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It’s like there’s something infectious in the air, some cosmic force driving against him that was making this year far more difficult than ever before.
Around this time last year, the team was pulling names out of a hat. Making plans for a party in the break room to celebrate not just as a team, but as a family.
This year, there’s been no such talk and he was semi-reluctantly making plans to visit his real family in the Lonestar state.
The first year he’s gone since Warrick passed.
What had gone so right last year, the first year the new team felt comfortable enough, with the latest arrangement of members, to celebrate together? Enjoy each other’s company? Exchange gifts? Laugh and smile and spread contagious cheer, their faces glowing brighter than the darkness that constantly consumed them?
Maybe he’s still just grumpy after having to excuse himself from working a case where a victim had been buried alive—not the first time this year his past had come back to haunt him, and not the last as he would quickly experience, with a bit of a twist—but there’s a part of him that’s shameful that he let such an occurrence ruin his whole festive vibe. And hell, he had thought he was past it enough to make a joke about it at the scene, because premature burial was a death in itself and while this victim escaped, he wasn’t as lucky as Nick to keep his life after he rose from the grave.
So, the poor guy died twice.
But he knows it wasn’t just the two-by-six patch of freshly dug earth that triggered his trauma to emerge from underneath his skin.
It was the all too similar parallels to his own childhood regaled by a man whose life was ruined a long time ago, just like his was.
It was the the subconscious fear of being trapped in the same Plexiglas chambers he used to conduct experiments, to process evidence. Seeing the disturbing stillness of a rubber suit helplessly entrapped in a glass case that was just as tall as him. Hearing his own lover’s voice describing how they would suck the air out of the chamber, sticking with him long enough to have a dream of a similar robbery.
Smelling the dirt that flew up into his mouth when he got a little too close to the ground as he picked out snake skins from the hole.
So needless to say, he wasn’t in the right frame of mind as he turned down Greg’s offer for a beer, instead electing to catch an early flight and surprise his parents because he’s been itching to not just talk to, but see his mom. Be held in her arms. Tell him everything will be okay and that the nightmares are just that, nightmares. Dreams to chase away with the rising sun at the dawn of a new day, one that shouldn’t be wasted holding onto the tricks that the human mind tends to play on itself, feeding on insecurities and fears and doubts and the horrors of the world.
He doesn’t even care about the holiday. The celebration of tradition and commercialization with ceremonies of presents and delicious food and heartwarming movies and reunited family and good tidings. He’s not in the mood. Not feeling the spirit.
More than anything, he just wants to smile again. Genuinely. Not the fake, plastered one he dons at work. Not the smug smirks though he tries not to, determined to keep a scowl because he doesn’t want anybody thinking he’s okay—cause he’s not. He has to put on a brave face cause he can’t crumble; he’d be out of a job.
And more than that, he’s distracted. Too distracted to be with Greg and give him the love and attention he deserves—the same love and attention that Nick honestly feels he’s not getting in return—while he’s so absorbed in himself—ancient words now haunting him, scrutinizing him for being so caught up in himself that he ignored his “best friend.” Shame on you, Nick. Manners, Nick. Manners!
He represses the flashback with all the others, filing and locking them away in the darkest recess of his mind because that was a long time ago.
He’s past all of this.
He needs to instead focus on getting better enough for Greg to stop being frustrated with his stubborn ignorance so that maybe they could actually, really talk instead of looping themselves in the same tip-toeing tango they danced for years before Nick finally came out of himself and into his arms.
First step is admitting he has a problem with communication. Full communication, not just the idle chit chat and deep discussions held around the glowing tables in the lab, no—he needs to open up to Greg when he’s hurt. Why he’s hurt. Make sure that Greg isn’t hurt too.
Gearing up to board. See you on the flip side. Merry X-mas, give Papa Olaf a fist bump for me.
It’s only the tenth draft of the text he ultimately sends after five more with an air of confidence despite the flutter of his heart against his chest as he passes through security, feeling the same sort of relief he did when he was given the all clear after tripping the wire of a bomb.
