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Continued from here.
Duke figured it was cause to break out the good stuff when they were effectively drinking at their own wake, and Nathan was fond of scotch. Even though it was quiet at the Gull at this time of day, Duke had no desire to linger around other people, so he grabbed the bottles and let Nathan drive them back to the Rouge.
He'd been dead. Was still dead, technically, because in his book stuffed sure as hell wasn't any definition of alive. Unspeakable things had been done to his body. Unspeakable.
"Well, here goes." On his kitchen counter, far too early in the morning, Duke filled two shot glasses with 21-year-old scotch that deserved better, slammed the bottle down then drained his glass. "Drink to the first day of the rest of your death, Nate." He turned to Nathan, offering the second glass. Nathan stood like a shadow, his eyes like coals. He took the glass carefully in his fingertips. "Come on, man! We're walking corpses! Who wouldn't drink to that?"
"Don't think about it that way." Nathan was trying, but he lacked conviction. He slipped the liquid into his throat in a smooth, slow motion, closing his eyes and visibly savouring as he followed the flavour down. Duke had to wonder how much he got of that whiskey burn without being able to feel. His face looked almost pornographic, though. You had to peg something amiss when Nathan was enjoying the finer things in life more than Duke.
But of course: not alive.
Nathan was still out to prove him wrong. "You didn't meet Landon before knowing any of this. You couldn't tell. He couldn't tell."
To Duke, the guy had looked like a walking mannequin, and his estimation of Nathan's ability to read someone else's physicality wasn't high. "Yeah, but we know, and so do plenty of other people. Vince and Dave!"
Nathan tipped one shoulder. "We know they can keep secrets."
Duke snorted. "And my body feels like it's been wrung inside out, stuffed with fucking rags and sawdust, and sewed up again. Sorry." He tagged that on as he realised who he was talking to. "It's like a..." 'Violation' came to mind pretty strongly, but that was too melodramatic a sentiment for the audience and Nathan would laugh at him. He shook his head and reached for the bottle again.
"Slow down," Nathan said.
Duke stared at him. "You're taking this with all the emotion of an action figure." He caught himself just in time, because 'puppet' was a far more apt description for Nathan now than before, but Duke didn't want to go there.
"No," Nathan's fist clenched at his side. With his other hand he groped to put the shot glass clumsily back on the table. "Yes. I have to." He rolled his eyes wearily at the perplexed twitch of Duke's frown. "I have to because not five weeks ago I calmly told Landon that his life wasn't over just because he was like this. So either I'm the biggest hypocrite who ever walked the Earth, or I'm dealing with this."
"Yeah? You already know which one gets my vote."
"Give me another drink. Find some better glasses this time. If this is our wake, we deserve more style."
"Says you."
But Duke complied and they both settled in some chairs, not that comfort made much difference to Nathan or to Duke at the moment, since every position hurt. Nathan sat like a robot, the only sign of life when he periodically raised the glass to his lips. Duke sat silent, trying to take it all in, but ended up sometime later thinking instead about how silence was something he and Nathan just didn't do together, and how Nathan was so determined not to freak out about this that it seemed he wasn't going to let himself feel anything.
Duke was offended by the idea of Nathan's numbness taking root inwards, because even if he was fake inside now as well as out, that didn't mean he had to be a total blank. Considering the combative nature of their relationship, there probably was room for some uncertainty whether it was Nathan's calm while Duke was freaking out that was actually intolerable. So Duke was either being a massive dick or a responsible friend when he poked, "You know how taxidermy works?"
Nathan regarded him over a near-empty glass, baleful expression at a simmer. "I know it's not my preferred topic of conversation right now."
"Well, first they fucking skin... the animal. All those bits and pieces that used to be inside, like organs and bones and blood, are just waste product, chucked out with the trash. Then they stretch and hang the skin out and cure that sucker to preserve and strengthen it..." Nathan's face was screwed up in disgust and God knew what his own face looked like. It was revolting, was what it was.
