It didn’t take long. It couldn’t, the way they both felt, and yet in the end it wasn’t the strong, perfectly timed pass of John’s thumb over the head of Nick’s cock that sent him over, but the look on John’s face as he came, eyes fixed on Nick’s. His mouth was open, panting, his face contorted with the force of his climax, but Nick didn’t feel excluded, the way he sometimes had these past few months.
He
was doing this to John,
he
was making John cry out and shudder, and John was doing it to him, too, a loop of action and reaction that wound about them tightly, binding them together.
By the time it was over, they were both gasping for air in between kisses, and Nick didn’t care at all that they were slick going to sticky. He never wanted to let John go, and he realized that he was murmuring as much. “You can’t leave me,” he was saying. “Please, John, never leave me. I need you.”
“Not going. Never going. Never.” John couldn’t have gotten much closer to Nick but he was trying anyway, his leg sliding between Nick’s, his upper arm hugging Nick hard. “
Never
. God, Nick. Love you. Love you so much.”
John was crying, Nick realized, tears gleaming bright in his eyes before trickling slowly, unnoticed, down his face. Nick reached up to brush them away, carefully, gently, tracing each hollow and curve on John’s face, just as he had earlier.
“Shhh.” Nick hated to see John so upset, but he didn’t know what to say that would help. “It’s okay. Really. We’re okay. We love each other -- that’s what matters. Everything else we can work out.” He hoped it was true; he
felt
that it was, deep down, but he wanted it so badly that he was afraid he was just fooling himself.
Nick got a nod from John before he rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “These ghosts,” John said abruptly. “Can they affect us? Emotionally, I mean? I know I get scared around them --”
“You’re not scared of them. You just know they’re there.”
John smiled without humor. “Oh, they scare me spitless, sometimes, Nick lad. I’m just too stubborn to show it. No, I’m thinking, things were going fine for us until you started getting these dreams of the future, or whatever they are; any chance it, God, I don’t know, spilled over to me, or something? Because when I think of how I felt back on the island, what I did -- it wasn’t
like
me.”
Ah. Well, that would have been a nice excuse. “I don’t know,” Nick said, trying to find the right words. “I don’t think so. I’ve never known that to happen.” He rubbed a hand along John’s far side and got a bit more comfortable, pillowing his head half on his arm and half on John’s shoulder. “There weren’t any ghosts there, anyway. Just…I don’t know what it is that shows me what’s going to happen in the future. I’m sorry. I wish it was that simple.”
John sighed, looking uncomfortable. It wasn’t like him not to take responsibility for what he did, but the whole mess had been full of so much blame on both sides that Nick couldn’t blame him for wanting to find something that would absolve them both.
“I wish it, too, but I should know better at my age. Aye, well.” John glanced down and arched his eyebrows. “I’m thinking we need to get cleaned up a bit before we go out. Because I love you, I’ll let you go first.”
“You’d better not. Come with me.” Nick smiled at John and got up, tugging at his hand.
They showered efficiently and got dressed again; Nick was beginning to realize that they were going to be here long enough that they’d have to do laundry at some point, a thought that he found pretty depressing. He’d assumed that being back in the States, regardless of the reason, would feel like coming home, but it didn’t.
It wasn’t until they were standing on the hillside where the airplane’s wreckage lay, though, that he really felt out of place. He didn’t belong here, and he didn’t
want
to be here.
But he didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Ten
“Just us, pretty much,” John commented, glancing around. Some emergency lights shone, illuminating the wreckage, the hum of the generator powering them a constant thrum in the background. There were two security guards in a small, temporary cabin, one of whom had come out to check their credentials and nodded when Nick had mentioned his father, glancing down at a list of names. After warning them not to get close to the plane itself, he’d gone back to the cabin and left them in peace. “Or am I wrong about that?”
“Wrong and wrong.” Nick closed his eyes and breathed, feeling the presence of one spirit and then another coming closer. “Two. Three. Four.” He looked toward the makeshift cabin again, but he couldn’t see the guards and hoped that meant they couldn’t see him. “Let’s go around the other side where we’ll have a little more privacy.”