Greg doesn’t respond and he doesn’t necessarily find that odd, he knows Greg was wrapping up another case so that he could hop on his own plane. He’ll just text again when he lands, just as Greg asked when they parted ways just hours ago.
But it’s his number he still presses on speed dial when he’s taken from behind in the bathroom just mere minutes before his flight begins boarding.
“Trying to fly away, little bird?” a chuckling hiss into his ear, but he’s not given a chance to answer with the four thick fingers cupped over his mouth, blunt nails digging into his cheekbone as a thumb presses into one of his eyes, his nose pressed upwards against the side of the index finger. He first tries to scream through the makeshift muzzle, before attempting to bite or lick off the constricting flesh as he’s pulled away from the sink that he was freshening his face in and into a bathroom stall, the door bouncing off its hinges as he then tries to kick his feet, squirm his arms out of the hold—no help is coming, it seems, he now wishes he hadn’t beaten the crowd and arrived early to the airport in an effort to get some sort of peace before a mind-numbing trip through the air.
Instead, he falls numb in a different way, a stab in the side of his straining neck as his assailant whispers, “shh, shh, shh, shh…”
The world begins to morph into a foggy haze and his inhibitions tighten so much that he loses complete control of his body, his eyes watch as his boarding pass is taken from his pocket and slid underneath the stall. Hears the assailant’s voice growl, “have a nice trip” to the hand that swipes the ticket, his heart goes from a fleeting flutter to an all-out stampede that comes to an immediate halt when an ice cold chill slides up his spine, into his brain and causes a short circuit that shuts him off entirely.
This time last year, he was the luckiest man alive.
Greg and Nick had taken a mutual break from each other after the stakeout gone wrong and Nick had finally seemed like he was making some sort of effort to recover from the depression that wasn’t such an easy fix. His body inflated, heavier than Greg had ever seen the man despite his endless appetite—but it was the swelling in his face, the thickening neck and arms and thighs that didn’t quite...disgust Greg but didn’t quite attract him either. He stopped taking care of his hair to the point where he just shaved it all off. He stopped shaving. He stopped caring.
Greg, meanwhile, never gave up. Or maybe he did.
As Nick became less appealing, Morgan continued to pique his interest. Someone on the younger side. Still, for the most part, unburdened by the job and unbroken—not without her own brush of death which may as well be part of the crime lab initiation at this point—but she still never lost the...freshness that she brought with her when she arrived in Vegas.
Though she damn near did when she nearly lost her own life, again, all because Nick made the wrong call.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t still upset about that, and not quite at the point of regret in the verbal daggers he threw at the man afterwards.
It was the breaking point, after all, and couldn’t have come at a better time. A few weeks later Nick got an invitation to do some special training in Quantico. With Catherine. And he came back stronger and rejuvenated and...with a beard that blew them all away in its majesty and Greg still couldn’t help some of his feelings towards Morgan, but saw Nick’s effort in getting better, and, well, one serious conversation later...they were back together again.
It wasn’t just the sudden appeal, it was seeing Nick smile again. Hearing him crack jokes. Asking Greg out. Taking charge when he needed to and taking no bullshit.
It was seeing the Nick Stokes that he fell in love with, as if they were meeting again for the first time.
Christmas came and the spirits were higher than ever before. He just so happened to get Morgan for Secret Santa and was overjoyed that he could give her even just an ounce of the joy that she had always brought him. He watched as Nick had a drinking contest with Finn and was the textbook definition of jolly with his rosy cheeks and bright smile and maybe it was the egg nog but when they went home that night, everything in the past, all the things that were left unsaid were spoken in whispering mumbles as their faces nuzzled together, hollered as their bodies entangled into each other, simply...said like never before.
And this job had told him from the get-go that all good things come to and end, but...this end came too soon.
Nick shaved off his beard, hell, his whole head. Wouldn’t say why. Lost his smile again. Lost his youth. Became a closed book that Greg couldn’t pry open no matter how hard he tried. Even when he did grow out his hair and beard again, there was still something...seemingly bothering him but he just wouldn’t say what.
