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This one was a giftfic for Miah based on her fabulous prompt, that I almost didn't have time to write and just snuck in at the last possible moment, in between assignment and potential pinch hit and House Divided and doing catering for the retreat at the weekend. I really, really wanted to write this one, but it's kind of a wonder it got written. To say the last few weeks have been busy is a serious understatement.
TITLE: Two Days//Twenty Years
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: M
PAIRING: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
LENGTH: 4,200 words
SUMMARY: Duke and Nathan's life together, twenty years on. AU from end season 4.
NOTES: Written for Miah_Arthur in Troubled Tales 2015. Original prompt:
The Troubles permanently ended. However they ended it meant that Mara/Audrey left with them.
Duke didn't survive the ending of the Troubles intact. Either repeated killing of the Troubled to save the town and the resulting addiction left him permanently mentally damaged, or something that happened before the end left him permanently seriously disabled in some other way (can work with the ending of 5A or ignore it entirely). Duke was left unable to independently care for himself.
Nathan was left with the logical results of the numerous injuries he sustained and largely ignored, along with a nervous system that never did quite work properly again.
I want a story that has this as a background, set many years in the future when they have a quiet life of depending on each other.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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Two Days//Twenty Years
On a good day, the painkillers keep things moderately under control and he can go out there and function and be almost normal. Sometimes on good days he feels guilty, because that's more than Duke has. On the other hand, he's usually just relieved that it's a good day, and tries to get out there and make the most of them.
It's a good day. He still needs the stick, though sometimes he wonders if he's just let himself grow too used to it, more than a real need.
Nathan heads upstairs bearing coffee and knocks on Duke's door. The sunlight streams through the skylight window outside the loft room Duke claimed when he moved in. Five years ago they had finally decided that if they were both fucked up then they might as well be fucked together, and help each other along the way. As he leans there, he's hoping -- but really, the fact that there's sun streaming through the windows and he's still up before Duke, that Duke hasn't already been the one to head down and get coffee, is all the sign he needs of what kind of day it is for Duke.
He knocks and then he shoves the door open. It sticks, but moves enough that he knows Duke hasn't been screwing extra bolts to the inside again, there's just something jammed in front of it. "Duke, damn it--!"
"Bit of privacy, Nathan," a cracking voice asserts from within.
Nathan sighs and puts the coffee down on the table that he dragged up and left outside the room approximately five years ago when he had to get used to this sort of thing. Because bending down usually hurts, even on the good days, even five years back.
"Coffee's outside," Nathan instructs. And like that, he's left a reason for Duke to venture outside to get it, but there's no point checking or trying to use any other persuasion for a few hours. He knows that from long experience. At least he won't have to come up with a screwdriver and perhaps even Dwight to bust in and take all the extra locks off the door again.
It's Nathan's house, so they agreed early on that they would put the locks on the front door and on the windows, and Duke would not secure himself against the person he agreed to share his life with.
Even if some days that's hard.
It sucks that Duke's not up for the day, but that doesn't mean Nathan won't take advantage of it. There are getting to be less and less days like this for him, he has noticed, he is pretty sure that's a pattern, and he can't afford to waste them when they come. It doesn't feel like one of those days he'll need to stay in if he wants to avoid a public disturbance or Duke causing an armed siege that gets on the statewide news again.
Plans get made on the spur of the moment now, depending what he's capable of in that moment. By the time he's finished his coffee, he's made three phone calls and arranged to go into the station and pick up some work today, and then he'll meet Jennifer for lunch. After that, he'll come back to try again with Duke and see if they can at least get an afternoon out of this.
And, better still, an evening.
***
"Nearly twenty years, now," Dwight says out of the blue, that morning, as they're putting the last touches on filing a case report so crazy it could have heralded from a time of Troubles. "Pretty soon, five years or so, depending, and we could start seeing the signs again."
It's not the first time that's occurred to Nathan, who raises his head to meet Dwight's eyes slowly. "I should be able to come back to work properly, when my Trouble returns."
Dwight's face closes off. "We'll see when it happens. Just because you can't feel doesn't mean there's no damage being done. Apparently you did enough last time." Dwight's eyes flicker over him in an assessing pity that, normally, from Dwight, he does not see.
Nathan clenches his jaw. "I should. You're older than I am. You'd be looking at retirement around then, under normal circumstances. I'll be sixty. Without the pain, I could carry this town through another. Not screw it up this time," he adds.
Dwight nods in a way that tells Nathan he's been dragging himself through this whole thought process, too. Dwight's been shot a lot, he's carrying old damage himself. "There's MacDougal." Who's competent, and fifteen or twenty years younger than either of them, but he came up from Boston and who knows how he'll take the Troubles? "We'll see." Dwight grimaces and doesn't meet Nathan's eyes as he asks, "How about Duke? You think that he's up for another?"
Nathan's head jerks so sharply at the question that it hurts, but he ignores the increase in pain levels, glaring with all the force he can muster. "No, Dwight. Absolutely not."
Dwight raises his palm, pacifying. "She's fourteen, Nathan. By that time she'll be old enough, just, but... I thought Duke might prefer..."