"--Oh my God." Duke broke off. His goal had been to make Nathan feel something, but it seemed he'd only succeeded in freaking himself out worse. God. He didn't do well with the blood-and-guts stuff at the best of times, and how the hell was he supposed to live in -- to occupy this body, knowing all that had been done to it?
Standing up probably wasn't his best idea, since sitting down he at least had less distance to fall if his panic attack were to turn into an embarrassing faint. But Nathan was up, too, grabbing his arms. "Take it easy."
"Easy!" Duke choked. He stumbled sort of through Nathan, trying to get past him, inadvertently dragging him along. "I'm so fucking screwed. I bet there are -- I haven't even checked -- seams or something. I bet we don't even look real, naked. You couldn't do that to a person and not leave a whole lot of ugly marks." He towed Nathan along to his bedroom and a full length mirror, trying to unfasten his clothes as he went.
Nathan swore at him and hung on. Duke had the notion that Nathan was actually still holding him upright, which would explain the dedication. When they got to the bedroom and Duke could cling to the wall or sprawl against the edge of his bed, Nathan let go and stepped back, watching with eyes that were withholding some kind of judgement. Duke tossed his shirt in a corner, twisting and turning, trying to see all of his back in the mirror. "Check me," he urged Nathan.
"Duke, there's nothing there," Nathan said, voice flat as ever, the fucking machine, and Duke was putting on this performance in front of the person least likely to actually grasp a human emotion.
But Duke needed to know even if Nathan didn't, and embarrassment could come later. Right now he only cared about the facts written on his skin, underneath his clothes. He'd showered earlier, but he hadn't known to look. Hadn't known there was anything to look for. He started stripping off his pants. Nathan's reflection in the mirror was rolling its eyes a lot. Duke threw his shoes and socks at him.
"Duke, I can't see anything." Nathan's eyes were wider than they needed to be. Did that mean he saw something he wasn't owning up to? "Maybe the Taylor's family Trouble repairs the damage done by the taxidermy process. Maybe the process doesn't even work that way when Landon does it."
Duke stumbled into Nathan and clutched at his collar. "I want to see. That means you, too, buddy." If Nathan had any marks, that would prove he was lying. Duke pulled at Nathan's shirt, ripping a few buttons.
Nathan sighed, set his mouth into a thin line and nodded. "All right. If that's what it takes to settle this." He shrugged out of his shirt as Duke pushed the edges over his shoulders. First thing Duke saw was the bullet scar, not even two months old and still pink.
"Whoa." He touched his fingers to it. "That's an actual--"
Nathan caught his hand and irritably pushed it away. "Not what we're doing." He turned his back on Duke, lifting the stubby tail of his hair, not that he really needed to, and bent his back so that his spine curved and every rib, mark and old scar was picked out from his skin. Shit, Nathan was clumsy. "Any seams?" he asked with challenge.
"No... no." Duke grabbed at Nathan's jeans, curling hands over the button and zipper from behind, and Nathan bucked backward into him and swore violently. "You want to prove it to me then prove it," Duke snapped, fighting back. "I've seen your body before."
Nathan got his hands off, wrenching them painfully as he did, because Nate was still the stronger of them at the moment. He turned and stepped away and hissed, "Okay, if it'll stop this lunatic obsession. But I'll do it myself." He bent to remove his shoes, then shucked down jeans and underwear together and kicked them loose.
"Socks," said Duke, who wouldn't believe Landon hadn't gotten it all out and back in again through the soles of their feet, though he could see both his own, if he curled his knees up and strained to look, and they looked okay.
Nathan gave a very concentrated glower, but pulled his socks off and after a quick check of the soles of his own feet -- see, he didn't believe it either -- made a full turn. It was a bit quick for Duke to really see, so he followed Nathan around and set his hands on the back of his shoulders to push him in place, then slid them down the back of his body. Knowing there was no way for Nathan to tell he was doing it, and therefore it wasn't like the presumption mattered, he tentatively parted his ass-cheeks on the way back up, just in case a row of stitches were hiding in there, and paid some attention to the inner thigh. No seam...