Greg was able to hazard a few guesses, but they were admittedly big stretches in the assumption that Nick still had unresolved trauma from over the past decade and some change.
He knows if he asked, Nick would just say he’s fine but he’d be lying.
They’d fall into the same cycle as before.
The same patterns repeated. Nick being reclusive. Nick changing his appearance out of insecurity—something Greg had never quite understood before, until he was called out for it, himself though it was less about his looks and more about his...age.
They’re both getting older, far too older to play these games with their hearts.
He decides maybe it’s best to give him ultimatum, because he’s just... tired. Wants this suffering on both of their accounts to end. Wants Nick to be happy, but Greg needs—no, deserves to be happy, too. And he can’t be that if Nick keeps toying with his emotions, joking with him one day—teasing him about being spotted for 5-O in the club—and then just being...icy the next. As if he’s upset, but not saying why.
He can’t believe it, but Greg’s finally realized what he’s needed from Nick is stability. It’s what Nick’s always given him before, what he’s shown Greg over the years as he kept the man from drifting too far as he blindly floated in the air getting lost in life. Kept him from spontaneously combusting—though he was able to show Nick some of the appeal in the thrill of impromptu adventures, surprises, fleeting highs from random encounters and while Nick never quite got it the way Greg did, he knows that he did end up taking some of Greg’s teachings to heart, too. Became looser. Took more risks.
So Greg’s taking his own risk now, to see if Nick thinks their relationship is worth a damn or not.
Nick turns down the beer and Greg realizes maybe it’s for the best, maybe this isn’t the right time. He’s going to his family and Greg’s going to his, and he wouldn’t want either of them to be the misers, although the misery has been widespread as a whole this year.
“Rain check. Got a...flight to catch,” Nick gestures with a thumb to his car behind him, his other hand hovering over his own heart.
“Alright. Have a safe flight,” Greg shoves his hands into his pockets, finding interest in his twisting shoes into the pavement of the parking garage. He looks up with his eyes, pouts his lips out. “Text me when you land?”
“Yeah. Sure,” Nick gulps. “Well...Merry Christmas, G.”
“Merry Christmas,” Greg nods, and watches Nick drive off, wishing he hadn’t wasted the trip because his car is parked on the other side of the lot, where they had first come from.
He starts to slump towards his car, trying to hype himself up about the upcoming break from work and from Nick but he wishes it had gone differently. That things weren’t so weirdly tense.
He starts stumbling into the middle of the lane, walking with almost no direction as his thoughts start to unravel, and doesn’t seem to hear the tires slapping the pavement behind him, doesn’t see the beams of light warn him—mainly because the lights of the predatory vehicle had been turned off for that very reason—until he feels a scorching grill push into his lower back and flick him face-first onto the ground. His face smashes into the stone, his senses scatter and he tries to pick them all up along with his keys and phone that had fallen out with him, but there’s a voice that waves through one ear and out the other—
“Oh my God, dude, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you—”
The words are spoken loudly, sarcastically.
Greg groans, his tongue tasting the dry cement. He squints through the one good eye in his floor-smushed face and reaches for the phone that’s just within arm’s reach—
It’s kicked away and his hand is stomped on.
“Hey! I said ‘I’m sorry.’ What happened to you, you were always so forgiving, Greg…”
He doesn’t recognize the voice, but why does the voice recognize him?
“Who...are you?” he groans while he pulls his hand to himself and cradles it with his other hand as he rolls over—no, he’s rolled over by a foot that taps into his gut and then swipes his keys before his head rolls over them. The keys are jangled above his head to get his attention before his mouth is quickly covered with a piece of duct tape, silencing any attempt he was about to make to call for help.
The same help this stranger seems all too eager to give him.
“Here, let me give you a lift, it’s the least I can do…”
His vision is doubled, tripled, quadrupled and he can’t focus on the floating man reaching down to pick him up by the collar of his shirt with two fists. Though he can’t make out the features of the man’s face, still doesn’t recognize his voice, he thinks of Nick as lips press up against his forehead before he’s carried in a bear hug—the man, judging by the voice, seems to be larger than him—and he’s not so gently laid to rest in the boot of the large SUV that hit him. His overstimulated spine screams as it experiences another blow to its new soft spot; a knee-jerk reflex as his entire body spasms straight.
