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Joe hadn’t been able to read a single paragraph in his book for the last fifteen minutes. His eyes couldn’t stay on the page for more than a few seconds before they fleeted over to the other side of the room, fixing on Nicky, who was reading a book of his own. The lamp in their little, narrow room in their current safehouse had a cold, sterile light that that made him look paler than usual, nearly sick. His gaze trailed on the way Nicky’s fingers twitched on the edge of the page, again and again, before they unconsciously rose up to brush the exact point on his neck where he’d been sedated, little more than 24 hours before.
He’d had a bullet come out the back of his head, and yet it was that syringe, the sensation of its prickle faded before its effect could even kick in, that had his body dealing with the aftermath.
For Joe, it was the sensation of his bound wrists. The feeling of his skin tearing and healing as he pulled and pulled as hard as he could, as hard as he’d pulled in his long life, and earned nothing to show for it but the worry he saw in Nicky’s eyes from the bed next to his.
Pain was easy to brush off at this point. Not so much what came along it.
Joe sighed, minute and silent, barely more than an exhale, and closed his book. Nicky hadn’t given any sign of having being paying attention to him, but he closed his own book as well immediately after. His eyes remained on the cover for one, two, three seconds before looking at Joe, expectant.
‘We need to talk.’
No one else would have noticed the way Nicky’s lips twitched, less than half an inch, less than half a second. But no one else had spent centuries studying that face. Joe studied it once more, never tired of it, took in the way the other waited for him to go on.
He shook his head lightly, crossed his arms.
‘So twenty years, huh?’
Nicky tried his best to remain stoic, but the edge of his lips twitched again in a far more noticeable manner now. Slowly, he mirrored Joe’s position, a slight tension giving a square shape to his shoulders.
‘A hundred years, Joe. We settled on a hundred.’
‘That’s not what you wanted. You wanted to make it twenty.’
‘What does it matter? I agreed on a hundred, we all agreed on it, and I’m going to stick with that’ the other said, voice even, the layer of frustration under his voice barely even there. ‘Do you think I’m going to sneak behind your back to send him text messages? I’m not that childish. I can commit to what I say.’
‘You’re not that obtuse either’ Joe huffed, rolling his eyes. ‘You know what I’m getting at.’
‘You expressed your opinion, and so did I. We didn’t agree at first, so what?’ Nicky’s lips thinned and he crossed his arms tighter, nearly petulant. ‘We’re far past thinking we should be of a single mind about every single subject. You know that as well as I do.’
Joe stood up, his jaw twitching in annoyance, his fingers tapping repeatedly on his bicep. He took two steps closer, more than half the distance between them. Nicky raised his eyes at him, but remained unimpressed. ‘I know that. I know you. Which is why I’m having such a hard time believing you think Booker deserved as little as that.’
The scowl on Nicky’s face faltered, and again it was just long enough to be noticed by someone who knew those features better than his own. He looked away, at the floor to the right of Joe’s feet, and shifted in his seat. ‘Booker betrayed us, he exposed us and put us at risk, and he has to answer for that. I’m not denying that, Joe, I’m not. But how can we ignore what drove him to betraying us in the first place?’ He met Joe’s eyes, his own wide open, earnest, as if honestly looking for an answer. ‘A hundred years is going to leave all of us worse off than we’re now. Leave him worse. Do you really not feel at all like we’re making a mistake?’
‘Don’t be self-righteous, it doesn’t suit you.’
‘And it’s not like I was letting it slide with an apology, like Nile’ Nicky continued, pointedly ignoring Joe. ‘Twenty felt like enough to get the point across.’
‘Nile is young and she is soft. Life will take those things from her, and I have no intention of speeding up the process. But you, Nico, you should know better than that. You know what he’s done deserves far more than twenty. That’s letting him go with a warning. A symbolic punishment.’
‘To us, but not to him’ Nicky raised. ‘It’s so much more to him. He’s barely older than Nile. He’s almost a child.’
‘A brat, that’s what he is’ Joe huffed, narrowing his eyes. ‘A selfish brat who doesn’t want to grow up because he likes wallowing in self pity in the corners saying no one understands him. And you know what? Maybe he’s right and we don’t. I don’t care. That doesn’t give him the right to drag us down with him, to resent us for daring to be happy. Don’t forget, Nicky’ he added, pointing a finger, ‘that this isn’t about him, or about getting a point across. It’s about the time we need to get past that stunt of his. I can’t speak for you, but twenty years isn’t going to cut it for me to forget he was willing to have all of us tied to a lab table being experimented on for who knows how long. We have a right to be angry.’