"Duke," Nathan growled, and Duke looked up and realised that the mirror had shown Nathan everything.
Duke might have reddened a little bit. Mostly he owned to the moment and grinned.
"Well? Do I have any... marks?" Nathan's brusque impatience -- and for that matter his uncharacteristic willingness to strip -- made Duke realise he didn't and couldn't know what state his body was in, had even less idea than Duke did, but was sitting on his freakout a whole lot better.
Duke admitted slowly, "No marks." He sighed, stepped back and slumped down on the end of the bed with his legs wide and head hanging, ready to admit he'd made an ass of himself. The Troubles worked to their own rules. Who was to say they couldn't be indistinguishable from life, like this? Until, of course, someone like Nathan cut down through the skin. He eyed the 'X' of tape on Nate's arm. It was a crappy fix, and they were going to need to do better.
He said, "I wonder if we have Landon repair that himself, it looks anything less like some horror movie scar."
Nathan's face flickered minutely. "Really don't feel like talking to Landon. Besides, he's got one of his own. I'm not sure damage like this does anything other than stick around."
"We could ask," Duke said glumly. He stared at his hands, rested between his knees. Flexed his fingers. Thought about his own flesh and blood, bone and sinew, no longer inside there. Skin. He was just skin. All the rest had been scraped out and thrown away.
If damage they acquired now didn't heal, Nathan was fucked, he thought, and kept it private.
It was more depressing than it should be. Like he still had any involvement or investment in Nathan Wuornos' life.
A shadow loomed over him. Startled, Duke looked up.
Nathan was really close. He tentatively reached down and rested his hands on Duke's shoulders. He licked his lips, and Duke followed the slow flick of that pink tongue almost hypnotically. Things didn't really register properly, because he'd have known where he was if someone else had been this close and looking at him that way, but this was Nathan and that rendered such an explanation impossible.
Still, Nathan pushed him backwards to a soft landing on the mattress, hesitation disappearing in a decisive move, and climbed on top. A hand under Duke's hip guided him further onto the bed, rucking up the sheets. Then Duke felt the brush of naked thighs against the outside of his own as Nathan straddled him and, astonishingly -- because the biggest part of him was still expecting a blow, expecting to fight -- Nathan leaned in, seized Duke's hair between his fingers, and used the leverage to kiss him hard.
Okay, the kiss was kind of like a fight.
Duke made an unintelligible noise and strove for words. "Nate. What are you doing?"
Nathan pulled back.
"Reclaiming our bodies," Nathan stuttered, embarrassment turning his cheeks pink. "Nuh. It's a bad idea." He almost swung away, but Duke saw him bracing to do it and grabbed and clung on for dear life.
"It's not," he said thickly, burying his face in Nathan's neck. "It's really not." He trailed kisses more like bites around Nathan's jawline, and thrust his hips upwards, aiming for where Nathan's groin straddled tantalisingly above him. "Fucking brilliant idea. Best you've ever had." God, it had been a really long time.
Nathan tasted the same as he remembered, plus whiskey, but the response of his lips was erratic, different. He'd never kissed Nathan when he couldn't feel, and when they were this close, Nathan had fewer ways to cover the deficit. Duke thought Nathan might pull away once he realised, but he didn't. He pressed Duke down in the bed, grinding their bodies together. The unmistakable sensation of Nathan's cock, hard and hot, sliding against his own made Duke grin. "Checking out that other bodily functions still work?" he asked.
"Much more interesting ones." Nathan raised himself on hands and knees to look down between their bodies, then dived back in. His hand found Duke's hardening erection, lining them up better. Duke felt all of Nathan's length against his own and groaned.
So, Nathan still functioned. Duke marvelled. It had never been a given. In fact, he'd thought... "Thought you didn't do this anymore," he gasped. Thought was whiting out. There was no space for thought. Duke wrestled and rolled them over, and Nathan rolled them over again, ending up back on top with a knee between Duke's legs this time. He pressed a wet thumb against Duke's ass, letting it sink in slow.