“Easy now, we got a long ride ahead of us…” the voice chuckles as Greg immediately tries to sit up, push away the manhandling arms that puppeteer his hands behind his back and smashes them together. His wrists grind up against each other and against the tight wire-rope that is connected to his ankles. As his senses return to a stronger level of clarity, his eyes widen as he starts to fight in futile effort against the bonds, as he tries to puff off the tape that’s glued to his face, his nostrils flaring to work overtime on keeping his body breathing.
“Hmm, maybe you should get some shut eye, my sweetness. You had such a long day at work, after all,” the man cocks his head and strokes the back of his finger down Greg’s cheek, wiping away the rapidly appearing beads of sweat from all the wasted exertion. “That way you’ll be wide awake for what I have in store for us after we pick up a certain someone from the airport…”
Greg’s eyebrows display the mixing, melting emotions of shock, confusion, fear and anger as he realizes this sick creep must be referring to Nick—but the strain in his throbbing temples begins to fade after he feels a tight pinch in his neck—but he doesn’t lose consciousness right away.
The man duplicates again as his phone is tossed down in front of his face, his keys thrown at his face—one of them pokes into his eye and the man laughs at Greg’s pitiful, muffled cry that comes moments later, his senses lagging so far behind him he can’t even fully react.
The door is slammed and moments later, the car begins to move. The trunk lurches as it passes over the speed bumps, Greg bounces as his stomach stays on the floor and he quickly becomes trapped in a limbo of almost, but not quite vomiting the nagging queasiness that’s moving faster than the vehicle.
He shuts his eyes and reluctantly tries to get some sleep as his abductor advised, but it doesn’t come easy and doesn’t come until after he has to watch his phone light up with a text, and then a missed call from the only four distinguishable letters he can see, that are burned into his mind as he unknowingly joins his partner in the deep, black, senseless void.
N.
I.
C.
K.
“Wake up, Greggo…”
N...i...c...k…
He hears a crack, a snap and for a moment, thinks it’s his voice coaxing him out of his coerced slumber.
N-i-c-k.
He starts to mutter the letters under his breath, reading them from the backlit screen floating in front of him, trying to make out the message above.
“Greg. C’mon, man. You gotta wake up…”
His voice calling to him. Call.
One missed call.
Nick.
One missed call from Nick.
His heart skyrockets, tossing his head back before it bobs forward. He sneezes out the burning tingle shooting up his nose.
“Good to see you’re not going to sleep the day away, silly!”
That’s not Nick’s voice.
He shakes his head, shakes away the residual static in the borders of his vision to find that the trunk has expanded, that he’s no longer laying on it but instead sitting in a car seat—no, it’s not a cushioned surface, it’s cold steel—and that he’s still hog-tied, only his arms had been pulled over the back of the chair and his legs had been hooked up underneath the seat of the chair.
“Always sleeping in late,” the not-Nick voice teases with a pinch to Greg’s nose before he rips off the tape from his mouth with a mercilessly slow peel that uncovers not just his mouth, but the scream that was trapped in his lungs ever since his face hit the floor.
“Scream all you want, sunshine,” the not-Nick voice drawls as he balls up the tape and tosses it over his shoulder. “Ain’t nobody around but you ‘n me. And well, that piece of shit over there…”
Greg blinks and as his focus hones in on the man it quickly turns to what he’s pointing at, a body on the opposite side of the room.
“Nick!” Greg calls out, but Nick’s slumped up against the wall, motionless and slumping like one of their test dummies at the lab.
