Finally, the reaction from what had happened catching up with him and making him feel shaky, John pulled into the hotel car park, the rain beginning to ease, and turned off the engine.
“We’ll stay here until you’re ready,” he told Nick, unfastening both their seatbelts and slipping his arm around Nick’s shoulders. “It’s going to be all right.”
He felt Nick’s body twitch convulsively, a reaction which answered him well enough. All right was a long way off, but he had to say something…
It felt like a very long time that they sat there, the sound of the falling rain a gentle patter and the lights of the hotel and other cars passing by like diffused halos in the darkness, Nick tense in his arms. John was starting to get to the point where he was worrying over what he’d do if Nick
didn’t
come out of this, if he stayed like this, when Nick finally gave a little sigh and a whimper and turned to press closer to John.
John got both his arms around him and kissed the side of Nick’s face, trying to find the right words and settling for a questioning “mmm” that let Nick reply if he wanted to. He wasn’t sure Nick was able, even yet, for anything too involved in the way of conversation or movement, although he wanted quite badly to get them both to their room and lock the door.
Not that it would keep the spirits out, but it’d make John feel better.
“Mm hehdurs,” Nick muttered, or something like it.
“Try that again, love.”
Nick shifted and inhaled sharply, his hand resting on John’s thigh curling into a fist. “Head,” he said more clearly. “Hurts.”
“Aye, well, you’ve had people tramping around in there with their hobnailed boots on,” John said, the anger in his voice all directed at those people, not at Nick. “Bloody stupid gits, the lot of them. Could they not just wait?” His hand, gentler than his words, pushed through Nick’s hair to the back of his neck, massaging the knotted, tense muscles carefully. “I want to get you inside, love. Tell me when you’re up for that, will you?”
“Mm-hm.”
They stayed that way for at least as long as they’d already been sitting. John continued to massage Nick’s neck and the back of his skull. Eventually, Nick tensed up slightly and straightened, pulling away from John and reaching for the door handle.
“Hang on.” John got out quickly and went around to help Nick out. Nick was a little unsteady on his feet and his green eyes were sunken in a face that was the same color as the cheese John’s aunt used to make from her goat’s milk, but he was walking at least.
The hotel had side entrances as well as the one leading to the main lobby, and John had parked close to one of them, which allowed him to get Nick up to their room without encountering more than a few curious stares from people who most likely thought Nick was drunk.
Once inside their room, with Nick going to their bed immediately and collapsing onto it, curling up again, although looking less withdrawn, John felt himself relax, just a little.
“God, that was awful.” He sat beside Nick and started to take off Nick’s shoes. “Can I get you something to drink? Water, or coffee, or maybe one of those wee bottles from the minibar?”
“No.” Nick opened his eyes and looked at John. “Actually, a wastebasket would be good. I think I’m gonna throw up.” He did have a sickly tinge to him all of a sudden, and John didn’t hesitate in grabbing one of the small rubbish bins and holding it for him as Nick was wretchedly ill. “Head thing,” Nick said afterwards in what was meant to be an explanation, and John patted his shoulder and went to rinse out the bin in the bathroom.
Nick had pushed up to the pillows and was lying on his back, well propped up, by the time John sat down on the bed again.
“Sorry,” Nick said. His eyes glittered with tears in his pale face. “Not the first time. Maybe the worst, though.”
“Aye, it looked pretty bad from where I was standing, too.” John reached for the bottle of water the maid had put on the bedside table, uncapping it and holding it to Nick’s lips so that he could rinse his mouth out. Then he got a handful of tissues and wiped the clammy sweat from Nick’s forehead before handing him a clean one and saying firmly, “Blow.”
Nick couldn’t even muster up a proper look of bemusement, but he blew his nose as directed, then rubbed at his temples fitfully. “Feels like they’re still in there,” he muttered. “You think it would show up on some kind of brain scan?”
“I don’t know. Have you ever been tested? You know, to see what happens when you do…what you do?” Visions of horror films and medical shows jostled in John’s head and he shivered. “Maybe not a good idea…”
“Probably not.” Nick’s eyes closed again. “I don’t think they’d be able to tell.”
“No…” John didn’t want anyone digging around inside Nick’s brain anyway. “Is there anything you can do to keep them away? Or at least away enough that they’re not all…” he waved his hands around helplessly, “in your face like that?” Still thinking of the horror films he’d seen, he finished vaguely, “Like garlic and vampires?”
