I simply love this show! Milt and Russ are easily making their way up my favorite duo list!

If you haven't checked Battle Creek out, you should! :)

Looking back he should have known this would happen, and he'll rub his rough, calloused fingers over his face long enough to rid the guilt from his features before anyone can see, but there's a part of him that knows it's impossible to do with the blood on his hands.

His fist meets the bathroom door like swelling knuckles meet the cheekbone of an enemy complete with gritted teeth and a curse pushing between the fissures. He's watching shades of crimson swirl down the drain in the sink before he even knows he's turned on the faucet and he's brought his own blood to the surface before he can register that he's just shattered the mirror in front of him with the same motion as opening the bathroom door. Only this time, he doesn't wash the blood off.

He lets it run between his fingers, twisting around each bulged knuckle until it drips off the tips and turns his stomach. He swallows back the bile, unwilling to lose anything else, and for a moment he wishes he hadn't shattered the glass because his reflection isn't there to hold him accountable. He's staring at a pale, tiled wall that won't look back at him, that won't move with him when he starts to buckle under the weight of the truth staring back at him and it reminds him of Milt.

"It's not that I don't like you, Milt," Russ had said on the maple syrup case, and the agent had done his best to mold his face into that of a pale, tiled wall only to turn his head away when he failed, but the detective wouldn't let him. Russ followed him, like a poor reflection in a broken mirror holding him accountable for the unsatisfactory part of life. "I just don't trust you," and now Russ can see that maybe Milt had put thought into choosing him as his partner, after all. Maybe Milt had always been staring at a pale, tiled wall that always let him hide from his own truth.

Russ had thought he had Milt all figured out, even said so before raiding that first house together, but Milt had looked him in the eye without wavering except for a split second when he speculated the agent had never experienced death and Agnew continued with,"You can't be a cop and be this naive. It's just not possible," but Milt had already turned back around and caught his gaze sharply and added an, "I agree," shattering any reflection of truth in that assumption.

He kept assuming until it didn't matter anymore. Until Milt, who had made it perfectly clear that they didn't owe each other anything, was willing to give him one thing he could never give back.

It happened in seconds, but it plays out in memory as if Russ just stood there watching the minutes tick by.

"It's alright," Milt had soothed as the man who never lied, but Russ had a brief recollection of the agent lying to the Commander about Ricky's witness identification for him, whether or not Milt cares to admit it, and it makes the detective tense even more, because it sure as shit wasn't alright.

"For me, yeah, maybe. But for you, shit, you just took a bullet!" Russ shot back and it must have sounded more honest than anything Milt could hear because he turned his head away, rolled it on the pavement so that he didn't have to accept it, but the detective grabs his face, forces Milt to look back up at him where he's leaned over his sprawled out form. "But... it's going to be alright. Stay with me- Font, where's the damn ambulance?- Hey, shit, stay with me! Come on, you get pissy when I ditch you on a case, shouldn't be too hard for you to do, right? Think of it as me including you."

To Agent Chamberlin's credit, he actually managed to grin, to give that faint laugh that Russ had come to understand as Milt's own way of holding on to the best in an uncomfortable situation. Russ could only offer the same, because he may be forcing the agent to look at him like a horrid reflection in a mirror, but he can't bring himself to destroy the hopeful part of Milt no matter how much he hates him.

"Of course," Russ carried on as he pressed down harder on the bullet wound in Milt's stomach, "it would've been nice to have been included in your plan, Agent Chamberlin, because then, maybe I could have told you how insane you are and stopped you from doing it!"

"Tha's why...I d-din't tell you," Milt slurred as if he couldn't feel his own lips as they fell around the words. "I didn't deserve for you to stop me."

"What the hell does that even mean? I'd put that down to blood loss, but I'm pretty sure you would've said something that stupid without being shot." Russ could feel Milt's head underneath his hand begin to loll on its own accord and held him tighter. "Woah, hey! None of that!"

"Y-you're a good person, Russ, and we n-never owed... each other anything."

Russ finds himself standing in the hospital room by the time he's played out all the memory his mind can take and when he sits down beside the bed, rubbing his hands on his jean-clad thighs, he's thankful that he mindlessly washed his hands clean. He leans forward, relishing the pain that comes from his elbows pressing too hard on the tops of his legs while rubbing wearily at his face.

It's after another moment of keeping his head bowed that he manages to look at Milt lying in the hospital bed underneath blankets, wires, and tubes. It's another moment after that that he stands up to pace around the room. He's rubbing at his mouth when he turns back to the unconscious agent and says, "I feel like I owe you everything, so you better damn well make it."

He's fallen asleep long enough that his back aches painfully when he jerks up from his chair at the sound of uncomfortable rustling and increased beeping, but it's forgotten in favor of catching Milt's dazed, and slightly panicked, expression.

"Easy, Milt. You're in what they call a hospital. It's where people come when bad things happen to them," Russ teases, but it's way too soft for it to be considered spiteful and the injured agent just blinks owlishly at him. Agnew rolls his eyes, because even a near-death experience can't kill Milt's ability to annoy him by doing absolutely nothing.

"Are you...you know, okay in terms of needing a doctor or a nurse? On second thought, don't answer that. I know you need a doctor, possibly a psychologist, and the nurse, well we're not at that stage where you can discuss your sexual fantasies with me."

Milt blinks again, it's slow but more alert than before, but still, he says nothing. "Oh, I get it. You're waiting for me to thank you for taking a bullet for me. Well, it's not going to happen, because that wasn't bravery. That was stupidity. Any good cop could see a million different ways out of that scenario without anyone taking a bullet, but you? Oh, no. You see an opportunity to one up everybody and jump at it. So no, I'm not going to thank you for putting me through the next month of having to watch you get coddled by everyone."

Milt blinks again, and this time Russ can see that the pain medication has dulled enough so that Milt can think coherently while lying in agony. He rolls his eyes a second time while pushing the button to call the nurse, not missing the way Milt continues to stare at him. "What? I meant it, I'm not thanking you."

"I know," Milt starts and it's so raspy that both of them wince as he swallows. "I know I said we didn't owe each other anything, but-" Milt finally lets his eyes wander over the empty room before they land back on Russ, "I'm pretty sure I got you flowers when you got shot. It would've been nice is all I'm saying."

"Oh my God," Russ groans and pinches the bridge of his nose as the nurse walks in.

"Okay, Detective. I'm going to have to ask you to leave for a few minutes," the nurse says as if she's said it all before and Russ starts taking a few steps backwards towards the door before she's even finished speaking. Milt watches their exchange, blinking owlishly again as she pushes more pain medication through his line while he settles his gaze back on Russ.

It causes the retreating man to pause, catch his gaze like all the times before, even tilt to his right when Milt tries to look away, "Hey," and he straightens when the injured agent looks him straight in the eye again. "I'll be back when she's finished," he says, and Milt gives him that small grin and faint laugh Russ knows all too well.

He may never fully understand Milt Chamberlin, never know why he thinks everyone can be trustworthy, why he says things like, "When you prick him, does he not bleed", or why he was willing to take a bullet for him, but he understands enough to know that when he walks back into the room with a vase of flowers and a cynical expression, Milt will simply grin at him as if they've bumped into each other and made an apology while believing that Russ is being sincere, and by the time it all happens, and he's sitting back down in his chair by the bed for the sixth night in a row waiting to be woken up by a drug-addled partner, Russ starts believing it, too.

AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!