Duke will prefer and Nathan doesn't know what will happen, so he shakes his head numbly and massages the knot he just put in his neck with his fingers.
"Jennifer and I have been trying to steer her toward a police career, to give at least some kind of preparation, but you know how teenagers are."
Duke's daughter a cop? Nathan chokes at the thought of how that will go down. "If she does, better tell him through me and drop the bomb gently," he says, not really feeling the sly joke. He presses his lips together. "Duke had at least one other brother. More Crockers out there."
Dwight grunts and falls silent, letting it go for the moment.
***
Nathan pops home before lunch, to make sure Duke's all right, or at least not dangerously not-all right, more than in hope that he'll be up for lunch yet. The coffee's gone and things are rearranged in the kitchen, but the door to Duke's room is still barricaded and he can't raise a reply. Still, the fact he's been out bodes better for later. Maybe.
He meets Jennifer and Lily at the cafe, looking at the Tourist season traffic and deciding to ditch the car back at the station and walk down on (uncooperative) foot. He uses the cane to pick up the slack for the leg that Jordan shot, which never had chance to get rested and heal afterwards because he was -- sometimes literally -- running for his life on it.
Lily is turning into a teenager now, and it feels increasingly like she's there under protest, would rather be doing something else. The thick dark hair on her head is Duke's, and the attitude is Duke's, and no doubt there are other things in her genes from Duke that will do her less favours in life. Jennifer looks less worn since Duke left to live with Nathan. Jennifer in the last few years has even started to look happy again.
"How are things?" Her eyes crawl around him, hopeful for Duke even though Nathan always tells her if he's bringing him.
"We're managing," Nathan says.
There are times she looks at him with her eyes appallingly grateful -- and full of guilt, too, that he can cope with having Duke in the house when she can't. But Nathan's not fifty pounds lighter and a foot shorter, and whatever problems he has, he can still sit on Duke if he gets out of control. At least give it a good go. And he doesn't have a kid in the house.
He hates that she feels that way, because she isn't privy to all the facets of their relationship that explain why Nathan's not doing this just out of pity or obligation or not wanting to see Duke put in some kind of facility, after he got this way through their fault, their negligence, through fighting Troubles for them. There are things in this for Nathan too. Sometimes when they lie together, hands on each other, moving, talking softly, when there's no need for words at all, the complications fall away. For Jennifer, with Duke this way, that part receded so far beyond good that she can't imagine anymore that for Nathan it can still be good. They've patched up enough now they're no longer together, and they stayed married, technically, but she hasn't sought to pursue a physical relationship, arrange any liaisons, since they started living apart.
Nathan is glad and for that, he feels a bit guilty himself.
"He's not well today," Nathan tells her. But he tells her how Duke cooked dinner last night, and they talked about plans for a vacation later this year. Nathan thinks they can manage a road trip, if they buy a caravan, put enough bolts on the inside of the door. It'll substitute as a good enough safe space for Duke. And maybe, Nathan wonders... if he gets outside the boundaries of Haven, maybe he won't feel like he needs it. Maybe that'll do him some good.
Chances of being triggered in a few weeks' holiday can't be so high a risk, for Duke at least, and Nathan's own Trouble might be a holiday of its own, of sorts. Nathan will just have to be careful not to cut himself shaving.
***
Nathan doesn't see much point heading back home again so soon. He tries a text, sitting there in the cafe after Jennifer's gone. Duke's reply comes ten minutes later and says, I'll make it up to you this evening.
Nathan smiles to himself, even though he knows from experience that's not -- can't be -- a promise set in stone. He still feels good so he picks up another coffee and a pastry for later, and heads back to the police station. He taps on Dwight's door on the way in and lets him know he'll spend the afternoon going through the rest of that paperwork Dwight had wanted him to do this week. In his 'advisory' capacity. Dwight's eyes aren't good. Nathan's -- Nathan's eyes still have the almost supernatural sharpness that they learned when his body was numb. For some reason, none of that stuff ever went away. The same way his body seems to be trying to make up now for so many years without feeling anything, these days it's just like everything is turned up to eleven.
"You're sure?" Dwight looks up at him, surprised. Usually, Nathan's hurting too much after half a day at a desk. He manages two, three mornings a week, most weeks, the occasional afternoon when he has to drag himself in on a lousy day to fill in the hours. It's been months since he put in a full day.
"Rather get it done while the going's good," Nathan says. "You got any cats stuck up trees, I could probably take those, too, today."
Dwight snorts and waves him off.
As it happens, Nathan does take a case that afternoon, although only because a truck spills a load of dish soap all along the main road into the town and most of the department end up spending the afternoon knee-deep in bubbles. While he's manning a near-empty police station, there's a call out to a drowning on the beach.
There's nobody else with his kind of seniority around, and it's a funny thing, but death isn't exactly common in Haven, outside the Troubles. He figures why not? and takes his car out there to meet the M.E. Nathan's a bit surprised to find his own physician, Dr. Ellery, there.
She gives him a squint-eyed look. "You're on disability. I signed it."
He shakes his head. "Dwight and I have an arrangement. I still get to be half a cop." He jerks his head at the bundle down on the sand. "Short straw today?"