It had been a long time since they'd done this, but not that long. "You are not gonna fuck me on spit and whiskey," Duke grunted, and desperately flailed his arm behind him, sending most of the contents of the nightstand onto the floor. His fingers hit a tub and he hurled it in the direction of Nathan.
"Hope it's not hair gel," Nathan said, daubing it over his fingers. A moment later, he slipped those fingers into Duke's ass, pushing and stretching just a little too much too soon, but it felt cool and good. Duke groaned and bucked against Nathan as the fingers did their work, trying to strike an angle where he could rub his cock against any part of Nathan, needing the contact.
If he'd really thought about it, he might have balked at the idea of Nathan inside him when Nathan couldn't feel, when he already ached to the bone over his whole body. Except whiskey and lust were making his decisions, and were obviously better at it, because they said he wanted this. When Nathan's hands tried to move him, he rolled over obediently, giving better access to his ass. He swore softly as six foot plus of warmth and firm muscle pressed close over his back and he felt Nathan's cock slowly sink into him.
Nathan paused and said, voice wavering, "You tell me if anything's wrong, if anything hurts."
"Anything hurts and I will make sure you fucking know about it," Duke said, and ground back. The sensation drew a sharp breath from him. Nathan thrust into the move with a high, desperate noise like he really couldn't have held back any longer. Duke had harboured an unkind scepticism about what Nathan could still get out of sex -- not that any of that had been sour grapes -- but he was clearly getting plenty out of this. That erection wasn't a product of Duke's imagination. He felt the burn of it as his body adjusted.
Nathan's arms braced past Duke's ribs to the mattress and he felt the tickle of hair and brush of stubble on his shoulder, a scrape of teeth he didn't think was deliberate. He managed to change his automatic yelp of pain at the nip into, "Holy crap!" Didn't want Nate to get the wrong idea.
'Holy crap' summed it up pretty well, considering that Nathan was an unfeeling blunt object, these days, and the last person Duke would have predicted to experience sex that fried his brain with. Moving slow and forceful together, their bodies shuddered in unison. It seemed to last both an age and a suspended moment, pushing back onto Nathan while Nathan thrust to meet him. Until finally Nathan slumped, his weight bearing both of them down, and Duke felt the pressure inside him start to relax.
Since returning to Haven he was no longer used to this. Small fucking towns and it was easier and more stress-free, if you didn't mind which sex your bed partners were, to pick up women. He'd forgotten the weight and physicality of another man with him in bed.
He felt Nathan's fingers fumble across his thigh, searching for his cock. Duke wriggled his fingers between Nathan's to guide him and they finished the job together. Duke was almost there, practically spent already.
Nathan groaned into his shoulder. The sound had a note of disgruntlement and Duke really hoped they hadn't got to the regret and recriminations part already. As if to refute their reported physical status, Nathan felt like a furnace against his back. Duke found it just as boggling to remember Nathan was unable to feel any of that body heat himself.
Duke rolled over, reluctant to face whatever expression Nathan was wearing.
Nothing scary awaited him, and the look on Nathan's face softened further as they faced each other, so maybe that noise had only been distress at being unable to see. Nathan ran both palms up Duke's shoulders, for all the world like he could feel it, applying pressure to the skin and watching it wrinkle and distort under his touch. His face twisted into a wry, tiny smile.
"Why'd you need to get so many tattoos?" It was only a small grumble he dredged up, after all.
Duke shrugged. "Mementos of here and there, that felt right at the time." Last one had been five years ago, so maybe he'd lost the impulse to decorate his skin by now. He poked the pink bullet scar on Nathan, and a reasonably big slice above his nipple. "Not like you've been shirking on the body modifications either."
"Not my choice," Nathan asserted. "I try to keep away from assholes with guns and knives."
