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Chapter five

It Doesn’t Hurt Anymore

Niko tried not to think that there was a good chance Aleksi had been the one to bring them here.

He couldn’t entirely blame Elliott for his paranoia—not after everything they’d both been through. But as he watched him make his way to check the stack of boxes again, signaling the start of yet another round of investigation, he couldn’t take it anymore. Niko stood and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Sit. Down. Please.” He reminded himself of patient fathers at the supermarket trying to reason with their preschoolers.

“We should have gone back to the facility, Niko.”

He repeated what had become a mantra in the past few hours. “It’s going to be okay. This won’t be like the safehouse. Lady D is different.”

Elliott relented with a sigh. “I really hope that you’re right.

” He looked around, seeming a bit lost now.

Two empty bowls sat stacked on the dresser, the long handles of silver spoons protruding from them—the only thing left of the hearty mutton korma Death had sent along for their dinner.

Niko’s duffel bag sat in the opposite corner as the boxes.

They’d been permitted to—both under cloak of stealth—go and grab their supplies and clothing from the ship for their stay.

They’d agreed between each other to leave the chair back on the Sonadora.

It wasn’t something anyone in the compound needed to know about yet.

Niko needed to sit back down. Hours of trying to ignore a familiar old electric burning that had begun to claw at his legs was wearing him down. And making him testy, impatient.

He moved to the foot of the bed and sank down slowly onto it, wincing as he sat. A betraying hiss of pain escaped him. Elliott looked quickly at him with a sharp gaze of alarm.

“Niko? What’s wrong?”

“Ugh. Nothing, babe.”

Elliott’s eyes narrowed. “Are you wounded? Did something happen during the fight?”

He clearly wasn’t going to let it go. Niko sighed. “No, I didn’t get wounded. It’s just— Today’s action fucked with my legs a little. It happens, sometimes. It’s nothing.”

Elliott only stared at him. After a moment, he said quietly, “It doesn’t sound like ‘nothing.’”

“It’s just a thing that happens. Ever since I fell. Sometimes these missions trigger it. Sometimes it happens out of nowhere, when I’ve been doing nothing at all. It’s just nerve pain. Shit misfiring from the old damaged connections. It’ll pass.”

He was starting to sweat, but resisted the urge to wipe it away—doing so would only highlight how much the mounting pain was actually getting to him, how severely it really burned.

He didn’t want to worry Elliott any more, especially now.

The other man was already upset enough, bogged down under the heavy weight of restless paranoia.

Niko didn’t want to add to it all by making himself look weak or compromised.

Elliott drifted over to stand before him, though. When he spoke, his tone was softer. “What helps? What can I do to help you, Niko?”

A slurry of hurt and affection alike coursed through him. Niko ultimately shook his head. “It’s not really that bad, honestly,” he lied. “If it gets to be too much, I can just massage the leg muscles a little.”

“Can I?” Elliott asked. “Will you let me?”

Niko hesitated. “You don’t h—”

“I want to.”

They looked at each other a moment before Niko finally glanced away and nodded.

Elliott reached out and, with great care and no haste, stripped the armor from him, piece by piece, until Niko was in nothing but a gray tank top and black sweatpants.

Elliott knelt on the floor and took his right leg.

He trailed his hands along it, over the thick fabric, then began kneading at the muscles, starting with the ankle.

Niko watched him and neither of them spoke.

Elliott was so worshipful with his movements, careful with Niko like he were clay in the hands of an artist to be sculpted.

It was almost too much to look at, too much to bear.

“Can you feel that, Niko?” Elliott asked.

“Mmh.” He wanted so badly to say yes. “No. But it helps.”

“It’s alright if you can’t. Lie back and just let me do this for you.”

“Elliott—”

“Please, Niko. I want to help you. Just let me.”

Why was it so hard? Why was it so difficult to let Elliott help him? Let him massage his abused, exhausted legs and damaged nerves? To let him simply take care of him for a while?

Why was it so hard to accept help?

Niko swallowed, pushing it all away, the urge to fight, to pull away, to snap that he was fine.

The pain was probably just getting to him.

He let himself lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling he remembered so well.

He couldn’t feel what Elliott was doing, outside of occasional electric, tingling jolts where his hands worked and kneaded, similar to muscles which had fallen asleep.

But the pain was already lessening a fraction, too.