"Made a deal with McKinley after he covered me the day after Marlene's hen night." Ellery shakes her head and sighs.
There's not enough death in Haven to even rate a full time M.E. any more. Also, nobody else really wanted the role after Gloria died. She was still prodding corpses at eighty. McKinley had said doing the job was like stepping on her grave.
Nathan, too, got out of being accustomed to seeing pale, dead flesh, he discovers. He always had a strong stomach, but it's been long enough that it's difficult to study the corpse of the middle aged man -- younger than he is, probably, says the ironic jab at the back of his brain -- in swimming trunks. Well, he wouldn't have worn the trunks. The stories of the people who were nearby ring consistent and convincing, and Nathan doesn't see much reason to believe it's anything but an accident. "So how do you figure this?" he asks Ellery.
"Wait for my report," she says. Ellery's never been one for informal favours or cutting corners. "Damned shame either way. Haven's tourist business can do without this sort of incident."
Nathan files it under accidental death, at least in his brain.
He's doing too little lately, he reflects, if that feels like it was an adventure. And he's done too much before that, if he can think so casually about something so grim. But nobody's died of even accident or misadventure in Haven for a while, and that's a good thing. He heads back, does the paperwork, and leaves for home at 5pm on the dot.
***
"You look pleased with yourself," is Duke's commentary at the door. Duke is long and lean and leaning against the porch, arms folded, where he came out at the sound of Nathan's engine. His hair is past his shoulders and salt and pepper grey. He's wearing loose clothes and masculine jewelry and looks like an aging hippy. Like some kind of reclusive rock star. He looks good. Nathan feels a warmth curl low in his stomach.
Is it going to be one of those nights when the promises get kept? "So do you," he counters.
"Yeah, I dragged myself out of bed by four o'clock. I'm a champion." There's a snort in Duke's voice, but it's carried next to the acknowledgement of what he's working against and that he does know he beat it today. "You went to work for the whole day?"
"Now I only need to put in another four hours to make this week," Nathan says, "and make me feel like I'm actually working rather than taking Dwight's charity." He walks over and pauses briefly, waiting for the nod, before stepping tight into Duke's personal space. "Come here."
He curls a hand around Duke's waist and the back of his head and plants his feet wide for Duke to step inside, and Duke does, bringing their bodies together along with their lips. Nathan feels the heat building lower down throughout the kiss. Their home is remote enough that they don't have to worry about displays like this on the doorstep. Though the plan was more about not having to worry about Duke taking potshots at the neighbours in his more paranoid moments. The rest came after. Duke wraps both his arms around Nathan's waist and clings on. The kiss seems to last about half an hour. Only at the end of it do Duke's hands slide down inside the back of Nathan's jeans, to take a very tight and possessive hold of two handfuls of ass.
"Mine," Duke murmurs indistinctly, as he pulls out of the kiss, giving a little squeeze.
"--Now?" Nathan asks, breath slightly constricted. "You are feeling better."
"Now," Duke confirms between a few further small, savaging kisses. "Now, in fact."
They've learned to take decisions in the moment, depending on what their bodies and minds are capable of. It's not entirely like they're running inside to have sex like teenagers when it's still the afternoon.
"Um. Haven't reconstructed the bedroom yet," Duke admits, one hand on Nathan's ass and one on the zipper of his own jeans. "Yours, or--"
"Couch." Nathan pulls him to it, and ignoring Duke's protest of "I only just got into these clothes--!" pulls him out of them again. They're here, they're both in the zone, both good for the moment, and he's not going to waste that. Within minutes he's mounting Duke's fingers, astride Duke's lap. Nathan curls his shoulders down to kiss him again and grunts at the sparks of pain.
Duke holds him under the arms and uncurls him gently up again. "Let me."
This is where Nathan is glad that Duke kept up yoga. He has to make the accommodations for Nathan's battered frame in order to keep the act, if not pain-free, at least as much so as possible. Duke eases him onto the couch and slides down between Nathan's legs, where he joins his tongue to his fingers in teasing him open.
The accommodation Nathan has to make for Duke is that Duke doesn't like his defences breached, which means this increasingly rarely happens the other way around. Still, that's not too much hardship. He bends as Duke finally rolls him over, dragging in a few supporting cushions underneath himself. Their bodies press together front to back, and Nathan lets Duke hear his groan outline every inch of Duke that slides inside him.
"All right?" Duke checks, almost a whisper next to his ear.
"Uh." Nathan needs several tries, almost non-verbal. "Yeah. Go." Sometimes it's staggering when he's reminded that his body, which he fights so hard against every day now, can also still feel this good. Duke curls his thumb loosely over the root of him, fingers very light over the underside of his balls, and uses the edge of his wrist for leverage against his hip to ensure he keeps the touch light. His other hand is against Nathan's other side, helping both their balance. Possibly helping Nathan's balance a little more. And he starts to move, slowly, rotating his hips, teasing in and out of Nathan's body in a long, slow slide.
"Ngh." Nathan bites the couch upholstery and sinks his fingertips into Duke's thigh. "Don't take half an hour and make a freakin' meditation out of it," he manages. "You know my body can't do that. Come on, Duke."