"Buddy, you chose your job." A job that was kind of asking for it, for someone with Nathan's peculiar disability. Duke felt fear run through him, reliving his earlier dark thoughts.
Seriously, was that all it took? One roll in the hay after nearly twenty years and his subconscious was already worrying like he was married to the guy? But then there were some old flames that burned with you for fucking ever, and Nathan always had been Duke's brightest. First and brightest.
He was going to have to tread carefully, because this had been a fraught situation and there'd been alcohol, and who knew whether Nathan felt anywhere near the same?
Nathan kissed him again, then pulled back and played with Duke's hair, running it through his fingers.
"I am right in thinking you can't feel that?" Duke posed, hoping it wouldn't be interpreted as a criticism.
"I haven't miraculously started to feel again after being stuffed," Nathan confirmed.
"Because I didn't think you did this. I wasn't sure you could do this, with the... not-feeling thing, but I was damn sure you didn't do this." Duke watched his face closely.
"I... a couple of weeks ago, I tried." Nathan puffed out an uncomfortable breath. "With Jess." Duke had been aware of Nathan's brief attempt at dating again, but hadn't realised it had gone that far. "Properly tried, Duke, don't look at me like that. Then Parker interrupted and -- it was right before Jess left. But it was enough to make me realise sex was at least... possible."
So Duke hadn't been the first to break down those walls. Maybe he should send some flowers to the chick who'd paved the way. He grunted brief laughter and they rolled apart. Nathan half sat up, leaning back on his hands, legs sprawled, while Duke started to register all the aches in his body which had not been helped by sex, though endorphins had made him not care too much about them and he was still floating on a bit of that haze.
He didn't have to look too far for distraction. Their bodies really were different from how they used to be, he mused in a contented haze. Nathan was solid and trim, and not actually as skinny as he always looked in the sort of clothes he chose to wear, a lot more filled out than at seventeen. He hadn't the degree of muscle definition of someone who worked out, but Duke hadn't expected that. Nathan was always at work, and his chosen sport was golf, for fuck's sake. That was fine. Duke would take him natural and unassuming.
Nathan was returning the inspection, and Duke wasn't modest enough to have to wonder if he liked what he saw.
It was only then that Duke really remembered why they had ended up doing this in the first place. Maybe for the first time ever, Nathan had actually had a brilliant plan, because Duke felt a hundred times better about his body now than half an hour ago. Even with all the aches, it was singing at him.
"We could be dead now," he murmured, "and we'd never have done this again." It put things in perspective.
"I can't say I'd rather not be normal--" There was a touch of hesitation in Nathan's voice. His 'normal' would never be normal to start with. "But I... don't regret that." He shot an unnerved look Duke's way, as if admitting so much was a step too far. "Made me feel more real." His eyes averted.
Duke considered not even having sensation to reassure himself that he was still alive, and felt an unpleasant twist in his stomach. "You felt plenty real," he said, rolling back over to grab at Nathan's legs, shedding the lingering threads of lassitude. "How about we work on making you feel a bit more real?"
Abruptly, he wanted Nathan, the desire almost consuming -- almost twenty saved-up years of it, after all -- needed to take him as he'd thought he'd never have chance to again, and see what he could get past the infuriating wall of his Trouble. After what they'd already done, it was going to take a while to work up to, but he could cope with that.
"Unh," grunted Nathan, as Duke yanked his legs and flattened him to the bed. "Audrey..."
Duke had his hands on Nathan's torso and his knees around Nathan's hips, and what part Audrey Parker had in that scenario, Duke had no clue. He leaned down and worried into Nathan's neck with his lips.
"No," Nathan hissed impatiently, with a definite edge of horror, and grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him up. "Audrey."
There was a little perky tap on the skylight above as Nathan pointed, and Duke cricked his neck jerking it up too fast. That entertained face, a little startled, but very interested, peeking at them intently through the window... Oh, shit. "How'd she get up there?" Duke asked stupidly.
