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“We’ve reached the end of the trail, Cliff,” Rick says, and Cliff wants to laugh, roll his eyes at the ridiculous suggestion, give his buddy a friendly punch on the arm, say, What are you talking about, pardner? Shit, I’ll come to Missouri with you! because he would, dammit, he would, but that’s all—that’s—not his place, not how this works, so he keeps his mouth busy with a big, slurping sip of sangria.
He’s seen this scene before, in a movie years ago, he doesn’t remember which, maybe it doesn’t matter: a boy and his dog, only the boy is sending the dog away for some reason. The dog doesn’t want to go, can’t understand why his master would want him gone, so the boy has to throw rocks or something at the dog to make it leave. “Go on, boy! Git!” he yells at his best friend, tearing up maybe, and the dog just looks at him with these big, sad eyes, until finally it backs up, cowed, and then turns around and runs off.
That’s bullshit, Cliff remembers thinking. The dog should have stayed.
Cliff knows who he is in this scene. He’s known for a long time.
Cliff has made a career out of telling Rick what he wants to hear. A lot of the time, he even believes it too.
“’Cept when Rick Dalton’s got a fucking shotgun, I’ll tell you that,” he says, as if Rick’s ever shot at someone for real in his life, as if Rick has any idea what it is to be in real danger, to have someone else’s life in your hands, to have your finger on the trigger and your blood rushing in your ears and have to decide—now, do it, now, or it’ll be too late—whether it’s going to be you or them.
To pull the trigger.
To end another life.
He knows Rick has no fucking clue about any of that, and Rick knows he knows, and yet Cliff’s happy to flatter him. To pretend that the playacting, the cartoonish Nazi-killing, has some kind of real meaning.
The fact that for Rick, it does, might be one of the things Cliff likes best about him.
Although sometimes--when you have your finger on that trigger, staring down your future in the form of a simple choice--sometimes, the choice isn’t between your life and theirs. It’s between their life and your sanity.
The official trial was short, the case dismissed quickly when it became clear there was nothing more than circumstantial evidence, no match against a decorated veteran.
The unofficial trial is not so kind. Hollywood is the court and his colleagues are judge, jury, and executioner, and he’s convicted and sentenced without so much as an opening statement. We find the defendant guilty on the charge of wife-slaying in the first degree, guilty on the charge of being stupid enough to marry the bitch in the first place, and guilty on the charge of being altogether too charming for a stuntman. We sentence him to life in the prison of public shunning without the possibility of parole.
Except there is parole, it turns out, granted by one Rick Dalton via a phone call from the head of the stunt agency (who’s never much liked him anyway), after weeks of no work. Alright, you shithead, can you get your ass to Spahn’s tomorrow? Dalton’s insisting on you, God knows why.
Sure. Sure he can. Disbelief cuts through the haze of guilt and bitterness and what-now.
He finds Rick in his trailer the next morning. Rick opens the door, script in one hand and cigarette in the other, looking, honestly, a little bloated and frazzled. But as soon as he sees who it is, his face breaks into this grin, and it’s the first time anyone’s been happy to see him in weeks, and shit, Cliff could kiss him right there.
“Well, hey! Glad to have you back!” Rick says, as if everything’s normal.
Cliff smiles, easy, casual. “Glad to be back. Thanks for calling me in.”
“Hell, I had to. These other idiots they sent over are r-ruining the damn show.”
Cliff’s pretty sure it’s not the replacement stunt guys that are ruining the show, but that’s none of his business.
“Where’ve you been anyway, huh?” Rick says, heading back into his trailer and stretching out on the couch as Cliff follows. “Who can I blame for stealing you? Gunsmoke? Rawhide?”
Cliff turns from where he’s inspecting the breakfast laid out, and leans against the bar, baffled. Is he joking? “Uh. No, buddy, I ain’t been getting so much work lately.”
“What? Why not?” Rick says, glancing up from his pages.
