"How?"

"With a knife," Sean replied, folding the paper and setting it neatly on the table again. "I have a consult in ten minutes," he said, starting to stand.

"Hold on just a minute. How did you happen to cut yourself with a knife in that particular spot?" A host of possibilities were presenting themselves in Christian's mind, up to and including that perhaps Sean had had some violent encounter with Matt that had left him with the wound. While Christian wanted to believe the best of his son, even under the present difficult circumstances, things had escalated to a level of physical violence between Sean and Matt that made Christian uneasy.

"I'm going to be late if I don't go change now. What difference does it make?"

"If the knife slips while you're slicing a bagel, it doesn't hit you there. If it does, you're in the wrong profession."

"I didn't say it was an accident," Sean told the table top. "I thought it might work, but it didn't."

"What? Cutting yourself? Sean, that's crazy."

"It's supposed to be a release. A way to purge emotional pain. All it does is give you a wound to clean and dress in addition to the other shit you were already dealing with."

"Let me see," Christian said, moving his chair closer.

"It's healing."

"You're going to have a nice scar there if we don't fix it," Christian said, taking a hold of Sean's arm and examining the healing cut more closely.

"I don't care."

"You should. You want to explain to Annie where it came from? That her dumb ass father went after his own arm with a butcher knife?"

"Thanks for your concern, Christian." Sean pulled his arm away and got up to leave the room.

"What was it?"

"What was what?"

"The thing that made you cut yourself."

"I don't want to talk about this now." As Sean moved to leave the room, Christian caught him by the arm and pulled him back.

"We have to talk about it."

"Why? It's over and done with, and it didn't work, so I'm not planning to line my arm with marks we can't explain to our patients."

"I guess you not trusting me runs deeper than just thinking I'm The Carver." Christian released Sean's arm and returned to the table, sitting down and slumping a bit in the chair. Sean stood still in the doorway a few seconds, then closed the door to the break room and returned to the table.

"So all this really doesn't have anything to do with my arm. You're still upset with me because–"

"Because you thought I was a serial rapist and slasher? Because you seriously thought I would take a knife and slice the side of your face? Yes, I'm a little upset about that. What I'm more upset about is that you obviously don't trust me at all anymore, anyway. You never talked to me about whatever it was that was eating you. You slithered off into a dark corner and sliced your arm instead. This friendship was obviously just so much bullshit before I was ever arrested."

"That's not true," Sean responded, wounded by the harsh assessment. Part of Christian was glad he was hurt. It would never rival the hurt he felt when Sean actually suspected him of being some kind of unspeakable monster. "I told you Matt dropped the restraining order."

"Yes, you told me."

"He dropped me along with it. I know we had an awful mess to work out, but I wasn't prepared for him to start hating me so easily. I don't know if I wanted to punish myself for hitting him or if I just wanted to see if giving some kind of physical outlet to that pain would make it easier to handle..." Sean shrugged. "I tried it. It was nothing special. It just hurt."

"I'm sorry," Christian said, genuinely sorry for Sean's pain, even if he still couldn't quite forgive him for losing faith in their friendship at the crucial moment.

"I know that it won't matter what I say...that you'll never forgive me for not believing in you completely." Sean smiled sadly. "It's kind of ironic. I was so afraid of losing you, of finding out that the last...real thing in my life was being taken away, that I managed to make it happen even when it didn't have to. Maybe Matt was right. Maybe I am really sad, pathetic."

"You doubting me was some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy to make me guilty?"

"When you were arrested, I knew you were innocent. Then they found the DNA, and scary as that was, Quentin was right. Kit probably planted it to get back at you."

"I guess that kind of boomeranged on her, didn't it?" Christian said, shaking his head. "Crazy bitch."

"What I'm trying to tell you is that I panicked. There was so much evidence..." Sean looked at Christian, an almost pleading expression on his face. "Everything I built my life on has fallen apart in the last couple of years. The last thing, the last constant, is you."

"I'm responsible for half the shit that wrecked your life, Sean. I got us hooked up with Gallardo, I slept with Julia, I'm Matt's biological father–"

"Okay, so maybe you're a constant asshole," Sean amended, smiling a little. "I just couldn't take another loss," he said, looking at Christian with eyes bright with unshed tears. "I don't feel like I can trust anyone anymore. It's like that part of me is dead. In my heart, I never believed you could do that...be that. I just couldn't stand believing in someone and having it all shatter again." He looked down, and his shoulders started to shake.

"Don't look now, but you didn't lose me, and I didn't turn out to be a monster," Christian said, moving his chair closer, sliding his arm around Sean's shoulders.

"I'm sorry," Sean managed.

"I know you are." Christian was quiet a moment, just sitting there close to Sean, moving his head so their foreheads touched lightly. He rubbed his hand across Sean's back in a slow, soothing motion. "It's been a rough few months for both of us," he said. "Maybe we can work on this trust thing together."

"I feel like an idiot," Sean said, pulling back and wiping at his eyes. Christian grabbed a couple napkins and handed them to Sean.

"You are, but you can redeem yourself if you let me fix that cut so it doesn't scar."

"I'm late for my two o'clock," Sean said, checking his watch.

"You look like two-day old dog shit, and you sound like you have a cold. Quentin can take it. Isn't that what he's here for?"

"Among other things," Sean said, smiling a little slyly.

"Don't remind me." Christian stood up. "I'll go tell our other partner to pick up your two o'clock."

"I'm okay, Christian." Sean stood up. "Allergies," he said, gesturing at his puffy eyes. "Mrs. Adams is really skittish about having her deviated septum repaired, and she's going to be uneasy with a different doctor. Are we okay?"

"What do you think?" Christian asked, a little glint in his eye. Sean moved toward him, and they embraced, a quick, tight hug that reaffirmed their reconciliation. As Sean headed for the door of the break room, Christian stopped him. "You want to grab some dinner after work?"

"What about Kimber?"

"She's a big girl. She'll be fine on her own for a few hours. We can get some dinner, maybe grab a few beers. Or we can go see an action movie without any grief."

"You're on," Sean responded, smiling. "My last appointment is at four."

"Four thirty for me, so I'll just come and get you when I'm done."

"Sounds good. I'll be in my office."

When Sean was gone, Christian had to smile to himself. He'd been righteously angry at Sean for not believing in him, but even that didn't compare to having Sean back in his life, the warmth of their friendship making him feel as good as it always did. And he'd managed to overlook the fact that Sean's life was falling apart, and so was Sean. The man who lost faith in him was too badly damaged emotionally to have faith in much of anything.

They'd have to work on that trust thing together, and Christian looked forward to it as he poured himself a cup of coffee and left for his next appointment with a smile on his face. 

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THE END...for now!