He stretches it out more or less just long enough. Duke moves his hand to rub Nathan's chest as he starts shaking with the impending release and continues to fuck him right the way through, drawing it all from him, before he pulls out and lets Nathan reach down and back to finish him off with his hand, fumbling like he can't feel his fingers, knees sinking and sliding in the cushions.
"I was going to make dinner," Duke groans as his body sags, spent. "Everything's all laid out in the kitchen."
And they're all laid out in here, making a mess of the furniture again. Nathan stirs himself enough to poke fingers and twisted toes into the bits of Duke he has leverage to poke. "Go make dinner," he says. "It's too early to sleep. You've only been out of bed since four."
***
Some days, chronic pain feels like a bad punchline. He wakes up with his body already tense and raging at him, rolls over and can't even move. He overdid it yesterday. He even knew that, yesterday, while he was doing it. But yesterday was a fantastic day, and he needs to make the most of those, while he can still... feel them.
Five years, Dwight said yesterday. Knowing what he does about how they work, Nathan has no doubt that as soon as there's even a whiff of Troubles back in the air, all it will take is a day like this and his own curse will be back.
Duke hears him make some kind of noise and rolls over. He makes his own sound of distress and rubs his hand over Nathan's hip and belly under the covers.
Yesterday was a good enough day to end with Duke sleeping in Nathan's bed last night, and today is already a good enough day that he's still there now.
"You want the serious pill?" Duke asks, voice strained because he's already blaming himself for this.
"No," Nathan says, through grit teeth. "Just the usual." It's bad, but Duke's in his bed and he is damned well not going to take something that knocks out his brain for the rest of the day and sets his medication routine out of whack for a week.
"Okay..." Duke's voice holds that dubious, judging tone that says he doesn't understand why Nathan, why anyone, would opt to cope with pain on this scale. "Your call. I'll go fix some coffee."
Duke bringing the coffee back furtively. He crouches down beside the bed, putting his face inches from Nathan's. "You can tell me, you know. This is because of what we did last night?"
"Full day at work and walking down to Mandy's and the trip out to the beach and last night," Nathan rasps in response. "I don't regret last night. Don't you either. Duke," he emphasizes grimly. "Don't."
He drinks from his coffee rarely, taking several gulps each time he does put the effort in to reach out and take up the mug, and becomes increasingly aware of Duke's restlessness. He fidgets. Eventually Nathan's pointed stares produce a stilted response. "I -- called Jen. Didn't get to see her yesterday. I can manage it today. I think I can."
Nathan can't.
"I'll walk," Duke continues. Occasionally he goes catatonic and had his driving license taken away for it, though it's been enough years since the last of those type of fits that he could probably petition to be re-tested, get it back, if Nathan thought that was a good idea. "It's a nice day. I can walk there. Are you gonna be--?"
"You can leave me to wallow," Nathan confirms. He hasn't even thought about the day out there beyond those curtains. He's not going to get to see any of it. "Take your phone."
Duke jumps up almost eagerly, granted permission, and it's -- bizarre. Ridiculous. As if he needs permission. As if Nathan could stop him today.
So Duke goes out and Nathan, after finishing off the coffee and a whole lot of staring into space, slowly peels himself from bed and dresses in loose clothes. Duke keeps giving him yoga pants. He makes his way down to the couch by ten, turns the TV onto National Geographic, and somehow the day limps by, a dim background to the pain. Nathan manages to feed himself at lunchtime and phone his spies in town to check on Duke, though there's nothing he could do today if something did go wrong.
Sometimes, he wonders if Duke might get better someday. Certainly he's better now than he was five years ago. Calmer. He trusts Nathan, anyway, even if he still sometimes shuts him on the wrong side of a door. The fits and the more overt paranoia are almost history. Of himself, Nathan knows he's only ever going to get worse, except for the false, unwelcome balm of his Trouble returning. Where would that leave them? Leave him? It's Duke who has a family out there.
Sometimes it feels like they're just treading water until the Troubles come back. Audrey, or someone else with her face, will come back. Sometimes it seems as though it's feeling again that's become Nathan's curse.
Duke finds him there on the couch when he returns, ducking down before he's even divested all the shopping from his arms, to ruffle Nathan's hair and kiss his forehead. "Don't worry. I've got dinner covered."
Nathan wonders if this is going to end up being one of those evenings he presses his face into Duke's chest and just cries.
It isn't, because as dinner progresses he can feel Duke start to retreat from him again. Can tell it's hard for him to stick out the meal, and the company -- a lot of company, it's been: Duke's been out of his room for almost twenty-four hours straight.
"I'll clear up," Nathan says, absolving Duke of guilt when he disappears as he was surely going to anyway, back to his room and solitude and, maybe, a barricade on the door, but Nathan isn't climbing two flights of stairs tonight to check. It's going to be hard enough to make it up one. He returns to the TV after tidying up the kitchen, telling himself he's absolutely not allowed to exacerbate his condition by sleeping on the couch, which would be astronomically stupid but is so very, very tempting right now.
Maybe the pain's subsiding a little, because it seems like he's become hypersensitive of the spot on his scalp where Duke planted a hasty goodnight kiss on the top of his head, and spoke a hurried, almost garbled, "Love you."