Cliff stares at him, so confused he actually laughs a little. “Rick. Did you not hear about the, uh, the trouble I had?”
Rick drops the script pages. “What, the shit with Billie? Are you k-kiddin’ me, man? People actually believe that shit?”
Cliff nods slowly. “Seems they do.”
Rick sits up, leans forward. Cliff is surprised by his sudden intensity. “That is unbelievable. You were ac-acquitted in a court of law, what else do they want?” He takes a drag on his cigarette, blows out the smoke, and Cliff is momentarily distracted from the issue at play here. “You really can’t get work?”
Cliff shrugs, trying to play it cool. “It’s been tough.”
Rick shakes his head. “Well, don’t worry, as long as I got a job here, so do you.” He stands, points at Cliff, looking him right in the eyes, and it feels like time stops in this moment, Cliff staring into those eyes as Rick absolves and saves him all at once. “I know you. And I know the truth.”
Cliff never does figure out if Rick really believes it, is naïve, an idiot, overwhelmed by his—respect for Cliff, or what. But either way, the moment Rick gives him that trust, that lifeline, Cliff is a goner. He is Rick’s now, plain and simple.
He knows Rick doesn’t expect anything in return, but he gives him everything.
Or maybe it doesn’t take Rick’s belief in Cliff’s innocence to earn his loyalty. Maybe, if he’s honest with himself, all it takes is his voice, stammer and twang and all. His hair, the way his curls hang over his forehead when Cliff spots him in the makeup trailer and he hasn’t had it done yet. His arms, his hands, his charming fucking grin, his unbelievable goddamned eyes, the bluest Cliff’s ever seen.
(Cliff tries to always be honest with himself, but there are some things you can’t be honest about really, not even with yourself, except in the dark, at night, when you let your mind wander free. Some things that can’t see the light of day, not if you’re going to make it in this world.)
Just once in those years, Rick gives him what he wants. Well, not really, not anywhere close to what he wants, but—a taste, enough to think it might be possible.
It’s been a bad week—a bad few years, really, since Bounty Law ended, but particularly a bad stretch of botched auditions, topped off by The Great Escape opening and looking like it’s going to make McQueen’s career, all of which drives Rick to the bar for a night of wallowing. After several hours of listening to Rick bemoan everything from Steve McQueen’s looks to his agent’s honesty to the lack of available women at the bar that evening, Cliff’s not sure why he tags along on these outings.
But then, it’s not his job to enjoy himself. It’s his job to drive them home at an ungodly hour, Rick slumped next to him, muttering about how he should have never left Bounty Law and his career is over.
Cliff walks him inside with the intention of making sure he gets in to bed okay. But Rick stops just inside the door, leans his head against Cliff’s shoulder. “Cliff, buddy, this is it. This whole town hates me. I guess we had a good run.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Cliff says, rubbing Rick’s arm in an attempt at comfort. “Nobody hates you.”
“They do, they all do,” Rick says, shaking his head into Cliff’s neck. “’Cept you. You’re the only one who’s stuck with me, y-you’re the only one who—who—”
He stops, takes a few steps away from Cliff, looking at him with this strange look, like he's hungry, like Cliff's got something he wants.
“C’mere,” Rick mumbles, and Cliff doesn’t really understand what’s happening but he obeys, of course he does. Rick grabs his arm and pulls him in and then Rick is smashing their mouths together, kissing him hungry, sloppy, and Cliff's mind reels. Rick’s so drunk it’s really not any good at all, not by any reasonable standard, but still, Cliff opens his mouth, presses his chest up against Rick, wanting more, whatever Rick will give him—
And Rick’s pulling them down onto the couch, grinding his hips into Cliff’s, pinning Cliff close to him with an arm around his back, so Cliff can feel how hard he is through his pants. Rick’s not looking at him though, he’s pressing his face into the corner of the couch, the curve of the back of his neck perfectly exposed, Cliff could so easily crane down and press a kiss to it, leave his mark with his teeth, but—he doesn’t.