"How does she get anywhere?" Nathan shot back. He fumbled off the bed and grabbed for his clothes. Audrey offered them a tentative wave then disappeared from the window. She must have knocked and they hadn't heard... which wasn't hugely surprising.
Fuck! Now Audrey knew, Nathan was going to freak out, and Duke wasn't going to have the chance to claim him back. He bounced off the bed, moving too fast for his sore body, and snaked his arms around Nate from behind as he was pulling his jeans up. "This is not over." Duke rubbed his face right up to Nathan's ear. "We're picking this up later."
"All right," Nathan said huskily.
Duke couldn't resist groping him, then using that touch to guide Nate's body back against his own.
"Uhn..." Nathan stuttered, eyes fixed downwards. "Damn it, Duke, we have to deal with Audrey right now."
They stumbled onto the deck still rearranging clothes and fastening buttons, what buttons they had left, no dignity intact. Audrey raised her eyebrows, although that quirky expression was a great improvement from earlier. Her eyes were still red-rimmed. Maybe Duke could start to forgive her a little for choosing to make him into something other than human, if it had brought Nathan back to him after all these years. "You two... working things out?"
Nathan's face was traffic-light-red. "It's not -- not like that." Which, really, Nate? She'd seen them stark naked and climbing all over each other, on the verge of very dirty things. That was not a position you backed down from with a 'who, me?'
"Trying to prove signs of life," Duke said more stonily. He wasn't going to apologise. "How come the interruption?" That part was definitely not forgiven.
"There's a Trouble. The Chief doesn't want Nathan back on duty yet, but I thought it might... take your minds off things... to have a ride along."
"We were managing to do that pretty well ourselves. On both counts," Duke said, provoking Nathan into a coughing fit that made him look like a struggling asthmatic until he got a grip on himself.
"What's the problem?" he asked, dredging up his best gruff, Clint Eastwood tones.
"It's up on Bloy's Cliff. I'm not sure of all the details, but it sounded like one of ours." Audrey leaned forward and sniffed. "Have you been drinking?"
"Not nearly so much as we could've been drinking, sweetheart," Duke said. Actually, considering where they'd ended up, they had done remarkably little drinking.
Audrey tipped her head judgmentally but evidently concluded they were sober enough. "Okay. I'm driving anyway." She gestured toward her little grey rental. "That's if you want to go? Because if you're busy..."
She waited, looking at Nathan and not Duke, like she'd already sussed that she could count on Duke to follow Nathan wherever he went, at the moment.
...Fuck it, he wasn't getting away. They were this close, this close, to having something again...
Nathan looked between them and Duke willed him to say 'screw the Trouble'. He didn't. "The Chief doesn't want me back?"
It would take someone who knew him to recognise the disguised hurt in his voice.
Damn it.
"I think he's... worried, more than anything." Audrey took a tentative stab at comfort. "It's not unreasonable of him to want to gauge the physical repercussions of this before he puts you back on active duty."
But Audrey was offering a case, against the Chief's express wishes, and Duke knew how this would go even before Nathan said, "Duke doesn't have to come," and looked back at him with a trace of apology.
"Oh, hell no," Duke said. "You are not ditching me now, Nathan. Get in the damn car."
"I'd say I'm surprised, but... I'm not, really," Audrey observed, watching Duke's hand fall on Nathan's shoulder as he herded him into the back seat, providing an extra push to stop him clocking his numb head on the vehicle's bodywork. "I figured there had to be more between you guys than some schoolyard vendetta."
"You don't know what we used to get up to in the schoolyard," Duke responded, and from inside the car, Nathan growled at him to shut up, like there hadn't been a time Nate was the one leading the charge for cigarettes and blow jobs behind the gym building.
***
Nathan recovered his prickliness during the car journey, piling it on like a shield, and Duke could feel the distance between them expanding across the back seat. Even if Nathan probably needed that to get into the mindset for work, Duke couldn't help but feel his own fears grow in response. He wanted to grab Audrey and shake her.
