Chapter Text
In six months, everything changes. And then for ten years, nothing much does.
That’s not really true, of course, plenty changes — hell, sometimes it feels like the seventies are nothing but change, one big unraveling — but Cliff and Rick, they don’t change. Or maybe that’s not true either, maybe they’re just damned good at pretending they’re not changing, pretending they can stay in their cocoon on Cielo Drive forever. All wrapped up in each other, ignoring how nature takes its course, despite the signs.
Because the signs, they’re there, from the moment that knife goes in to Cliff’s hip.
It’s far from the worst Cliff’s been hurt, so when Rick clutches his arm in the hospital, smiling tearfully, and says, Don’t worry, buddy. You’ll be good as new in no time, Cliff just nods and thinks, Sure, why not? Never mind that it seems like Rick’s trying to convince himself more than anything else, that’s nothing new.
He’s out of the hospital in two days, ditching the cane a few weeks later, right on schedule. But while Cliff would expect the injury to keep fading over the next few months, it seems to settle in, take up permanent residence. Six months later — when Francesca’s long gone and the break-in ought to be firmly in the rearview mirror — he’s still dragging his right leg behind him a little, still waiting for the ache to subside each morning before he gets up, still instinctively reaching for something to support himself as he sits or stands.
That in itself isn’t such a big deal: he gets around just fine, and pain is the last thing in the world that would bother him, and he doesn’t mind if he never stunts again, what with the…new arrangement with Rick. (The arrangement, that is, where Cliff quietly sells his trailer and Rick quietly stops paying him, and without saying a word about it he slips right in to the space Francesca left. That arrangement.)
But still, he’s always just let injuries roll off his back, isn’t used to one becoming a permanent part of him like this. He has to admit that, well, it does bother him a little. Not the injury itself, but the fact that if he’s not recovering like he used to, it can only mean one thing:
He’s getting old.
He says this to Rick one night, when Rick frets that he’s not healing faster for the millionth time. Rick looks like he’s been punched in the gut. “Don’t—don’t you go dyin’ on me, old man,” he says, worrying the sheets between his hands. He’s aiming for humor, but it’s obvious there’s real terror behind it.
Cliff sees no reason to worry about dying, so he chuckles, pulls Rick closer, and kisses him ‘til the crease is gone from between his eyes. “Don’t worry, partner,” he says. “I ain’t going nowhere anytime soon.” Which is a thing that’s easy enough to say when you have no idea whether it’s true.
If Cliff’s hip was the first sign, Brandy is the second. When she starts to break down in 1976, she’s old enough that Cliff can’t be surprised, but still, he hates to see her like that: barely keeping food down, muscle melting off her, lethargic all the time, that spark of intelligence gone from her eyes. When the vet says there’s not much they can do for her, he knows it’s time.
“Why don’t you have the vet do it? You know they do that, right?” Rick says.
Cliff shakes his head. “Ain’t my way. If you decide it’s time to end a creature’s life, you ought to be willing to do it yourself, that’s how I was taught. I’ve done that for all my dogs, and I’ll do it for Brandy.”
So one morning, he gives Brandy a serving of real hamburger meat, then drives her out to an open stretch of field, not wanting to scare the neighbors. She sniffs around a little and lies down without even needing to be told, looking up at him. He sits next to her, leans over so she can lick his face, rubs her belly for a long time. He says, “You saved us, you know that? Thanks, darling. You’re the best I ever had,” as her tail thumps on the ground. Then, keeping her head still, he takes his gun and holds it to the right spot.
She’s not scared — never could be scared of him.
It’s quick and painless.
He buries her there, and drives home with the shot ringing in his ears. Later, Rick kisses him gently and holds him all through the night.
So, two signs of—change. Aging. Mortality. And that’s not even getting to Rick.