Chapter Text
“I dare say you’re spoiling her,” Nadir said, and grinned to himself behind his newspaper. “I’d be careful, if I were you. Keep it up and she’ll be the one training us.”
Erik paused his knitting to laugh aloud. He really was quite a sight. A sight that made Nadir adjust the paper to hide the giddiness overwhelming him now. Here was this tall, imposing man who always dressed in black— employing himself in the creation of a rose-pink, dog-sized quilt.
And how dulcet, how delightful was the sound of his laughter! “Your powers of observation fall short yet again, Daroga. For it is you who has her in his lap!”
This was indeed true. For the past hour or so, in fact, Crevette had been fighting with the newspaper for Nadir’s attention. He would read for a while. She’d wriggle up against him. Nadir would scratch behind Crevette’s ears, just to remind her that he was still there, and that he still wanted her there. He would resume reading. She’d nibble at his paper. He’d read. She’d lick him. Finally, when Crevette had yapped excitedly, Nadir had rested a hand on her back and endeavored to hold the newspaper with one hand.
He smiled down at Crevette. She was soft and warm, as usual, but her head was erect, and her brilliant little eyes seemed to study the paper as though she were reading it herself. Precocious creature!
“But, then,” Nadir said, “that only proves my point, doesn’t it?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter who’s doing the pampering. She’s made devoted servants out of us all the same.”
“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Erik mused, before returning to his knitting.
Nadir set his newspaper down on the couch and devoted all his attention to petting Crevette. It had become something of an instinct now, an automatic motion that he defaulted to whenever his mind needed soothing. And it was mutually beneficial, too. Crevette always fell asleep if he did it for long enough. There were times, like when she could smell rain before it fell, or like when his own thoughts became too loud to bear, when he wondered if she needed the comfort as much as he did.
He leaned back and sighed. Nadir wasn’t sure if it was with contentment, or if it was an effort to alleviate the emotion building up in his chest now. It had been decades since he’d had something like this. A complete picture. An almost-complete picture, at the very least. Someone who loved him, and something to take care of.
A family.
The word itself brought tears to his eyes. Nadir glanced furtively at Erik to make sure he was still knitting; the clicking of needle against needle told him all he needed to know. Good. He was safe. He could cry as much as he liked, so long as he was quiet about it. He retreated into another time: a roaring fireplace ahead, an intricate rug plush under his feet, his son’s babbling in his lap, his wife swiping a sip from his cup of tea. Two dissonant points converging. What was, and what might have been. And then another: the gray banks of the Caspian, Erik, young and thin and foolish, smiling for once in his life, neither he nor Nadir even once taking an eye off of Reza, desire paths in the sand, salt in the air.
Nadir blinked, and the past was gone.
And he was gone.
Crevette whined. She licked the tears that had fallen onto her back, then rose up to clean Nadir’s face. He pulled the little dog close to him and squeezed her like a stuffed animal. Nothing was going to take her away from him. Not if he didn’t allow it. Neither God nor man nor death itself could overpower the tremendous love he held for his gentle companion.
It was this love that made him ache so profoundly.
Nadir must not have been very quiet about it at all, because the knitting stopped.
He looked up.
Erik’s eyes were kind. Their color had softened to lamplit amber, the way they often did when he was concerned. He set down his needles and tilted his head at Nadir. His countenance was so sincere, and his manner so graceful, that Nadir might have burst into tears had he not cared about being an inconvenience.
Erik had enough to worry about.
But his tone could have convinced Nadir otherwise. “Is everything alright, love?”
“I’m fine,” Nadir said, because it was all he ever said. “I’m just… happy.”
It wasn’t wholly a lie, and he kissed the top of Crevette’s head to prove it.
Erik was saying something. Nadir couldn’t ascertain what, though it sounded reassuring enough. His thoughts were far away again. Not in time, but in space.
It wasn’t the same.
Maybe it never would be the same.
But…
Nadir’s gaze returned to his lap, where an innocent creature lay curled, a creature to whom he and Erik and this very apartment and Central Park were the whole entire world. Then his eyes drifted to Erik. Oh, Erik, dearest Erik, who could still make Nadir sigh and swoon and daydream even at this age. If he could heal, could make the choice to get better and be better and do better, surely anyone could. Perhaps… if there was hope for him, there was hope for Nadir. There had to be. There had to be a way in which, even if he never quite felt whole again, he could grow around the wound in his heart until it was little more than one decaying log in a thousand-acre forest.
It would never be the same.
Maybe it didn’t have to be.
Half-awake on a balmy April morning, Erik had a thought.
He shambled out of bed, scrawled something in The Book, and went right back to sleep.
He awoke with no recollection of it.
They ask me how my darling little Crevette got her name
The truth is that my puppy and a shrimp are quite the same
They both curl into circles and their bellies are both pink
They both have little beady eyes as dark as India ink
But Crevette’s afraid of water, even though she smells like fish
To spend my days with her and my true love’s my only wish
And that is, I believe, where the likenesses end
For shrimp is a food, but Crevette is a friend.