John nodded and they started around to the left, away from the cabin. The ground was smooth and grass covered, but the grass was dry where they were walking, crunching under their shoes. Still, they had to step carefully around smaller pieces of debris, and concentrating on that gave Nick a few moments of reprieve before they found a likely spot to stop -- there was a large rock that provided a decent place to sit -- and they were at him again.
He reached for John’s hand. “God, there are -- five, six of them, and they’re all -- I can’t do it all at once. You’ll have to take turns. It’s okay, I won’t go until you’ve all had a chance, I promise, it’s just --” It was hard to reason with them, and he searched out John’s eyes, looking for strength.
“That many?” John swallowed and nodded. “Right.” He glanced around. “You heard him. He’ll stay. Just…get in line, will you?” Nick couldn’t remember John actually talking to the ghosts before, and although he wasn’t sure they could hear him, for some reason John doing that made him smile, just a little, which helped.
John patted the pockets of his jacket and took out a pen and the receipt from the last meal they’d eaten at Stella’s restaurant, back on the island. There was something incongruous about seeing the familiar scrawl of Stella’s writing here in
Amazingly, one of the spirits’ voices stood out more clearly than the rest; they faded into the background, grumbling with impatience but willing to wait for now.
The woman who talked to him then had four small children at home and a husband who she believed -- and Nick didn’t have any reason to think she was wrong -- loved her very much. She didn’t have a message to pass on to them; she just needed reassurance that they’d be all right without her; that it was okay for her to move on. “Celia,” Nick said to John. “Harris? Harmon? It’s okay; they’ll be okay. Really.” The woman’s ghost wasn’t convinced. “You can trust me, I know. It’ll be fine. They’ll grieve, and then they’ll heal and go on living.”
Celia’s spirit sighed, sad but resigned, and faded away. Nick opened his eyes in time to see it -- a wisp of white vapor in the vague shape of a woman, becoming more and more transparent until there was nothing left to see. Nick’s head ached just beneath his temples, and he lifted a hand to rub at the right side of his head just as the other five ghosts converged on him at once, all of them wailing and reaching for him.
It was unexpected enough that Nick gasped and reeled.
You have to -- and I’m -- under the bed, and he needs to know because -- five, oh six nine eight nine -- mother that I always did, because I can’t rest without -- me, I can’t wait -- her not to trust him, he acts honest but he’s not, and --
Too much; too many voices at the same time, men and women, vehement and none of them willing to wait. Nick wrapped his arms around his head, only dimly aware of John talking to him, and stumbled forward, fell to his knees. The voices were sharp, stabbing into his brain like knives, icy hot and not belonging there.
Can’t! You have to -- you’re the only one who can -- in the inside pocket of my leather jacket at the back of the closet -- I never meant to hurt him, that was the last thing I wanted to do, please -- NOT READY TO --
The ground was strangely cold against Nick’s hip and upper arm, but he didn’t care. He made a sound of pure desperation, hands over his ears like that would stop the noise, and felt his body spasm as it rebelled against the cacophony.
* * * * *
This was the part John hated. Nick was being attacked -- and anyone who said it was all in his head would get his fist in their face because the man was suffering; you only had to look and listen to get that -- and there wasn’t a thing he could do to help.
A fight, bodies bruised and bloody at the end of it, that he could understand. It was something he’d grown up seeing and doing, wading in with Michael beside him, exchanging fierce grins.
The struggle Nick went through with the spirits, well, that was something entirely different. It was never a fair fight, not really, but at least it was usually one on one; this was an onslaught, a deluge, and Nick was drowning before his eyes, words spilling out of his mouth, senselessly spurting, a jumble of worries, petty and serious, from God knew how many lives.
“Back off. Get the fuck away from him --” John was yelling the words even as he fell to his knees beside Nick, the paper he’d been holding fluttering away in the freshening breeze, carrying rain now.
Nick was huddled, rocking, his hands over his ears, the sight enough to make John’s breath catch thick and rough in his throat.