“Shh, shh! It’s not time for him to wake up yet. He’s caused enough trouble for us today, don’t you think?” the man snaps his fingers to get Greg’s attention and he finally looks at him. Fairly built, taller and thicker than Greg but his muscles are as toned as Nick’s. He’s got a well kept beard and a crew-cut hair style that’s reminiscent of Nick, too, though the color is...off. Lighter. Even the shape of his eyebrows, the shape of his jaw seem almost...like Nick’s…
Except, his eyes are green.
“Who are you?” Greg asks again.
The man smiles.
“My friends call me Vincent. But you can call me whatever you like, baby…” Vincent speaks, and his accent is almost identical to Nick’s, though a little looser than the reins Nick keeps on his.
Vincent leans in, closing his eyes for a kiss but Greg spits in his face as the tip of the man’s nose touches his own.
“I can think of a lot of things to call you, but I don’t think you’re gonna like them,” Greg hisses.
“Cute,” Vincent’s lips curl as he wipes off the saliva and licks it off his fingers. “I’m glad I waited so long to do this, it wouldn’t have been as fun if you weren’t as... feisty as you are now.”
The man’s mannerisms are more erratic, animated than Nick’s but it’s still eerie seeing the similarities to the man he loves in the face of a stranger who appears to love him.
“Speaking of waiting, guess we can’t wait anymore,” Vincent knits his eyebrows as he checks his watch, moving over to a table nearby. “Don’t want our guest to die on us now, do we?”
“Not yet, at least,” Vincent adds in a smirking wink as he half-turns his body, picking up syringes and reading the labels.
“What did you do to him?” Greg asks in rising panic.
“Oh, nothing...It’s just,” Vincent sighs and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It’s just that you have so many playmates, I forget which ones are diabetic...Like that girl you were fooling around with a few years back? Wanda? Met her at some sort of wedding. But I seemed to have forgotten that Nick isn’t in need of so much insulin…And, well...it was also the only thing I could risk passing through security. TSA doesn’t play around, you know…”
He walks over to Nick, flicks the tip of the syringe with his fingers before he pushes Nick’s head—pushing him fully to the ground which makes Greg struggle in his seat as he’s helpless to watch as Vincent climbs on top of him to stick the needle in his neck.
“Little bit of glucagon should do the trick…Though the man’s always eating so much, you’d think that his blood sugar wouldn’t be so low,” he adds in an insulting laugh. He continues to sit on top of Nick, on top of his stomach and begins to slap either side of his clean-shaven face.
“Good, still out. Means we get more alone time together…” Vincent smiles as he turns his head to Greg, waving his tongue out over his lips. Greg tries to keep his body from quaking in fear as Vincent starts to unbutton his shirt, revealing the sharp six pack of abs that Greg wishes didn’t make him feel the way he does as Vincent returns the syringe to its resting place and picks up a knife, pointing it at Greg’s shirt and popping off the buttons one by one, humming and using his free hand to keep Greg’s head still in a suffocating squeeze of his cheeks into each other.
Greg’s eyes bulge as his gaze turns from his stripping to Nick’s still unconscious form on the floor, his limbs helplessly splayed out like a rag doll and still, motionless.
Useless.
“You been working out, G?” Vincent laughs as he traces the tip of the knife up Greg’s naval region and to his neck. “Of course, I know you are. My little Muay Thai fighter, glad you haven’t given it up after all these years…”
“How—doyou—knowthat?” Greg sputters through his smashed lips. His eyes flicking from Nick to Vincent so quickly they’re starting to merge together and he gets dizzy, adding onto the persistent headache from whatever he was dosed with.
“I know everything about you, Greg...And reluctantly, everything about little Saint Nick over there, too,” Vincent adds in a sneer. “I just don’t get what you see in him…”
“He sure as hell sees the foot I’m about to shove up your ass,” Nick’s voice rasps out and Greg’s heart leaps until the grip on his head is forced back, his chair knocks over but the ties remain taut enough to keep him in place. His head side-bounces against the floor, which jostles his focus, the events he sees played out in a slow-moving motion blur like when his VHS player would be on the fritz, though the sounds remain loud and clear in real time.
