"It's what they don't tell you about saving other people, y'know," comes the voice, and Hunter's head snaps upwards. "It's what I wish they'd told me."

Every week, right? That's long been deal. Every week, sometimes twice, here Hunter Buchanan is. In the basement of a Church, with its shitty, flickering fluorescent lighting, the smell of old coffee and stale donuts in the air. The faces change, but the arrangement doesn't. It's the same ring of plastic chairs, the same set of haggard looks; the same skeletons and the same demons, thick and damaging as the men here try and pick up the pieces.

The man speaking tonight is a mainstay in places like this. Ben's in his fifties, hair cropped close in a buzz cut. Old, faded tattoos cover almost every inch of his skin, even down to his ham-sized fists. When he speaks, it's with a low, gravelly voice, made hoarse by years of smoking and laughing in neon-lit bars— for all the good it did him.

“You want to pay it forward, right? If not for us, then for the program. It's why we're encouraged to take the charge. Help another brother-in-arms.” A murmur of agreement passes through the circle. “A hero walks into your life and all you wanna do is be that guy to somebody else. I get it. Hell, I’ve done it.”

Hunter's eyes wander. They briefly clock the set of Ben’s jaw and then down to his fist, where one hand – each finger adorned with heavy, brass rings – stays clenched over his knee. There are scabs over his knuckles. Hunter’s not so sure what to make about that.

"But if that's why you're doing it," Ben continues, "You're setting yourself up for failure."

The room goes still. The murmur of agreement that passed through before isn’t echoed, this time around. Some men shift or stop shaking their legs. Others stare down into their Styrofoam cups. Hunter exhales, long and low, and settles back in his chair.

As a rule, it’s worth interrogating – the reasons why anybody does anything, why paring yourself down to a knife’s edge is so easy out there, living some shape of what your life is supposed to look like now that you’re better. But in here, in this very room and this very ring, it’s a fight to realize the depth and breadth of who you really are. That maybe the things that you do aren’t because you’re good and whole and right—that anybody’s capable of being as selfishly, solemnly human as everyone out there.

Take a fearless moral inventory. For Hunter, it’s always been the most difficult step.

He ducks out ten minutes earlier than he should. The unofficial grace period at the end of all meetings is twenty minutes, enough time for another round of coffee and an exchange of low thank-yous and quiet acknowledgements. Usually, he shoots the shit. Catches up. Does him a world of good, to resettle back into his skin.

This time around, he ducks out. A memory has been knocking on the edges of his consciousness since he got here, and it sits in the center of his chest like lead. Hunter rubs a hand over his chest absently, the cherry-lit end of his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth as he squints up through the smoke, eyeing the expanse of stars out in the sky.

Maybe, he thinks, he should have stayed in Chicago. Looked after his sister. Mom would have liked that, that Becca had him.

Hunter exhales his drag. Scrubs a hand over his face, his thoughts traveling to a world away.

"Alright, Buchanan?"

Hunter’s head snaps upwards again. Ben, from before, smiles gently, and Hunter wordlessly offers him his pick from the carton. Ben shakes his head. “Nah. Wanted to talk to you, actually.”

Hunter’s brows shoot up, mild surprise mixed with curiosity. Go ahead.

"Heard about RJ."

Ben says it the way other people might deliver bad news. The set of his face is gentle despite the lion’s maw that’s been inked into the side of his neck, but it’s expectant. It’s the start of a conversation that won’t die.

It hits Hunter’s chest like a physical pang, all sharp and dull at once. The memory he’s been ignoring all night – all week, maybe all month – comes to in stark relief. Rushing to the last time he saw that kid, still skinny from drugs, cold all the time, but trying desperately to be a real person. Talking in low, hushed voices at a late-night diner; Hunter on his bike, swerving through traffic, answering the call in the middle of the day because that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what you’re supposed to do, when you promise to take care of someone.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hunter tells him. It makes Ben laugh.

“Of course you don’t. That’s the entire point of being here, brother. You sure as shit knew that, or you wouldn’t have come.” Ben adds, “And you didn’t exactly leave town all hush-hush, neither.”

“Tried to,” Hunter offers, but the inflection of the joke isn’t wholly there. Ben smiles sympathetically, and for the first time in a long, long time, Hunter desperately wants a drink. Hates himself for wanting it the next minute, because for all they talk about life skills and behavior therapy, it’s the same mental track. The same mental wound. Inescapable and cold and unforgiving like winter.

A fearless moral inventory. Forget drugs. It’s always harder than they make it out to be, being honest with yourself.

Hunter takes another pull. The cherry red end burns into life, then dims again. He exhales, and Ben stays companionably with him, waiting for the response that’ll come. He opens his mouth to speak, and then—

The sharp first few notes of his phone. Hunter fishes it out of his back pocket, squints down at the caller ID: WALTER, SFC.

"I gotta go take this,” Hunter murmurs, briefly claps a brother-in-arms over the back before stamping out his cigarette. “Work thing. See you next week, Ben."

Saved but for the grace of God. Like always.