But he had needed that interlude on the boat to convince him he could resume life again. He had to accept that this was probably what Nathan needed to achieve the same, even if he wasn't freaking out over it, yet: Nathan needed to work.
Damn him.
Duke had also realised it was early afternoon and he'd had only sex and whiskey for lunch, but that complaining about it was not going to get him anywhere productive now. They were already too far out of town to ask to pull over to grab snacks. The fact he still wasn't hungry didn't change his desire to make a point of eating.
Bloy's Cliff was a rock pinnacle, harshly exposed to the elements, dropping from an overhang to the sea forty feet below. On top of it perched a handful of determined houses that weren't arranged in anything like a line, but were still generally referred to as a street.
The wind whistled around the car, rocking it as Audrey drew them to a halt. They had to wrestle with the doors to get out. Elsewhere, it had not been too bad a day, but this was one of those spots where the weather was permanently sour.
Audrey walked around to Nathan. Duke didn't hear what she said, only Nathan's reply of, "No, I'm all right," a pause, and then his belligerent continuation: "I keep telling you I'm all right. I don't need -- the only thing I need is for you to treat me normally."
He backstepped as Audrey reached up to put a hand on his shoulder, and she stared at him, eyes widening a fraction. Duke still didn't know what was going on there, but he thought it had been going on before their current problems started.
Then he saw the crows, and whatever weirdness lay between Audrey and Nathan was scattered from his thoughts.
There were dozens of them, perched on trees and wires and the low roof of the nearby house. It didn't seem a natural place for them to be, because they had to struggle to be there at all, feathers ruffling and feet shifting, straining against the wind. Rows of jet black birds crowded every available surface, their beady eyes watching.
Duke shuddered. "Fuck. I'm in a Hitchcock movie."
One of the birds flapped erratically down and landed on the grey roof of Audrey's car. It gave him a direct look and a raucous caw, then its feet pattered as a gust of wind blew it sideways and it struggled for purchase on the shiny surface.
Duke watched it warily, but it didn't attack, just stayed there looking at him.
Nathan swore suddenly, and Duke turned to see him flailing an arm. One of the birds had landed on his shoulder. The aggressive movement sent it to a more wary distance, settling on a gatepost a few feet away. "What the hell is this?"
"Our sort of puzzle," Audrey confirmed in a low voice.
A woman came down to open the garden gate for them. The birds appeared to have no interest in her. She was perplexed but professional in a pants suit, with fluffy strawberry-blonde hair and a stethoscope around her neck. The birds had no interest in Audrey, either, leaving her alone while she introduced herself to the doctor and flashed her badge, but as Duke and Nathan tried to enter the gate several of the crows from the fence closed curiously in. Duke edged one away with his boot while flapping his arms to scare the rest. He and Nathan luckily remained a side interest to the birds' eerie focus upon the house, but it made him wary. Any sign they were going to be mobbed by hundreds of the things, and he was out of there.
"They were all here when I came to see Mr Garbutt on my rounds," said the doctor. She'd introduced herself to Audrey as Dr Peters. "It's strange. Not that animals acting weird in this town is all that strange. The paper's always talking about gas leaks, but I don't think it's the man-made infrastructure. Got to be the geology. Gas pockets under the ground, minerals seeping out of the rocks into the water supply... You only need to check the historical records to see that Haven's been too weird for too long."
At his side, Nathan grunted, and Duke supposed it was as good a lie to tell yourself as any. "Creepy," was his own verdict, raised on second thoughts to, "Fucking creepy."
"Wait until you see them out back." The doc paused in the doorway, frowning at both men. Nathan did a small double-take, lost without a badge to flash. Audrey shook her head and waved the GP onward.
"Looks more like a job for animal control," Duke muttered, leaning in to Nathan.
He got back an are-you-kidding? glower. "It has to be a Trouble. Look at them all." Nathan closed the door behind them with difficulty and left the crows scraping at the small window next to it.
Duke averted his eyes and did his best to ignore them.
