The house was dark when Peter dragged himself inside, the door creaking softly as it swung open, keys jangling in his hand before he dropped them carelessly into the bowl beside the front door.

'Are you going to be okay?' Johnny had asked him last night.

He thought about it as he stepped into his home, feet dragging softly along the carpet and shadows deeply, darkly black against the pale walls. Somewhere to his right, a plastic face smiled at him, bubble-shaped and childish. To his left, the shadow-bars of a bed that would never be used, sitting vacant and eerie near the window. Outside, the sky shown black and starry, a streetlight shining in orange light and casting shapes upon the walls.

Empty. The house was empty, Peter the first to brave it between the two of them. He smelled like hotel cigarette smoke and scotch, smelled like unwashed clothes and the stale fever-sweat of a nightmare.

And smelled like Johnny, a little. Ashes and kerosene. They hadn't done anything - well, nothing sexual. Nothing... like that, no. Peter was a married man. Happily married. Instinctively, he twisted the wedding band around his finger and stared soundlessly ahead of him.

No. They hadn't done anything... nothing like that. Just Johnny's arms around him and Johnny's larger frame rocking his own smaller one back and forth, comforting and warm, a soft older-brother kiss against the crown of his head as he choked on nonsensical sounds.

Past the living room, where photos of himself and his wife smiled brightly at whomever should look, where videos of their wedding or their friends sat unwatched by the TV set.

Past the kitchen and through the hallway, photographs lining the walls almost chronologically, the last of Mary Jane with her blouse stretching over a pregnant belly.

Up the stairs, each step heavy, dragging, every bone in his body aching with exhaustion and lack of energy. His eyes burning with tiredness, he tried to stumble to bed, slowly.

Crack.

A pause. He lifted his foot, reached down to pick up the broken plastic shards of what he'd stepped on, small beads rolling along the floor and the plastic sphere cracked into four pieces under the weight of his shoe. Colorful - bright pink, with little elephants in a design around the sphere, a handle attached to the bottom to hold onto and shake...

Something in him broke then, broke into pieces as he stood alone in his dark, cold bedroom with the broken rattle in his hand. He trembled for a moment and then this... this noise came out of him, a noise he hadn't been aware of making until it was already happening, choking out a sob as he held the broken baby toy in his hands and sat at the edge of the bed, fists over his eyes.

'Are you going to be okay?' Johnny had asked him last night.

No, he decided as he curled in on himself, alone and weeping in the cold sheets of his otherwise empty bed, MJ still back in the hospital and no doubt as broken as he himself was.

No, he wouldn't be okay.

Neither of them would be.