Vincent puffs his chest out and straightens his back, making him look higher and mightier than the thinner, bonier man who’s just starting to move on the ground beneath him. He knows Nick has lost a lot of weight in the past year but it’s only just now that Greg realizes just how much—he’s not quite frail but he’s almost as thin as he was when he first started at the lab, except with looser skin. He wonders if Vincent is either younger than he appears or has drank from a fountain of youth that Nick and Greg haven’t discovered.
Vincent reaches down and grabs Nick by his neck, balls his fist on the front of his shirt and lifts him up—his feet don’t touch the ground and Nick hates that it puts him at eye level with this insane brute, especially when a finger is wagged in his face.
“Listen to me, you worm,” Vincent hisses in Nick’s ear, tilting his head as if he were about to take a bite into the throbbing vein in Nick’s neck. “I have waited for years for this moment, trying to make this the perfect Christmas for me and Greg, and you’re sure as hell not gonna fucking ruin it.”
“What am I doin’ here then?” Nick grunts as he tries to slap off the hand around his neck, using his other hand to try and pull off the fist on his chest.
“An ultimatum,” Vincent smiles, and lifts Nick up further before he’s thrown into the cement that almost cracks the back of his skull.
“Isn’t that right, Greg?” Vincent shouts back to Greg as he leaves a recovering Nick on the ground. His chest rises and falls in rapid, deep gasps for air as he hovers his hand over the back of his head, his face screwed up in pain.
Vincent continues to talk as he crouches down, pressing a hand on one of Nick’s legs to keep him in place while he swivels to grab a set of shackles that he draws in.
“You see, Greg’s been having some chats with Sara lately, cause she’s the closest thing he’s got to a sister, being an only child while you’re the spoiled runt of your litter, Stokes. And he’s been tellin’ her how...odd you’ve been acting lately. Erratic. Unstable. Either overly emotional or not emotional enough and well,” he chuckles as he peels off Nick’s shoes and socks. He then loosens Nick’s belt, shimmies his pants off and when Nick tries to fight back, he simply uppercuts his jaw to send his body backwards before clamping the rusty metal tightly over his ankles. He loops the chain through some sort of attachment on the wall while Nick mutters a stream of curses, working up the energy to attempt another strike. “That in itself is enough to drive anybody mad, let alone your own boyfriend. God...he deserves so much better than you.”
Vincent leans himself onto Nick, his hand pressing down onto his cloth-covered crotch, Nick quickly knits his knees together but the pressure is applied. It seems to have been part of Vincent’s plan that his hands had met down together to try and protect his vulnerability, as he whips out a long wire-rope—the same Nick sees binding Greg and it snaps against the side of his body, the tip snapping and cutting his cheek. He tries to move out and away but between the giant sitting on him and the rope being lassoed around him, he’s effectively restrained.
He pulls Nick up by the neck of his shirt, Vincent’s hot breath washes over his suddenly cold, drained face as he licks away some of the blood that’s falling into the corner of Nick’s mouth.
“And I’m gonna give it to him, all wrapped up with a pretty bow on top,” he whispers to Nick, tapping him on the top of his head before tossing him back to the ground.
“And I didn’t wanna ruin the surprise, but, well, Greg was gonna make you choose between him, and living out the rest of your pathetic life, alone, without him by your side. Personally, I think you should go with the latter,” Vincent continues as he stands up and walks to his table again. This time he picks up a remote box, presses a button and Nick’s feet are lifted up, his whole body sliding slowly upwards against the wall. He tries to fight against it, but the struggle just makes it all the more worse when he reaches the top of the wall, only for the track to continue up the ceiling, suspending him in the air as he’s brought to the center of the room.
“You’re lying. Greg would never do that!” Nick shouts.
“Tell him, Greg,” Vincent walks over to Greg and lifts his chair up, pushing him closer to his dangling partner, the screeching of the metal feet grinding on the ground making both their faces squeeze though Vincent seems to be unphased.
“Greg…” Vincent goads, tapping the side of Greg’s cheek. “C’mon, baby, you’ve been so quiet lately…”
Greg remains silent. Keeps his eyes on Nick, trying to silently communicate but Nick’s drowning in the blood that’s rushed to his face.