Tonight, they retreat to their separate agonies under the same roof, but that's okay.
Tomorrow rolls the dice again.
END
TITLE: Two Days//Twenty Years
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: M
PAIRING: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
LENGTH: 4,200 words
SUMMARY: Duke and Nathan's life together, twenty years on. AU from end season 4.
NOTES: Written for Miah_Arthur in Troubled Tales 2015. Original prompt:
The Troubles permanently ended. However they ended it meant that Mara/Audrey left with them.
Duke didn't survive the ending of the Troubles intact. Either repeated killing of the Troubled to save the town and the resulting addiction left him permanently mentally damaged, or something that happened before the end left him permanently seriously disabled in some other way (can work with the ending of 5A or ignore it entirely). Duke was left unable to independently care for himself.
Nathan was left with the logical results of the numerous injuries he sustained and largely ignored, along with a nervous system that never did quite work properly again.
I want a story that has this as a background, set many years in the future when they have a quiet life of depending on each other.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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Two Days//Twenty Years
On a good day, the painkillers keep things moderately under control and he can go out there and function and be almost normal. Sometimes on good days he feels guilty, because that's more than Duke has. On the other hand, he's usually just relieved that it's a good day, and tries to get out there and make the most of them.
It's a good day. He still needs the stick, though sometimes he wonders if he's just let himself grow too used to it, more than a real need.
Nathan heads upstairs bearing coffee and knocks on Duke's door. The sunlight streams through the skylight window outside the loft room Duke claimed when he moved in. Five years ago they had finally decided that if they were both fucked up then they might as well be fucked together, and help each other along the way. As he leans there, he's hoping -- but really, the fact that there's sun streaming through the windows and he's still up before Duke, that Duke hasn't already been the one to head down and get coffee, is all the sign he needs of what kind of day it is for Duke.
He knocks and then he shoves the door open. It sticks, but moves enough that he knows Duke hasn't been screwing extra bolts to the inside again, there's just something jammed in front of it. "Duke, damn it--!"
"Bit of privacy, Nathan," a cracking voice asserts from within.
Nathan sighs and puts the coffee down on the table that he dragged up and left outside the room approximately five years ago when he had to get used to this sort of thing. Because bending down usually hurts, even on the good days, even five years back.
"Coffee's outside," Nathan instructs. And like that, he's left a reason for Duke to venture outside to get it, but there's no point checking or trying to use any other persuasion for a few hours. He knows that from long experience. At least he won't have to come up with a screwdriver and perhaps even Dwight to bust in and take all the extra locks off the door again.
It's Nathan's house, so they agreed early on that they would put the locks on the front door and on the windows, and Duke would not secure himself against the person he agreed to share his life with.
Even if some days that's hard.
It sucks that Duke's not up for the day, but that doesn't mean Nathan won't take advantage of it. There are getting to be less and less days like this for him, he has noticed, he is pretty sure that's a pattern, and he can't afford to waste them when they come. It doesn't feel like one of those days he'll need to stay in if he wants to avoid a public disturbance or Duke causing an armed siege that gets on the statewide news again.
Plans get made on the spur of the moment now, depending what he's capable of in that moment. By the time he's finished his coffee, he's made three phone calls and arranged to go into the station and pick up some work today, and then he'll meet Jennifer for lunch. After that, he'll come back to try again with Duke and see if they can at least get an afternoon out of this.
And, better still, an evening.
***
"Nearly twenty years, now," Dwight says out of the blue, that morning, as they're putting the last touches on filing a case report so crazy it could have heralded from a time of Troubles. "Pretty soon, five years or so, depending, and we could start seeing the signs again."
It's not the first time that's occurred to Nathan, who raises his head to meet Dwight's eyes slowly. "I should be able to come back to work properly, when my Trouble returns."
Dwight's face closes off. "We'll see when it happens. Just because you can't feel doesn't mean there's no damage being done. Apparently you did enough last time." Dwight's eyes flicker over him in an assessing pity that, normally, from Dwight, he does not see.
Nathan clenches his jaw. "I should. You're older than I am. You'd be looking at retirement around then, under normal circumstances. I'll be sixty. Without the pain, I could carry this town through another. Not screw it up this time," he adds.
Dwight nods in a way that tells Nathan he's been dragging himself through this whole thought process, too. Dwight's been shot a lot, he's carrying old damage himself. "There's MacDougal." Who's competent, and fifteen or twenty years younger than either of them, but he came up from Boston and who knows how he'll take the Troubles? "We'll see." Dwight grimaces and doesn't meet Nathan's eyes as he asks, "How about Duke? You think that he's up for another?"
Nathan's head jerks so sharply at the question that it hurts, but he ignores the increase in pain levels, glaring with all the force he can muster. "No, Dwight. Absolutely not."
Dwight raises his palm, pacifying. "She's fourteen, Nathan. By that time she'll be old enough, just, but... I thought Duke might prefer..."
Duke will prefer and Nathan doesn't know what will happen, so he shakes his head numbly and massages the knot he just put in his neck with his fingers.
"Jennifer and I have been trying to steer her toward a police career, to give at least some kind of preparation, but you know how teenagers are."