“Maybe.” Nick rolled onto his side and curled up again; come to think of it, this probably wasn’t the right time to find a solution to the problem. Not until Nick was feeling better, at any rate. “Do we have any aspirin or anything?” Nick sounded truly pitiful.
“I think there’s some, aye.” John got off the bed and went into the bathroom to root around in Nick’s toiletry bag, sure he’d seen a small bottle in there. He found it and shook out two pills, then changed his mind and made it four. His head was aching, too.
Nick sat up, took the pills, and sighed, leaning back against the propped-up pillows John had been using. “Thanks.” His eyes slid closed again.
“You should get undressed. Get some sleep.”
“Don’t wanna move,” Nick mumbled. “Can’t I just sleep like this?”
“You won’t be comfortable.” John patted Nick’s shoulder. “Just let me, okay?” Trying not to jar Nick, who was slipping into a drowsy haze before his eyes, he began to strip him, easing damp, clinging clothing off and tossing it aside. When Nick was bare, his chilled skin covered in goose bumps, John tugged the covers down, lifting Nick’s legs unceremoniously, and then pulled them back up over Nick. “There…”
Getting undressed himself, and taking the time to towel his hair dry, he crawled in beside Nick, feeling completely exhausted.
Nick curled up around him; neither of them was exactly warm, but their shared body heat and the embrace were both comforting, as was Nick’s slow and steady breathing. “You okay?” Nick asked, his mouth against John’s bare shoulder.
John took the time to think about that. “I’ve been better, but I’m fine now you’re back with me. When I couldn’t make you hear me…” He sighed, pressing a kiss against Nick’s still-damp hair. “That wasn’t so nice.”
“I wanted to hear you.” Nick murmured the words sleepily. “You were the only one I wanted to hear.”
“Could you?” John asked curiously, keeping his voice casual and low. “Could you hear me at all?”
Nick was quiet, but his thumb rubbed back and forth over the skin of John’s rib cage, letting John know he was still awake. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I think so. It was like you were really far away, and I couldn’t
really
, but I knew it was you. I knew you were there.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” John assured him. “Not without you.” He hesitated, bringing his hand up to capture Nick’s and squeezing it in a gesture meant to comfort himself as much as Nick. “Do you want to talk about it? Because you don’t have to. It can wait.”
“About having them all in my head at the same time?” Nick sounded just about done in, but that didn’t seem to be enough to keep him from talking. “It’s…like being in the middle of a hurricane. Or maybe a tornado. Trying to tell one thing from another, trying to concentrate on one voice over another, but there’s no way to do it, not when they’re all so loud.”
“You said some things that might be useful…” John sighed, suddenly overwhelmed by it all. His life was usually so damn
quiet
…“Tomorrow. The hell with them. The hell with everything. You’re here with me and you’re safe. The rest can bloody well keep. Go to sleep, now, Nick.”
He shifted position until he could find Nick’s mouth with his for one clumsy, sleepy kiss, and then closed his eyes.
Chapter Eleven
When he opened them again, the room had gone from dark to lit with filtered sunlight and he was alone in the bed. John rolled over and blinked sleepily toward the door, where Nick was collecting a wheeled room service cart from one of the hotel employees. “Thanks,” Nick said, in a hushed voice, clearly not realizing that John was awake, but when he turned to push the cart into the room his eyes met John’s. “Shit,” Nick said, at normal volume. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. If I’m quiet will you go back to sleep?”
John sniffed at the welcome smell of food and coffee, his stomach giving a plaintive growl. “Not a chance. I’m starving.” He gave Nick a stern look. “And shouldn’t that be me saying that to you? What’re you doing up and about?”
“Like you said -- starving. My stomach was growling so much I’m surprised it didn’t wake
you
up.” Nick moved carefully, as if his head ached, but his color was much improved and the way he transferred an enormous bite of what looked like fried potato and sausage into his mouth before he’d even sat down made it clear that he was feeling better. “Come on; if you don’t, I might eat everything.”
“You’d not take pity on me and save me a mouthful?” John shook his head sadly, getting out of bed and heading for the small bathroom. “If my share’s gone by the time I get back, there’ll be trouble.”