Anyway it doesn’t matter, because Cliff’s barely got into a rhythm, barely started to believe this is really happening and enjoy it, when Rick comes, sputtering, gasping, what Cliff can see of his face looking almost pained. Cliff’s nowhere near done, but Rick shrinks back into the couch, stops moving. He turns his head back to Cliff, and his eyes are closed but it’s obvious he’s on the verge of tears, and that’s a turn off if there ever was one, so Cliff reluctantly gets up.
Rick lets out a “Fuck,” rubbing his forearm over his eyes. “I’m—I’m sorry, man, I…” he trails off, opening his eyes but still not looking at Cliff.
Cliff doesn’t know what to do at this point, just has an instinct to get out of there before Rick notices the conspicuous bulge in his jeans, so he just says, “See you tomorrow. We gotta leave by eight.” Rick grunts an affirmation, and Cliff sees himself out, leaving Rick alone on the couch.
He drives home like even more of a madman than usual, wondering if he’s nothing more than a warm body to Rick, a convenient replacement, an ego boost. He’s been those things to plenty of others over the years, and it’s never bothered him. So there’s no reason it should bother him now.
So Cliff drinks his sangria, and thinks about best friends and loyalty and leaving. He knows the scene in the movie was bullshit. He knows what should have happened. When you belong to someone, you don’t leave, no matter what.
But in that moment, with Rick throwing rocks at him and yelling Go on, git!, he can’t do it. He can’t tell him, No. I’m yours. That’s more important than anything.
All he can do is tuck his tail, turn around, and trot off into the sunset, because Rick said so.
At least, he plans to.
“Were you scared?” Rick asks, sitting next to the hospital bed, munching on a bagel.
“Nah,” he replies easily.
“At all?”
He considers for a moment. “Nope. Not at all.”
Rick raises an eyebrow at him. “C-cuz you were tripping, I bet.”
Cliff shrugs. “I guess you could say that helped.” It had taken longer than it ought to for the gravity of the situation to sink in, he’ll admit, the acid making everything feel too far-away and ridiculous to matter. But even once he had finally realized they were in real danger, he was never scared, not for a second. “But even without that, it would have been okay. I knew Brandy was there.”
Rick laughs a little, shakes his head. “Shit, man. I’da been scared shitless if it was me.”
Cliff props himself up on an elbow so he can look Rick in the face properly, ignoring the complaints from his hip. “Well, were you?”
He almost can’t believe that shit with the flamethrower actually happened, almost thinks it was something he imagined as he was passed out or an acid hallucination that’s sticking around. But that’s something others don’t realize about Rick—he might be a nervous wreck most of the time, but once in a while he can still blow your mind. Rick fucking Dalton.
“Huh. Well, I guess not,” Rick says, as if he’s only just now remembered what he did. “I was too surprised to be scared, really. Plus, I knew you were there.”
After that, it’s easy enough for Cliff to be talked in to staying with Rick while he's recovering, and then to just never leave. It’s easy enough to slip back into doing odd jobs around the house (“You d-don’t have to do anything, you’re supposed to be resting.” “Aw, I’ll get bored lying around this big house by myself all day.”). It’s easy enough to admit his career as a stuntman is well and truly over, what with the limp that seems like it’ll last. It’s easy enough not to mind.
It’s easy enough to forget they had ever agreed to part ways.
It is also, it turns out, easy enough for a marriage to fall apart.
Cliff feels for Francesca, really. Getting attacked by psycho hippies on your first night in a foreign country would throw anyone off. And while the two of them had gotten along fine in Italy, she certainly wasn’t expecting Cliff to stick around indefinitely (Cliff assumes she was behind Rick’s original plan to let him go, and he can’t really blame her for being perceptive). She’s never openly rude to him, but she spends less and less time with Rick, more and more time on the phone speaking Italian too fast for either of them to understand. Rick, for his part, doesn’t exactly go out of his way to salvage things, preferring to spend his evenings with his new friends next door, gatherings that Francesca begs off of, claiming she can’t follow the English conversation.