It was far from gone, but it had diminished.

He let himself relax, the rest of his body finally untensing as he sank down deeper into the bed and closed his eyes. Niko stayed like that, letting himself drift for a while. He’d almost fallen asleep when Elliott’s voice jolted him back into awareness.

“We’re so vulnerable.”

Niko sat up slightly, looking at him. Elliott was on to the left leg now, already up above his knee. He’d obviously been at it a while.

“I can put the suit back on,” Niko started, feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable suddenly. “Just let me—”

“Niko,” Elliott said, glancing up at him.

“That’s not what I meant. Just being here.

We could be armored and armed to the teeth, and they could still just lob a grenade in here or something and we’d be dead before we could blink.

And not even just these people. What if this place gets overrun?

Everyone knows we’re here, now. So much for keeping it quiet. ”

“I know,” Niko said, letting himself lay back on the bed again.

A yawn overtook him before he could continue.

“I know that. But it’s not going to happen, Elliott.

They won’t do that. And even if they did, I’m here.

I’ll take care of you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.

I promise. I’d do anything to keep you safe. ”

He meant it, every word, trying to push away feeling exposed, feeling somehow useless. In truth, he’d struggle to be able to make it to the small bathroom attached to their room by himself without the suit on or chair available, let alone defend Elliott from a coordinated ambush.

Regardless, the words found their mark, and Elliott’s shoulders seemed to sag. Niko heard him let out a long, quiet breath. “I might not trust anyone here,” he said. “But I trust you. And if you think we’ll be alright, then we will be.”

“Come here,” Niko said. Elliott hesitated, then climbed up onto the bed, lying against Niko’s side.

Niko turned over to face him and wrapped his arms around him.

Then he closed his eyes again, fatigue settling back in.

The screaming in his legs had quieted to a burning whisper. “I’ve got you, Elliott.”

“I know you do,” Elliott said, and he sounded like he meant it. Despite everything, Niko couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his lips.

He woke sometime in the night, groggy and out of it. For a moment, Niko couldn’t remember where he was—had he fallen asleep on the ship? This wasn’t the facility. Then it all came back to him, like a punch to the gut. They were in the heart of Dainna.

Niko glanced over at Elliott, who was staring quietly off into space. The other man seemed to snap suddenly out of his reverie, turning his gaze to meet Niko’s.

“Mgh,” Niko grunted. “What time is it?”

Elliott summoned his phone hologram. The light of it made them both recoil, squinting against the harsh blue. He quickly gestured it away. “Just past two in the morning.”

Niko ran his hands up and down Elliott’s back. The muscles of it were taut and tense. “Can’t sleep, babe?”

“No,” he admitted after a brief silence. “I can’t stop thinking.”

“You need to, Elliott.”

“I can’t.”

Niko took his face in his hands, making him look at him.

“You need to. What’s happened, happened.

We’re here now. We’re going to be alright.

This is the opportunity we needed. The right path isn’t often easy, is it?

Think of how good it’s going to feel to finally get everything Honeybliss has done out into the light. ”

Elliott seemed to struggle. “I—I can’t, Niko. I’ve tried and failed for so many years to do that very thing, that I can’t imagine it anymore. I can’t even hope for it. To hope for it and be let down again is going to make me sick.”

“We will, Elliott,” Niko said. He ran his thumb along Elliott’s regal cheekbone. “This time, we will. You’re not alone anymore, right?”

“...Right. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Niko stroked his hair for a while. He was beginning to wake back up now, and with clearer consciousness came awareness of his body. He didn’t hurt anymore. Elliott’s hands and a multi-hour nap, it seemed, had worked miracles.

“Hey,” Niko murmured at him. He leaned in and kissed him on the corner of the mouth, testing how receptive Elliott was to the gesture.

Elliott closed his eyes, seeming to bask in it, tilting his chin up toward him subtly.

Then Niko kissed him fully on the lips this time, Elliott’s own parting for him easily, and they met, tongue against tongue.

Elliott clung tightly to a fistful of Niko’s tank top.

Reluctantly, Niko separated from him. “I can help you sleep, if you want.”

Elliott’s dusty green eyes searched him for a moment, before he spoke. “How are you feeling? Your legs.”

“ Better,” Niko said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Are you lying this time?”

Niko smirked, in spite of himself. “No, babe. Not this time. I’m doing alright.”