fandomweekly | [#291] From Distant Shores (Miami Vice)

Theme Prompt: #291 – Safe Harbor
Title: From Distant Shores
Fandom: Miami Vice (TV)
Rating/Warnings: PG. Spoilers for the Burnett arc (but if you haven’t seen it, you can just enjoy the weirdness)
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 986
Summary: When Sonny starts having flashbacks of the flashbacks he experienced while an amnesiac Burnett, it illuminates the darkness he’s been living in.
Notes: Song lyrics from "Distant Shores," by Robbie Patton & Jonathan Cain

Fill my darkness with a warm harbor light
Oh, babe you cared and I was saved
I was lost on a stormy night
Understanding swept away...

The relentless sand shifted beneath Sonny Crockett’s feet as he struggled to keep moving, threatening to swallow him like quicksand at any moment. Would anyone notice? He considered taking off his shoes, but worried it might blow his cool image with Rico. Then where would he be?

Sonny snorted self-depreciatingly.

A whim of fate had landed them here. It wasn’t their fault… wasn’t his fault. Why did it feel that way? A deal had turned into a rip-off, bullets took out the tires of the Testarossa, and they were left stranded on the beach miles from nowhere.

They trudged through the darkening night side by side, knowing if they kept heading north and followed the shoreline, they’d eventually reach safety.

“How come you don’t have any trouble keeping your footing?” Sonny asked his partner after he nearly slipped yet again, watching Rico glide almost effortlessly over the sand.

“I don’t fight it,” Rico replied cryptically.

“What the hell does that mean?!” Sonny demanded petulantly, but Rico never answered. Instead, he stopped short so quickly that Sonny ran into his back. As he reached out to steady himself with a hand to Rico’s shoulder, he saw where his partner was looking, and an involuntary jolt ran through him. Straight ahead, a looming black shape appeared that made his blood run cold.

It was a decrepit lighthouse, long having abandoned the job of providing safe harbor for lost souls.

“Uh-uh,” Rico said firmly, backing up several steps.

There was a sinking in Sonny’s stomach. He didn’t blame his partner for having a visceral reaction to the sight. He didn’t remember himself, but he’d read all the case files.

A lighthouse was where, during his bout of amnesia, he had tried to kill his partner.

For the second time.

Seeing the real fear in Tubb’s eyes broke something in Sonny, even as it strengthened his resolve to make it right. “We have to check it out,” he forced himself to say. “Make sure it’s clear.”

“No way.” Rico shook his head, stepping further away.

The least Sonny could do is be the strong one – for once in their partnership. He reached out again and gripped his partner’s wrist. “I’ll go,” he told him with a hard swallow of anxiety.

Rico only nodded, further proof of his discomfit.

Sonny reluctantly left his partner, his feet carrying him towards his worst nightmare.

The door was long gone, just a wide gaping hole like a wound, bleeding darkness from within. Sonny cautiously entered, listening intently. There was no sound save for the waves outside and the mournful sound of seagulls. They seemed to be crying, a broken sound like the end of someone’s world.

Then Sonny spied the rusty, spiral staircase…

Instantly, he was back there. That night. The night he’d almost killed his partner.

Phantom voices whispered into the space around him. “It’s me, Rico.” Begging Sonny to remember, to stop denying their bond.

Sonny fell to the dirty floor, clamping his hands over his ears to block out the damning words. The world went white, and he saw himself sitting in the passenger seat of Rico’s caddy.

“I love you, man,” Rico told him softly.

Then he was in a deserted gas station, confessing the guilt of abandoning a friend in need whose only crime had been to love other men.

Abandoning himself?

The flashbacks continued, and he knew he was reliving the same things he had experienced that night when Burnett met with Cooper. His mind was opening, exposing its hidden secrets.

He’d pulled his gunshot to the right, because he couldn’t kill this man. A dizzying cascade of flashbacks followed: lying on a chaise in a drunken stupor, a constant parade of his partner in his head. Side by side always, in cars, boats, in New York; God, he’d been so afraid Rico wouldn’t return to Miami with him. That terrible moment after the shock of being shot and before the lights had gone out, when he’d looked at Rico to see his panic mirrored in his partner’s eyes. It was like he could feel their connection severing.

Distant thunder rumbled in the background, ominously threatening. Sonny was out on a leaky boat in rocky waters, alone, searching for safe harbor.

But he’d always had a compass to guide him.

Sonny let the images come, more memories of his time as Burnett returning, interspersed with constant flashbacks of Rico. Rico, Rico, Rico. The only thing that mattered in his world. The good times, the bad, it had been an endless loop in his head.

A nearby noise brought Sonny back to the present, and he raised his head to see Rico falling to his knees next to him. Braving the danger for him, as always.

“Are you okay?” was, of course, the first thing out of Rico’s mouth.

“It was because of you that I remembered,” Sonny avowed, gripping his partner’s shoulders. “You did bring me out of it.” Sonny knew that Rico felt as if he should have been able to bring him to his senses and needed to make him realize that he had. “It’s always been you.”

“Sonny…”

“I remember everything.”

Sonny opened his eyes to find himself -- just as he’d been all night -- in the salon on the St. Vitus Dance. His face was wet, and he was staring into Rico’s eyes. He could recognize it now… the fear wasn’t of him; it was for him.

Rico’s hands were a vice around his biceps. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“I’ve got you, too.” He mirrored the touch and waited.

After a tense pause, Rico nodded.

Sonny finally fell into the arms that were waiting for him.

From distant shores
You have brought me home again...