Vincent notices this.
“You seem to be enjoying the show a little too much, and it hasn’t even started!” Vincent roars, pointing the remote control for the pulley chains towards Greg in an accusatory jest. With his free hand, he retrieves his knife to slice off Nick’s briefs into tatters that fall to the floor. “I think it’s about time we break in my new punching bag…”
“Go ahead, hit him. See what I care,” Greg flippantly shrugs, not wanting to give Vincent the satisfaction of how internally his blood is boiling, his teeth grinding through a clenched jaw.
“Yes, sir!” Vincent grins and Nick looks wildly between both men before he’s lost in a world of pain when he’s hit where it hurts the most. His body wildly flounders in a state of permanent free-fall with each swing of the chain at his feet. Somehow the rope around his chest seems to get tighter with his attempts to get free.
“Y’ain’t getting away with this,” Nick coughs out, feeling his face about to burst open underneath the straining burst of his reddened skin. “I got family waitin’ on me, a-and so does Greg…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but this will at least buy me some time, and time enough to woo Greggo here. Maybe next time I’ll bring the rest of the assclowns…What do you think, Greg?”
“You fucking—motherfucker—I will end you—!” Nick starts to shout and flounder, trying to headbutt into Vincent, but Vincent quickly turns around—
“HEY! I wasn’t asking you!” Vincent punches him again, and again, and again in rapid succession, his muscles flexing and body finally breaking a sweat as he deals more and more blows to Nick’s body, the array of punches not meeting the target each time. Bruises start to form on his inner thighs, his outer thighs, his gut—even his eye when Vincent sends a knee up.
Eventually, Vincent tires and steps back to catch his breath.
“Anything else that big mouth of yours wants to say? Or do I need to bust your lips, too?”
Nick sneers, but shakes his head as he meets Greg’s eyes with his one good one.
“Now, then, Greg. Back to you, baby…” Vincent changes his tone and staggers closer to Greg, straddles his lap. Greg winces at the sudden weight, but feels the remote box drop into the cup of his hands after Vincent wraps his arms around him like a spider engulfing prey. “You gotta give him the choice, remember? So we can be together...forever…”
“What makes you think I would ever want you?” Greg hisses.
“Well, Greg, I know you better than anybody else!” Vincent says in offense, seemingly taken aback.
“I wasn’t talking to you... Baby…” Greg grits through his teeth. Vincent gasps in delight, smugly shimmying himself up and closer to Greg, starting to heave and grind up against Greg’s body but Greg ignores the onslaught of kisses pecking at his neck to keep addressing Nick.
“You can’t even have a stalker half as decent as mine. Least mine was smart enough not to get caught,” he jabs.
“That’s right, I’m wayyyy better than that asshole, Crane…” Vincent breathes. “Did this all for you, made myself to look like the man you loved before…”
“And you’re just. You’re jealous that someone else wants to play with me,” Greg accuses Nick. “You’re not the beloved target of obsession anymore. Nobody even wants to hurt you—I don’t…”
And suddenly, the charade drops.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Greg admits in a heavy sigh, his body trembling as Vincent continues to ravage him.
“I didn’t wanta hurt you either...but I know I did,” Nick’s voice, hoarse, whispers to him, but Vincent doesn’t seem to be listening.
“Nah, but you haven’t been helping things either, you know. Shutting me out all the time.”
“Shutting you out? You’re the one who freezes up every time things go sideways! How can I open a door for you if you don’t even wanna come in?”
Nick’s eyes widen as he watches Vincent begin to strip Greg down even further, but instead of a gentle stripping, he reaches for his knife to start cutting off Greg’s clothes, the strips blooming out of the sides of the chair like a flower.
An exposed flower.
An endangered flower.
Nick raises his voice.
“Ya know...you always made me feel like I was the one who put more effort into this relationship. That I loved you more a-and that’s just not the truth. The truth is, I loved you less.”