Duke's daughter a cop? Nathan chokes at the thought of how that will go down. "If she does, better tell him through me and drop the bomb gently," he says, not really feeling the sly joke. He presses his lips together. "Duke had at least one other brother. More Crockers out there."
Dwight grunts and falls silent, letting it go for the moment.
***
Nathan pops home before lunch, to make sure Duke's all right, or at least not dangerously not-all right, more than in hope that he'll be up for lunch yet. The coffee's gone and things are rearranged in the kitchen, but the door to Duke's room is still barricaded and he can't raise a reply. Still, the fact he's been out bodes better for later. Maybe.
He meets Jennifer and Lily at the cafe, looking at the Tourist season traffic and deciding to ditch the car back at the station and walk down on (uncooperative) foot. He uses the cane to pick up the slack for the leg that Jordan shot, which never had chance to get rested and heal afterwards because he was -- sometimes literally -- running for his life on it.
Lily is turning into a teenager now, and it feels increasingly like she's there under protest, would rather be doing something else. The thick dark hair on her head is Duke's, and the attitude is Duke's, and no doubt there are other things in her genes from Duke that will do her less favours in life. Jennifer looks less worn since Duke left to live with Nathan. Jennifer in the last few years has even started to look happy again.
"How are things?" Her eyes crawl around him, hopeful for Duke even though Nathan always tells her if he's bringing him.
"We're managing," Nathan says.
There are times she looks at him with her eyes appallingly grateful -- and full of guilt, too, that he can cope with having Duke in the house when she can't. But Nathan's not fifty pounds lighter and a foot shorter, and whatever problems he has, he can still sit on Duke if he gets out of control. At least give it a good go. And he doesn't have a kid in the house.
He hates that she feels that way, because she isn't privy to all the facets of their relationship that explain why Nathan's not doing this just out of pity or obligation or not wanting to see Duke put in some kind of facility, after he got this way through their fault, their negligence, through fighting Troubles for them. There are things in this for Nathan too. Sometimes when they lie together, hands on each other, moving, talking softly, when there's no need for words at all, the complications fall away. For Jennifer, with Duke this way, that part receded so far beyond good that she can't imagine anymore that for Nathan it can still be good. They've patched up enough now they're no longer together, and they stayed married, technically, but she hasn't sought to pursue a physical relationship, arrange any liaisons, since they started living apart.
Nathan is glad and for that, he feels a bit guilty himself.
"He's not well today," Nathan tells her. But he tells her how Duke cooked dinner last night, and they talked about plans for a vacation later this year. Nathan thinks they can manage a road trip, if they buy a caravan, put enough bolts on the inside of the door. It'll substitute as a good enough safe space for Duke. And maybe, Nathan wonders... if he gets outside the boundaries of Haven, maybe he won't feel like he needs it. Maybe that'll do him some good.
Chances of being triggered in a few weeks' holiday can't be so high a risk, for Duke at least, and Nathan's own Trouble might be a holiday of its own, of sorts. Nathan will just have to be careful not to cut himself shaving.
***
Nathan doesn't see much point heading back home again so soon. He tries a text, sitting there in the cafe after Jennifer's gone. Duke's reply comes ten minutes later and says, I'll make it up to you this evening.
Nathan smiles to himself, even though he knows from experience that's not -- can't be -- a promise set in stone. He still feels good so he picks up another coffee and a pastry for later, and heads back to the police station. He taps on Dwight's door on the way in and lets him know he'll spend the afternoon going through the rest of that paperwork Dwight had wanted him to do this week. In his 'advisory' capacity. Dwight's eyes aren't good. Nathan's -- Nathan's eyes still have the almost supernatural sharpness that they learned when his body was numb. For some reason, none of that stuff ever went away. The same way his body seems to be trying to make up now for so many years without feeling anything, these days it's just like everything is turned up to eleven.
"You're sure?" Dwight looks up at him, surprised. Usually, Nathan's hurting too much after half a day at a desk. He manages two, three mornings a week, most weeks, the occasional afternoon when he has to drag himself in on a lousy day to fill in the hours. It's been months since he put in a full day.
"Rather get it done while the going's good," Nathan says. "You got any cats stuck up trees, I could probably take those, too, today."
Dwight snorts and waves him off.
As it happens, Nathan does take a case that afternoon, although only because a truck spills a load of dish soap all along the main road into the town and most of the department end up spending the afternoon knee-deep in bubbles. While he's manning a near-empty police station, there's a call out to a drowning on the beach.
There's nobody else with his kind of seniority around, and it's a funny thing, but death isn't exactly common in Haven, outside the Troubles. He figures why not? and takes his car out there to meet the M.E. Nathan's a bit surprised to find his own physician, Dr. Ellery, there.
She gives him a squint-eyed look. "You're on disability. I signed it."
He shakes his head. "Dwight and I have an arrangement. I still get to be half a cop." He jerks his head at the bundle down on the sand. "Short straw today?"
"Made a deal with McKinley after he covered me the day after Marlene's hen night." Ellery shakes her head and sighs.