Nicky didn’t immediately answer, just stared for a long moment, jaw tense, and then looked down. Joe managed to stay firm for about ten seconds before he couldn’t keep the angrily stern look on his face. Closing his eyes, he let out a long, deep sigh, the frustration and roughness leaving him as the air left his lungs. He felt like a wound that had had the scab ripped off, exposing the flesh underneath, an angry, furious shade of red, but most of all tender and vulnerable.
He found himself getting into his knees, making a space for himself between Nicky’s legs as he reached for the man’s hand, meeting no resistance at all. He held it, gently, then brought his other hand around it so that he was sheltering it between his own. He kissed it once, twice, thrice, then brought it up to his face, held it against his cheek. Nicky’s thumb gingerly brushed against his jawbone, and Joe sighed again. Their eyes met, both calm this time, searching the depths of the other’s gaze.
‘I know what you’re thinking. But Nicky, you’re allowed to be angry. You know that, right? You are.’
Nicky didn’t immediately answer. He escaped Joe’s gentle yet firm eyes, jaw clenching as he swallowed hard and his lips twisted into an uneasy grimace. Not at Joe, just at it all.
‘He did what he did because he felt alone. How are we supposed to look him in the eye after leaving him on his own for a hundred years? Tell him we didn’t care he was suffering on his own, then act like nothing happened? I don’t know how I can do that.’ He stopped, waited a long moment, then added, unsure, ‘Do you think…? Have we ever given him reason to think we don’t care?’
‘No’ Joe replied immediately, gentle but giving no room to argument. ‘Andy knows we care for her and would do anything for her, and it’s not our fault Booker didn’t want to see it too. Even if it was, he had no reason to keep it all to himself and then blame us for not being able to read his mind. He’s not a kid and he’s not a moody teen, either. He’s been an adult for nearly three centuries, it’s about time he learned to act like one. That includes learning he can’t wipe it all away when he fucks up just by saying he’s sad . You’d agree with me if it was anyone else.’
It was, mostly, things that they’d already said the previous day, but Joe knew Nicky needed to hear them again, in private, calmly, from him. Needed it so he could accept it.
‘He’s our friend’ Nicky tried one last time, unsure.
‘He’s our friend,’ Joe accepted with a nod, ‘and he betrayed us both. He betrayed us all. He betrayed Andy as if she hadn’t given us her everything since the very beginning. He betrayed Nile and he didn’t even care that she’s a kid going through the most terrifying moment in her life, he was willing to have her experimented on all the same. How am I supposed to act like he deserves having his feelings taken into account over ours?’ He reached out, brushed his fingertips on Nicky’s chin, asking for him to look at him again. ‘Nicky, he had you tied to that table. I can’t forgive that, not within a lifetime.’
Nicky’s eyes were still cast down, his expression tense, conflicted. Joe’s thumb dragged along his chin, traced the edge of his lips.
‘He had me tied to that table to be tortured until I died. Are you okay with that? Nicolò, do you expect me to believe you’re not angry about what he did to me?’
Nicky’s eyes shot up, sharp and full of a cold clarity. ‘Of course I’m angry’ he said, and his words shook with the latent strain underneath he no longer bothered to hide. ‘I’m furious. I’m confused and I’m hurt. I swear to God that I’d kill him with my own hands if he were here. I hate him, Joe. I don’t want to, but I hate him.’.
‘Nicky, let yourself be angry. It’s alright. You don’t need to be the better person, not when he’s hurt us like this.’
Nicky brusquely stood up, taking Joe with him so he could embrace him. He wrapped his arms so tightly around him that they shook, fisted his hands on his back until they dug into his flesh, hid his face on Joe’s neck to the point he feared he’d suffocate himself. Still, all Joe did was hush him and lovingly return the embrace.
‘He heard us talk about Quynh and he said nothing’ Nicky said, the strain stronger now, making the words come out in uneven exhales of hot air on Joe’s skin. ‘He had already set us up to suffer the same way she did and heard us talk about how much we feared it and he just- He said nothing. He could have told us what he’d done, give us enough time to run, and I would have understood why he did it and forgiven him. But- He didn’t care. He didn’t, Joe, he didn’t. I can’t believe- I wanted to hurt him, when he told us. I wanted to make him feel it, and I feel awful about it. And then I get angry because I shouldn’t be the one feeling bad. Of course I’m angry. How could I not be?’