Vincent’s moaning stops. His body tenses. Greg’s face falls into a broken frown but to Nick’s twisted perspective, it’s a gleeful smile that devastates him when he realizes that he didn’t have to try so hard to break Greg’s heart.
Cause it’s already been broken.
“Do...do you really think that?” Greg interrupts the ceaseless silence. “Do you really...not love me anymore?”
“No,” Nick gulps. “I don’t.”
“HOW DARE YOU!” Vincent screams, quickly rising from his chair—he drops the knife and it lands between Greg’s legs—Greg catches it before it falls to the floor, the blade sticking out between his wobbling knees—Vincent readies his fist to send another punch to Nick, but before his fist can connect to anything, a button is pressed and Nick is released, dropping to the floor and sending the best, most forceful kick he can muster to Vincent’s groin and it’s enough to subdue the brute as Nick then shimmies his way up Greg’s legs, rubbing his back up and down against the knife to cut the ropes.
Just as the final strand he needed loosened to burst out of the bonds is severed, he breaks out and clamors towards the giant brute in a running tackle—nearly tripping on the chain that’s still shackled around his ankles but he still manages to push the seemingly improved version of himself down, though Vincent quickly gets up and kicks Nick in the face—but Nick just claws at the man’s feet and ankles in effort to stop him from getting away as sirens whoop in the distance—
Vincent easily shakes Nick off with another kick and spins around, getting one last look at his victims before he sprints towards Greg, picking him up like a football, bringing him to the opposite end of the room that contains the only way out—
And he’s dropped when Vincent realizes he can’t carry him up the stairs and run away at the same time.
“Greg!” Nick calls out, crawling a few feet before clamoring to his feet, and scooping up the fallen knife to cut Greg free. “You okay?”
“Yeah, shaken, not stirred,” Greg mumbles. “You don’t look like a beet anymore,” he adds with a weary laugh.
Nick chuckles nervously, before his tongue washes over his lips.
“Listen, uhm. What I—What I said…”
“Didn’t mean it. I know. I didn’t either.”
“But I—”
“You didn’t mean it,” Greg repeats in a louder voice, cupping a hand behind Nick’s neck to wring it gently. “I know you, Nick Stokes. I love you, and I know that those words, those thoughts, were not your own. I can only hope you know that, too.”
Nick pulls up his hand to flatten the upset in Greg’s hair—that almost reminds him of the spiked style he used to don. And mabye it’s that nostalgia, maybe it’s the disorientation from whatever the fuck just happened, but Nick’s face crumbles.
“I don’t. I don’t know, though. I don’t know an-anything—” his voice falters, the streaks of blood on his face merging with flecks of tears. He keeps himself steady by holding Greg’s shoulders to keep him grounded, keep him from floating—
“You do know. You know that you can do this. That we can do this. We can survive anything, together,” Greg emphasizes.
“When did you become one of the wise men?” Nick chokes out a strained laugh which is contagious to his partner.
“Figured I should start acting my age,” Greg wheezes, but the laughter fades back into a solemn recovery as he examines his battle wounds. “And not throw a teenage tantrum, demanding ultimatums…”
“Were you...were you actually gonna…?”
Greg’s chin wobbles.
“Y-yeah. But that’s. That’s not fair of me.”
“I mean. I have been kind of...difficult lately. And you have every right to feel upset—”
“Doesn’t mean I gotta be so...immature about it.”
“No, but it’s still valid.”
The sirens grow louder.
“Man, they’re really taking their time, huh?” Nick sighs as he pulls them up, throwing Greg’s arm around his shoulder.
“Maybe they’re pulling Santa over,” Greg tries to joke, but Nick doesn’t get it, shooting him a confused glare.
“Santa...Christmas? It’s Christmas in like, two days.”
“Is it really?” Nick laughs in disbelief. “It’s not like Christmas at all.”
“No....it’s not,” Greg agrees, and they emerge from the basement they were stashed away in, arm in arm, somehow feeling a little larger in the face of the vast sea that threatened to swallow them whole, because all this time they thought they were sinking and losing each other when really, they were bigger than that, and could stand in the raging waters, together.