And Cliff doesn’t discourage any of this. If he’s no longer a stuntman, he has to accept that now he’s truly nothing but Rick’s—…it doesn’t matter what. Just Rick’s.
And that’s his excuse for his greediness, his need to drink up every moment of Rick’s attention. Even if it means Francesca gets left behind.
The thing is, he likes Francesca. One of the things he likes about her is, she doesn’t take any shit. So it’s really no surprise when she packs her bags, tells Rick to kiss her ass, and is gone.
It sure is a surprise to Rick, though.
He gives it a month after Francesca leaves. That seems like a reasonable amount of time to get over your guilt at the end of your marriage, Cliff figures. (Never mind the fact that he’s still drinking bloody Marys nine years later).
In a way, he loves that month. Rick completely falls apart, of course, and while he doesn’t like seeing Rick like that, he at least knows how to handle it. Clocking how much Rick drinks, teasing him for being a slob until he’s guilted into shaving and getting dressed, dragging him out of the house to a party or even just to Sharon’s, forcing him to go on that audition that he’s convinced is pointless: these are things Cliff has been doing for years. It feels good to be back in this role, being useful: proof that he’s not going to be put out to pasture just yet. And, he’ll admit, he’s glad to have Rick back, to be almost the sole focus of his attention.
On the other hand, sometimes he feels like he’s being slowly tortured to death. He’s never spent so much time alone with Rick before, and it’s welcome, a relief, but it’s also so much less than what he wants. Every time Rick touches him, every time he shakes Rick awake, every time teasing turns into a fake punch, every time Rick cries into his shoulder, everything in him is straining, screaming to take Rick in his arms, look him in the eye, and kiss him soft, slow, like he did in the early days with Billie, like he could have with the crazy hippie girl. But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t because too many nights, when he’s tossing and turning on the couch, trying to find an arrangement that doesn’t make his hip so sore he can barely walk in the morning, his mind goes to that one night. He wants that again, desperately, but not in that way, quick and dirty and impersonal.
He’s waited nine years--even if he didn’t know it at the time, he knows now that he’s been waiting since the day he first walked on the set of Bounty Law. He can keep waiting until it’s right. Until it’s real.
They’re on the couch, each a few drinks deep, Laugh-In on low but mostly ignored. It’s become an evening routine, the two of them talking a little but mostly just sitting quietly, together. Rick must be exhausted from a day of filming (a pilot that seems promising, booked through a friend of Sharon's), because he’s slumped sideways on the couch, sinking lower and lower until he’s fully leaning against Cliff. And Cliff really indulges himself, wrapping an arm around Rick’s shoulders so Rick is pinned to his side, enjoying every second of Rick’s body pressed against his, Rick’s chest pushing against his ribcage with each breath.
“You know you’re my best friend, right?” Rick mumbles, apropos of absolutely nothing.
Cliff leans his head back and groans audibly. He says stuff like this now and then, when he’s drunk and tired, and it drives Cliff fucking nuts. He’s sick of Rick throwing him bones, scraps. He wants more.
Rick shifts against him, looking up. “What?”
“Is that all you can say?” he says, eyes closed, not looking at Rick. Not yet.
Rick pulls away as if to sit up, but Cliff tightens his grip on his shoulder, not letting him go. “Wh-what?”
“We’re friends? That it?”
Rick freezes against him.
Cliff sighs. “Listen. I been thinking. Brandy’s the easiest dog I ever broke. By far.” Brandy, curled up at his feet, raises her head at her name, and Cliff reaches down to pet her. “Know why? Because I saved her, when she was just a puppy, from a couple of big mean dogs that were ganging up on her. You save a dog, she’s yours. And I figure it’s the same with people. You save a man, he’s yours.
“Well, you saved me, what, nine years ago now. And I know it took me a while to return the favor, but I have now.” He pats his hip. “So. Where’s that leave us?”
