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Smoke. Fists. Ears ringing.
He struggles to his feet, only to be brought down again.
Everything hurts. He can’t breathe.
Someone is kicking him. Then they’re not.
Nicky. Nicky is dragging the monster away. Nicky is protecting him.
The monster has a gun. The gun is in Nicky’s mouth.
No.
no. no. no no no no no n-
Bang!
Joe wakes up with a start.
He’s in bed. It’s dark. Nicky is in his arms. They’re safe.
Sighing, he tries to settle, tucking his face into the back of Nicky’s neck, seeking the comforting warmth and familiar smell, and what he finds is... blood.
Blood and bone and brain and the back of Nicky’s head is gone.
Pale eyes are wide and empty. Skin is cold. The smell is burnt flesh and antiseptic.
Joe bolts upright in horror, shoving the dead thing that isn’t Nicky out of the narrow bed. It hits the floor with a heavy thud, and...
It took a moment for Joe to realize he wasn’t breathing.
When he took a breath, he expected it to be full of smoke and to taste like chemicals, but it was clean.
“Joe? Joe, it’s alright. You’re alright. I’m here. I have you.”
Hands on his face and a steady voice, both so strong and so gentle and so familiar he would know them in the deepest pit of hell.
Nicky.
Another voice said something in English. Andy. Nicky answered. Two figures left the room. Andy and Booker.
No.
Andy and Nile. Booker betrayed them. Booker handed them over to be butchered. Booker...
“It’s alright, my heart.” Nicky’s soft voice brought Joe back to the present. “It was just a dream.”
Joe forced himself to breathe in deeply, focusing on the calluses on Nicky’s fingertips, the smell of dust and sweat, the sound of a ceiling fan creaking overhead. He breathed out and closed his eyes, letting his head tilt forward to rest against Nicky’s. Just a dream.
“Was it the lab again?” Nicky asked quietly.
Again. Again. For weeks, Joe had been waking up screaming nearly every night. Most nights, it was Kozak and her samples, but other things intruded at will: visions of horrors past, other scenes from those harrowing hours, fantastic scenarios invented by his imagination, and a dozen little details that dragged him right back into that sickening terror. He’d described every one of his nightmares to Nicky, down to the last smear of blood.
Silently, he cradled the back of Nicky’s head, feeling the clean hair and solid skull, and Nicky breathed out a soft, “Oh.”
Nicky understood. He always understood.
“Oh, Yusuf. My treasure, my light. I’m here. I’m alright.”
Joe kept breathing and repeating that simple fact to himself. Nicky was with him. Nicky was safe. They were both safe and whole and free, and still the memory of Nicky dead on the floor in a spreading pool of blood remained on the back of Joe’s eyelids like a scar. He shuddered, and Nicky’s hands curled gently around the back of his neck.
“Do you remember the beach house in Jabal Tāriq?” Nicky asked. “We were only there for a few weeks. We would go walking on the shore, and you would pick up little stones and shells and put them on the window ledges.”
The easy rhythm of Nicky’s voice summoned memories of salt air and rocky sand, bare feet in shallow waves, a single room with a small bed, Nicky laughing and feeding scraps to sea birds, the smell of bread baking, the smell of sex on the sheets no matter how much they aired out, the smell of coffee, sunlight making the world golden, moonlight casting everything in silver. He remember the moon shining on dark water, on the sand, on Nicky’s skin, and after a thousand years they really should have learned that making love on a beach was much less romantic than it sounded but fuck if either of them cared.
“You said you wanted to build a wall so that none of the evil outside could get in,” Nicky went on softly. “I told you there was no need, that no darkness could survive in a place where our love was so bright. I said no evil could touch us, so long as we loved.”
“And no evil would take me, so long as you lived,” Joe finished. He remembered. Of course he remembered.
He breathed out slowly and slid his hand to the side of Nicky’s throat, pressing his thumb against the pulse point, just enough to feel the steady movement of blood that kept both their hearts beating.
“It was Ṭanja, not Jabal Tāriq” he said. “And we were there for ten days.”
“Ah, yes. You’re right.” Even with his eyes closed, Joe knew Nicky was smiling. “All the time in bed must have affected my memory.”
Joe smiled in return. “In the bed, on the beach, against the wall in that alley...”
Nicky huffed. “You went bare-chested every day. How could I keep my hands off of you?”
“I don’t recall you making much effort at restraint,” Joe pointed out. “Or any objection to my choice of clothing.”
“I will never object to seeing more of your perfect skin,” Nicky replied. “And I show great restraint every moment I am not touching you.”
They were touching, now, and Joe turned his head to kiss the palm of Nicky’s hand. Those broad and roughened hands had held and loved and protected him for centuries, and still Joe marvelled that a thing so powerful could be capable of such tenderness. Eyes still closed, he turned his head again, and his lips found Nicky’s as if they were drawn together.
In the simplest of terms, kissing Nicky always made him feel better. There were probably complicated neurochemical and psychological processes that translated the press of lips into lifted spirits and a greater sense of well-being, but all Joe knew was that Nicky’s kiss never failed to soothe his soul and calm his mind.
When they parted, Nicky pulled back just enough to look into Joe’s eyes and ask, “What do you need?”
Joe sighed. The nightmare had faded, but he could still feel the edges of it scraping the back of his mind. “Time? Distance? A good night’s sleep?”
Nicky smiled gently. “I meant right now. In this moment, what do you need from me?”
“You,” Joe answered immediately. “Just you.”
“You have me,” Nicky said, letting their foreheads rest together again. “Take what you need. I am yours.”
He meant it, Joe knew, in every possible sense. If he asked Nicky for a pound of flesh, Nicky would reach for the butcher’s knife without blinking. If he told Nicky that what he wanted was the chocolate currant gelato from that one little kiosk in Florence, Nicky would find a way to get it. If he wanted a bone-shaking, mind-numbing orgasm to get him back to sleep, Nicky would provide. If he needed to paint, Nicky would find an art supply store and wait on the front step until it opened. If he needed to be alone, Nicky would sit patiently in the hallway until Joe called for him.
“Make me a cup of tea?”
“Of course.” Nicky pressed a soft kiss to his brow. “Mint and sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
Nicky kissed him again and climbed out of the bed. The only light in the room came from a streetlight shining through a gap in the curtains, but Joe didn’t need to see Nicky to track his movement across the room, the soft pad of his bare feet, the warmth of his body retreating. When he opened the door, bright light from the hallway streamed in, casting his silhouette in sharp gold and black shadows. Joe committed the moment to memory, filing the image away like a precious gem among the sharp scraps.
Quietly, he called, “Nicky?”
“Hmm?” Nicky paused, looking back at Joe with a tender smile.
I love you. I adore you. I need you. Don’t ever leave me. You promised me a lifetime. I can’t do this without you. Come back to bed. Make love to me. You’re the best. I’m afraid.
“Hurry back.”
Nicky’s smile brightened, and he nodded once before slipping out into the hall.
Joe flopped back on the bed with a sigh. He didn’t expect to get any more sleep tonight, but a cup of tea and Nicky beside him would be restful enough.
Sooner or later, these dreams would stop, or something else would take the place of the lab in his nightmares. Whatever happened, Nicky would be there to hold him and kiss him and make him tea, and when Nicky woke up from a nightmare of his own, Joe would do the same.
They would be alright. Eventually, together, they would be alright.