“Nick -- Nick, love. Come away, we have to go --” He cradled Nick, trying to lift him. “You! See what you did?” Pointless, but he had to yell at something, someone. “He’d have helped you if you’d just given him some fucking space, damn you all to hell…”
It occurred to him, a sick, soft punch of guilt, that if it existed, that might be where some of them were going. Nick didn’t believe in hell, and John didn’t either, not really, but a lifetime of churchgoing on a Sunday -- that had ended abruptly when Nick arrived, as the minister wasn’t fond of having his kirk desecrated by the likes of John and Nick -- had left him superstitious to a certain extent.
He had some of what Nick had blurted out locked safe in his mind; some of it he hadn’t been listening to because concern had distracted him, and he hoped Nick could recall it later, but enough was enough. They had to get out of here while Nick was still sane.
Nick’s head lashed from side to side, the heels of his hands pressing hard to his eyes now as if to keep out whatever it was he was seeing. He burrowed in close against John’s chest -- would have been clutching at him if he’d had a free hand, John suspected. He wasn’t screaming or shouting or making any of the sounds John thought that he himself would have been making under the same circumstances, but his breathing was tight to the point where it almost whistled, and John’s attempts to get him to uncurl and straighten out were fought as if Nick didn’t even know who he was.
“Nick…” John kept talking to him, his words almost as sense-free as Nick’s had been, his hands stroking at skin, tugging at Nick’s arm. It wasn’t working. None of it was working, and he wasn’t sure he could carry Nick, not like this.
He wasn’t going to leave Nick. That was certain. The security guards might be -- no, they wouldn’t be helpful, not really.
It began to rain, big, warm, splashing drops pouring silently down, then increasing in number and volume, falling hard enough to sting. John had stood under showers and stayed dryer. Gasping, his clothes plastered to him in a matter of moments, he tried to shelter Nick at first, curving over him as much as possible. Then he noticed that the rain seemed to be doing what his efforts hadn’t managed; Nick was still thrashing about, but one hand had slackened and was batting at the water drops, and he seemed to be aware of the fact that he was getting wet.
Leaning closer still, John put all the appeal he could into his voice. “Nick. Nick, I need you. You’ve got to stand up, love. Or let me carry you. Nick?”
“I can’t,” Nick gasped, making John’s heart sink for a moment before he continued. “I can’t -- there’s too many, they have to
stop
…” His hand found the front of John’s shirt and closed around a fold of the fabric in a near death grip, the other hand moving to press knuckles against his temple hard enough that it looked painful. His body jerked as if he’d been struck by an invisible fist. “I can -- just --” He made an obvious effort to get his limbs to work, and John shifted quickly to support him, getting him onto his feet, reeling like a man who’d had far too much to drink. It was difficult to hold onto him properly; Nick was so wet that his clothes slid across his skin, gravity threatening to take him right out of John’s grasp leaving him holding onto nothing but a sodden shirt.
John murmuring encouragement, they made their way back toward the car. Twice, Nick jerked again like someone had hit him, whimpering and trying to wrap his arm around his head. Bloody ghosts didn’t have any respect, John thought fiercely, wishing he could do something to shut them up.
He had to lean Nick against the car to get the door open, had to practically manhandle him into the passenger seat. The whole time Nick said nothing, and as soon as he was sitting he curled in around himself again into what was nearly a fetal position, rocking slightly.
John got in quickly, the rain beating a violent tattoo on the roof of the car, making it less of a haven than a besieged space. He managed -- just -- to get Nick’s seatbelt fastened, pushing, gently at first, then with more force, on Nick’s knees, trying to get him into a more normal position.
Then he drove, as fast as he could, tires spinning in the mud, the car sliding on greasy slickness, until they got to the road.
Nick gradually relaxed as they got further from the crash site, but his hands were still splayed over his face as if he was shading his eyes from too much sunlight, his knees still pulled up as close to his chest as they could be. He didn’t say anything, though. Didn’t look at John, didn’t reassure him. Just sat, tense and silent, as John drove.