Rick moves to sit up again, and this time, Cliff lets him. Rick turns and sits sideways on the couch, facing Cliff, but he’s looking down at his lap, biting his lip. “Cliff,” he starts, rubs a hand over his face. “Cliff…”
And that’s still not it, not enough, so Cliff reaches out and grabs Rick’s arm, says, “Rick. You better fucking look at me.”
Rick does, and he looks fucking terrified, so much younger than he is. But he takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and says:
“You d-didn’t have to kill some hippies for me to be yours.”
And everything comes crashing together for Cliff in that moment, his mind explodes with understanding and joy and regret for all the time they’ve wasted. He feels paralyzed by the weight of it all, but Rick is just looking at him, for once totally calm. For once, he’s waiting for Cliff, letting Cliff do what he wants.
So he does.
It’s nothing like the first time, not sloppy or rough. He kisses Rick slow, sweet, taking his time, exploring this mouth he’s spent so much time staring at. Rick responds quickly, climbing over so he’s straddling Cliff on the couch, and Cliff takes advantage of the closeness, wrapping his arms around Rick’s back. He takes a moment to savor how strong Rick is, how solid, even past his prime.
Soon enough Rick pulls out of the kiss and stands up. He smiles shyly, holds out his hand, and pulls Cliff to his feet, and before Cliff can hardly believe it, he’s leading them to the bedroom, the sounds of Rowan and Martin fading away.
As Rick sits on the bed, this strange calm mood that’s come over him falters. He looks up at Cliff and his face turns nervous. “Cliff—I d-don’t—I never—” he stammers, glancing away.
Cliff catches Rick’s chin, tilts it up to look at him again. “It’s okay. No rush. We got all the time we want,” he says, because it’s true.
Rick hears that and smiles at him like Cliff hung the moon, and Cliff’s heart feels so light in his chest, he thinks he might just float away.
They take their time. This time, Rick lets Cliff take the lead, guiding him along. They peel off their clothes one by one, and though it’s mostly nothing they haven’t seen before, each revelation feels new, like a gift to be savored.
Cliff kneels in front of Rick, and he can’t believe his luck, that he gets to do this, to make Rick feel good in this way—it comes so easy, so natural, like it’s what he was born to do. As he works, he keeps glancing up at Rick, his head tilted back, letting go, undone for once. He can’t get enough of the sight. When Rick finishes, it’s beautiful, almost calm, a release.
Cliff starts to climb up on to the bed beside Rick, carelessly putting all his weight on his bad leg, and when he winces at the pain that shoots through his hip, Rick grabs him, whispers, “Careful.” Normally Cliff would be annoyed at the concern, insist he doesn’t need a nursemaid. But in this moment, he loves it, is happy for Rick to take care of him, the way Cliff has so often.
And Rick does indeed take care of him. At first Cliff has to talk him through, but soon enough he figures out what he’s doing and Cliff can understand why Francesca married him in the first place. This is far from Cliff’s first rodeo, but in Rick’s hands he feels like some fourteen-year old again, eager, easy, delighted by everything Rick does. He finishes fast and strong, pushing his body against Rick’s, gasping into his chest, Rick pinning him close.
When he regains his breath and opens his eyes, there's Rick’s neck in front of his face, perfectly exposed. This time Cliff leans over and kisses and teethes his way up it, like he should have done the first time. Rick moans, deep in his throat. “You’re gonna leave a mark.”
Cliff looks up at him and grins. “Good.”
The next day, there is indeed a mark on Rick’s neck, a red siren that Cliff can’t stop looking at, even over barbecue at Sharon’s.
“Got lucky last night, Rick?” Jay teases, observant as ever. Rick turns red as a beet, Sharon breaking out in peals of laughter from her deck chair. And Cliff can’t help himself, he catches Jay’s eye and winks, and Jay looks delighted.
When Jay turns back to the grill, Cliff grabs Rick’s hand and gives it a squeeze, like he’s never going to let go. Rick squeezes back, like he won’t either.