He emerged a few minutes later, wearing one of the hotel’s robes, and found a full plate of food waiting for him -- and Nick in the process of stealing a luscious chunk of melon from a small bowl beside it.
“Eat your own!” John snapped, trying to hold back his grin at Nick’s unrepentant smirk. “God, you’re as bad as the gannets down at the dock.” He picked up a strawberry so big it’d been quartered, and walked around to Nick, holding it in front of Nick’s mouth. “Here.”
Nick’s lips parted expectantly, and John bent down, kissed him hard, and then popped the strawberry in his own mouth. “Mine,” he said, relishing the sweet tanginess of the ripe fruit. “And so is the strawberry.”
“Tease.” Nick smiled and went back to eating his own meal, thick toast spread with dark jam disappearing in a very few bites. “I forgot how much a really bad night like that takes out of me. I’m always really hungry after.”
John sat and reached for his coffee. “That’s interesting, when you think about it,” he said thoughtfully. “As if you’d been using up a lot of energy.” He’d never really questioned what Nick did from a practical point of view before, but it was occurring to him that the more they knew about it, the more chance there was of being able to come up with ways to make this easier on Nick.
At the moment, he was like a man fighting a fire by spitting on it. Be nice to give him at least a bucket of water…
“You were tired last night and you haven’t been eating properly since we got here; do you think that made a difference, then? If you’re rested, you can cope better when they come at you like that?”
“I don’t know.” Nick shrugged, but he seemed willing enough to talk about it now that it was daylight and they were safe in the room -- or maybe it was just John thinking those things. “Maybe. It couldn’t hurt. I don’t think I’ve ever had that many come at me at the same time before. Three or four, a couple of times, but I think that was the most, and this was…well, pretty intense.” He ate the rest of his toast, then used a dampened fingertip to pick up the crumbs left on the plate. “I think you were right, though, about trying to find some way to deal with it when it’s like that. Someone brought it up one time, when I was with Matthew, but…he didn’t think it was a good idea.”
The “bloody typical” that rose to John’s lips got swallowed along with a mouthful of ice-cool fresh orange juice. “Why was that, then?” he asked in as carefully neutral a tone as possible. Privately, he could come up with several ideas why a man hell-bent on his partner getting rich and famous off a gift he didn’t really believe in, but could see the potential of, would resist anything that might block the spirits getting through, but Nick didn’t need to hear them.
“He said he thought it wouldn’t be fair. You know, to the ghosts. When they needed me.” Nick sounded doubtful, and it was a relief to know he was capable of doubting Matthew’s sincerity even though the man was long dead and couldn’t use him anymore.
“Oh, and you don’t count? What about being fair to
you?”
John shook his head. “Never mind. After last night, it’s pretty clear that none of them are going to get helped unless there’s some way of making them behave.” He gave Nick a hopeful look, trying to remember himself. “You didn’t get enough to work out what any of them wanted? There was something about a leather jacket…”
“Was there?” Nick rubbed his forehead, looking confused. “Hm. I guess. Wait. Could you hear them?”
John snorted. “Not likely. No; you were talking to yourself. I was supposed to be writing it down, but…” He wasn’t sure what had happened to the pen and the paper had blown away. “I was too worried about you to be paying much attention, though, to be honest. Just the jacket stuck in my head, the way things do.”
“Yeah, I kind of remember that. And something about something that was under a bed. And a combination.” Nick shook his head. “Maybe later I can try to figure some of it out. If things are quiet.” Which they didn’t seem likely to be as long as they were in
“So what was this idea to keep the ghosts away? The one Matthew didn’t like?” John wasn’t going to keep harping on it if it bothered Nick to remember Matthew, but if it was something that could help, well, it was worth a few sad memories.
“I don’t know.” Nick seemed to have lost interest in his food, but he’d certainly eaten enough already. “Once Matthew said no…I didn’t really pay that much attention. I didn’t even think about it. I guess that’s pretty stupid, considering.”
“No, not stupid.” John reached across the table and patted Nick’s hand. “You can usually cope just fine, after all. It’s just -- well, I can’t see you being able to do it here. Too much going on; your own dad being involved, and all the other stuff…” He felt tired just thinking about the avalanche of problems that had hit them in the past few weeks. “You need a wee bit of help.” He considered it for a moment and then asked tentatively. “You don’t have any contacts? Anyone like you that you could call?”