There's not enough death in Haven to even rate a full time M.E. any more. Also, nobody else really wanted the role after Gloria died. She was still prodding corpses at eighty. McKinley had said doing the job was like stepping on her grave.
Nathan, too, got out of being accustomed to seeing pale, dead flesh, he discovers. He always had a strong stomach, but it's been long enough that it's difficult to study the corpse of the middle aged man -- younger than he is, probably, says the ironic jab at the back of his brain -- in swimming trunks. Well, he wouldn't have worn the trunks. The stories of the people who were nearby ring consistent and convincing, and Nathan doesn't see much reason to believe it's anything but an accident. "So how do you figure this?" he asks Ellery.
"Wait for my report," she says. Ellery's never been one for informal favours or cutting corners. "Damned shame either way. Haven's tourist business can do without this sort of incident."
Nathan files it under accidental death, at least in his brain.
He's doing too little lately, he reflects, if that feels like it was an adventure. And he's done too much before that, if he can think so casually about something so grim. But nobody's died of even accident or misadventure in Haven for a while, and that's a good thing. He heads back, does the paperwork, and leaves for home at 5pm on the dot.
***
"You look pleased with yourself," is Duke's commentary at the door. Duke is long and lean and leaning against the porch, arms folded, where he came out at the sound of Nathan's engine. His hair is past his shoulders and salt and pepper grey. He's wearing loose clothes and masculine jewelry and looks like an aging hippy. Like some kind of reclusive rock star. He looks good. Nathan feels a warmth curl low in his stomach.
Is it going to be one of those nights when the promises get kept? "So do you," he counters.
"Yeah, I dragged myself out of bed by four o'clock. I'm a champion." There's a snort in Duke's voice, but it's carried next to the acknowledgement of what he's working against and that he does know he beat it today. "You went to work for the whole day?"
"Now I only need to put in another four hours to make this week," Nathan says, "and make me feel like I'm actually working rather than taking Dwight's charity." He walks over and pauses briefly, waiting for the nod, before stepping tight into Duke's personal space. "Come here."
He curls a hand around Duke's waist and the back of his head and plants his feet wide for Duke to step inside, and Duke does, bringing their bodies together along with their lips. Nathan feels the heat building lower down throughout the kiss. Their home is remote enough that they don't have to worry about displays like this on the doorstep. Though the plan was more about not having to worry about Duke taking potshots at the neighbours in his more paranoid moments. The rest came after. Duke wraps both his arms around Nathan's waist and clings on. The kiss seems to last about half an hour. Only at the end of it do Duke's hands slide down inside the back of Nathan's jeans, to take a very tight and possessive hold of two handfuls of ass.
"Mine," Duke murmurs indistinctly, as he pulls out of the kiss, giving a little squeeze.
"--Now?" Nathan asks, breath slightly constricted. "You are feeling better."
"Now," Duke confirms between a few further small, savaging kisses. "Now, in fact."
They've learned to take decisions in the moment, depending on what their bodies and minds are capable of. It's not entirely like they're running inside to have sex like teenagers when it's still the afternoon.
"Um. Haven't reconstructed the bedroom yet," Duke admits, one hand on Nathan's ass and one on the zipper of his own jeans. "Yours, or--"
"Couch." Nathan pulls him to it, and ignoring Duke's protest of "I only just got into these clothes--!" pulls him out of them again. They're here, they're both in the zone, both good for the moment, and he's not going to waste that. Within minutes he's mounting Duke's fingers, astride Duke's lap. Nathan curls his shoulders down to kiss him again and grunts at the sparks of pain.
Duke holds him under the arms and uncurls him gently up again. "Let me."
This is where Nathan is glad that Duke kept up yoga. He has to make the accommodations for Nathan's battered frame in order to keep the act, if not pain-free, at least as much so as possible. Duke eases him onto the couch and slides down between Nathan's legs, where he joins his tongue to his fingers in teasing him open.
The accommodation Nathan has to make for Duke is that Duke doesn't like his defences breached, which means this increasingly rarely happens the other way around. Still, that's not too much hardship. He bends as Duke finally rolls him over, dragging in a few supporting cushions underneath himself. Their bodies press together front to back, and Nathan lets Duke hear his groan outline every inch of Duke that slides inside him.
"All right?" Duke checks, almost a whisper next to his ear.
"Uh." Nathan needs several tries, almost non-verbal. "Yeah. Go." Sometimes it's staggering when he's reminded that his body, which he fights so hard against every day now, can also still feel this good. Duke curls his thumb loosely over the root of him, fingers very light over the underside of his balls, and uses the edge of his wrist for leverage against his hip to ensure he keeps the touch light. His other hand is against Nathan's other side, helping both their balance. Possibly helping Nathan's balance a little more. And he starts to move, slowly, rotating his hips, teasing in and out of Nathan's body in a long, slow slide.
"Ngh." Nathan bites the couch upholstery and sinks his fingertips into Duke's thigh. "Don't take half an hour and make a freakin' meditation out of it," he manages. "You know my body can't do that. Come on, Duke."
He stretches it out more or less just long enough. Duke moves his hand to rub Nathan's chest as he starts shaking with the impending release and continues to fuck him right the way through, drawing it all from him, before he pulls out and lets Nathan reach down and back to finish him off with his hand, fumbling like he can't feel his fingers, knees sinking and sliding in the cushions.