Joe didn’t say anything, just caressed his head, kissed his temple, encouraged him to go on.
‘I just- I can’t understand it. I’m trying to, but I can’t. And all I can think of is that he must have been suffering so much and we didn’t even notice, because I can’t understand how he could be so selfish. We’re his family. We’ve tried to be, at least, but he clearly doesn’t feel that way, and I want to understand when and how we failed him so much, and if I’m angry at him then I’m not going to figure it out and I can fix nothing and it’ll be the same, so I can’t be angry, and that makes me feel worse, and I just-’
‘You can’ Joe repeated, soothing, gently rocking Nicky. He didn’t protest the interruption, just inhaled deeply and buried himself deeper in Joe. ‘You need to. He’s got to deal with this shit, but we have to deal with it too. That’s not gonna happen if we don’t accept it. I know sometimes it’s hard for you to be selfish, but please, Nico, be selfish. Accept it. Tell yourself it’s okay to let him face consequences and forget about him until then. I don’t want you to still be hurt over this in a hundred years, alright? Promise me.’
Nicky didn’t say anything back, but the small nod Joe felt on his shoulder was more than enough for him. He breathed in, filling his lungs as much as they would with Nicky’s scent, still needing to make sure he was there with him, safely in his arms.
For a long, long moment neither of them spoke. Then, Joe let out a shaky chuckle.
‘I was terrified’ he confessed, his tone nearly cheerful as the hysteric tension finally left his body after having been kept in for so long. ‘I’ve forgotten the last time I felt so scared. I was terrified of them actually figuring something out and then I’d lose you. Or I’d leave you alone. I’m going to have nightmares about yesterday for years. I can’t just brush that off. I can’t and I don’t want to, and I’d like to think I have a right to that.’ He realized a tear was falling down his cheek, and he promptly let the rest follow suit. He buried his face in Nicky’s hair and let out a sound that was halfway between gasp and sob.
Nicky’s grip tightened even more, then loosened, just a bit. He waited for a long moment, waiting to see if Joe had any more to let out, and then drew back, just enough to be able to look at his face. He cupped his cheeks with his hands, brushed a teardrop off, and came closer, kindly pressing their lips together.
‘I was being selfish’ he muttered against Joe’s face. ‘I didn’t want to even think about it and didn’t realize you needed to talk about it. That I made you think I didn’t care. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m so, so sorry.’
Joe shook his head, denying the apology, the need for it. Nicky scowled, took air, but Joe beat him to it before he had time to complain. ‘I needed to know that you understood me’ he admitted, his smile weak but more genuine than he’d been able to muster lately. ‘Of course I know you care, Nicky. You always do. And I have no doubts about what we did. But it helps, hearing it’s not just me.’
Nicky still looked unconvinced, but he said nothing, merely shaking his head instead. He caressed Joe’s cheek agan, then pressed his forehead to his neck. He let out a tired chuckle.
‘And I say Booker’s a child. Look at me. You’d think emotion management would be something I’d have under control by now.’
‘We’re still human, Nico’ Joe supplied kindly. ‘That’s the one thing we’re never going to outgrow.’
Joe patted Nicky on the back, directing him towards the bed, and the other presented no effort otherwise. They lied down, side by side looking into each other’s eye. Their hands were joined in between them, and their faces so close that their breaths mixed, hot on their faces. For a long while, that was all they did.
‘He’s right, you know’ Nicky eventually said, barely more than a whisper. ‘We’re lucky. We’ve always had each other. If it hadn’t been like that… I couldn’t function. I don’t want to know the person I’d have become if you’d never been there. He would have done much worse things than Booker.’
‘You wouldn’t’ Joe complained, and Nicky let out a laugh before going in for a kiss. Joe’s features softened immediately, and his eyes were warm with tenderness when they parted.
Nicky had had nightmares, too, and had spent the day afraid of going back to sleep. Now, his eyes went over Joe’s face once more, taking in every inch of his skin, and had no doubt that when he showed up in his dreams that night, this would be what he looked like.
‘I’m glad we never have to find out.’