"I was going to make dinner," Duke groans as his body sags, spent. "Everything's all laid out in the kitchen."
And they're all laid out in here, making a mess of the furniture again. Nathan stirs himself enough to poke fingers and twisted toes into the bits of Duke he has leverage to poke. "Go make dinner," he says. "It's too early to sleep. You've only been out of bed since four."
***
Some days, chronic pain feels like a bad punchline. He wakes up with his body already tense and raging at him, rolls over and can't even move. He overdid it yesterday. He even knew that, yesterday, while he was doing it. But yesterday was a fantastic day, and he needs to make the most of those, while he can still... feel them.
Five years, Dwight said yesterday. Knowing what he does about how they work, Nathan has no doubt that as soon as there's even a whiff of Troubles back in the air, all it will take is a day like this and his own curse will be back.
Duke hears him make some kind of noise and rolls over. He makes his own sound of distress and rubs his hand over Nathan's hip and belly under the covers.
Yesterday was a good enough day to end with Duke sleeping in Nathan's bed last night, and today is already a good enough day that he's still there now.
"You want the serious pill?" Duke asks, voice strained because he's already blaming himself for this.
"No," Nathan says, through grit teeth. "Just the usual." It's bad, but Duke's in his bed and he is damned well not going to take something that knocks out his brain for the rest of the day and sets his medication routine out of whack for a week.
"Okay..." Duke's voice holds that dubious, judging tone that says he doesn't understand why Nathan, why anyone, would opt to cope with pain on this scale. "Your call. I'll go fix some coffee."
Duke bringing the coffee back furtively. He crouches down beside the bed, putting his face inches from Nathan's. "You can tell me, you know. This is because of what we did last night?"
"Full day at work and walking down to Mandy's and the trip out to the beach and last night," Nathan rasps in response. "I don't regret last night. Don't you either. Duke," he emphasizes grimly. "Don't."
He drinks from his coffee rarely, taking several gulps each time he does put the effort in to reach out and take up the mug, and becomes increasingly aware of Duke's restlessness. He fidgets. Eventually Nathan's pointed stares produce a stilted response. "I -- called Jen. Didn't get to see her yesterday. I can manage it today. I think I can."
Nathan can't.
"I'll walk," Duke continues. Occasionally he goes catatonic and had his driving license taken away for it, though it's been enough years since the last of those type of fits that he could probably petition to be re-tested, get it back, if Nathan thought that was a good idea. "It's a nice day. I can walk there. Are you gonna be--?"
"You can leave me to wallow," Nathan confirms. He hasn't even thought about the day out there beyond those curtains. He's not going to get to see any of it. "Take your phone."
Duke jumps up almost eagerly, granted permission, and it's -- bizarre. Ridiculous. As if he needs permission. As if Nathan could stop him today.
So Duke goes out and Nathan, after finishing off the coffee and a whole lot of staring into space, slowly peels himself from bed and dresses in loose clothes. Duke keeps giving him yoga pants. He makes his way down to the couch by ten, turns the TV onto National Geographic, and somehow the day limps by, a dim background to the pain. Nathan manages to feed himself at lunchtime and phone his spies in town to check on Duke, though there's nothing he could do today if something did go wrong.
Sometimes, he wonders if Duke might get better someday. Certainly he's better now than he was five years ago. Calmer. He trusts Nathan, anyway, even if he still sometimes shuts him on the wrong side of a door. The fits and the more overt paranoia are almost history. Of himself, Nathan knows he's only ever going to get worse, except for the false, unwelcome balm of his Trouble returning. Where would that leave them? Leave him? It's Duke who has a family out there.
Sometimes it feels like they're just treading water until the Troubles come back. Audrey, or someone else with her face, will come back. Sometimes it seems as though it's feeling again that's become Nathan's curse.
Duke finds him there on the couch when he returns, ducking down before he's even divested all the shopping from his arms, to ruffle Nathan's hair and kiss his forehead. "Don't worry. I've got dinner covered."
Nathan wonders if this is going to end up being one of those evenings he presses his face into Duke's chest and just cries.
It isn't, because as dinner progresses he can feel Duke start to retreat from him again. Can tell it's hard for him to stick out the meal, and the company -- a lot of company, it's been: Duke's been out of his room for almost twenty-four hours straight.
"I'll clear up," Nathan says, absolving Duke of guilt when he disappears as he was surely going to anyway, back to his room and solitude and, maybe, a barricade on the door, but Nathan isn't climbing two flights of stairs tonight to check. It's going to be hard enough to make it up one. He returns to the TV after tidying up the kitchen, telling himself he's absolutely not allowed to exacerbate his condition by sleeping on the couch, which would be astronomically stupid but is so very, very tempting right now.
Maybe the pain's subsiding a little, because it seems like he's become hypersensitive of the spot on his scalp where Duke planted a hasty goodnight kiss on the top of his head, and spoke a hurried, almost garbled, "Love you."
Tonight, they retreat to their separate agonies under the same roof, but that's okay.
Tomorrow rolls the dice again.
END
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