"Dr Peters! Dr Peters! Something's wrong..." A desperately worried little old lady hurried out on to the hallway and urged the doc back into the same room. The old woman wrung her hands while the doc examined the frail old man lying in the bed there. The doc started to shake her head grimly.
Audrey seized Duke and Nathan's arms and slid her eyes to the windows where hordes of the crows perched. With a last glance at the body of Mr Garbutt, she dragged both of them out of the room.
In the hallway, Nathan murmured, "Crows are a death-omen in some cultures."
"Maybe that came from a Trouble like this one." Audrey kept her voice hushed. "Let's get outside." The air seemed thick and choking in the small house.
The crows were outside, but the dead body was inside, so Duke was willing to opt for the crows. The three of them spilled out of the front door, Nathan gulping for breath like that had been a particular trial for his working senses, and they found the majority of the birds were simply gone. The few remaining sidled close and Audrey shooed them off.
"Death omens," Duke gritted out, un-charmed. Audrey looked pale and unhappy.
"I think we confuse them," Nathan tried. "We should be dead and we're not. We're not going to be anytime soon." He shot Duke a hard look.
"I'm sorry," Audrey scraped her hands through her hair, distressed. "I didn't know it would be something like this."
"The population of this town are just dropping like flies this week," Duke said, with a bitter bark of laughter. "So tell me, resident experts: are the crows an omen, or did they kill this guy? Will they kill us? Oh, wait -- I forgot."
"Don't." Nathan grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, leading him away from Audrey, out of the gate and to the car, where he backed Duke up against the hard metal. "She is trying. This has been a trauma for her, too."
Duke stretched his jaw into what he figured could entirely appropriately be called a death-mask grin. "I know she's very cute and there's all that winsome FBI-cop charm. But she had us stuffed, Nate! Personal fucking boundaries! Did you really want to spend the rest of your life dead?"
Nathan fingers curled in his collar. "Do you really wish she hadn't done it? She saved us."
"She saved something. Are we alive? Are we us? Shit, maybe we're just stuffed mannequins with a collection of stale memories."
Nathan flinched, and ow, because that came with a reflexive tightening of his fingers at Duke's neck. "What about back on the boat?" Nathan hissed. "Was that real? Is this?"
Duke got the impression that Nathan opted to kiss him, if mashing his lips over Duke's quite so violently could truly be deemed a 'kiss', because he was at a loss for anything else to do.
Maybe right after the first time Nate had slept with him in nearly twenty years wasn't the wisest moment to imply that Nathan was a pod person. Even if Duke had been implying that for years, in some way or other. Nathan resorting to sexual wiles instead of violence to try and get what he wanted had to be a sign he was nearing the end of his tether, if not a sign of the apocalypse. He pulled back leaving Duke's lips smarting. "Did that feel real? You'll have to tell me, since I don't know."
Ouch.
Nathan backed off disgustedly at the lack of answer. "Fuck you. I'm not sorry to still be here." He turned and started to stalk away. Since they were already at the car and they were a hike from town by foot, Duke didn't know where he thought he was going.
"Nate." Duke was so not done with this, but he knew when he was beat. "I'm not sorry you're still here, either, all right? If it helps, I'm pretty sure no mere dummy could fake being this much of an asshole. I know that's one hundred percent genuine Nathan Wuornos."
Nathan covertly flipped him off and shot a steely look past Duke, who followed his gaze to where Dr Peters had ventured out and was soberly exchanging words with Audrey. Duke bit his tongue and kicked at a crow strutting too near. He was chastened enough to obediently walk to the car when Nathan held the door open for him and climb in. Nathan closed the door then turned around and leaned on it, waiting for Audrey.
Bastard. Way to get rid of a guy, Duke thought, but gnashed his teeth and seethed in silence, because causing a scene at some poor old bugger's death bed was, on reflection, tasteless.
He leaned to peer around Nathan at the conversation Audrey and the doctor were having, but apparently it had been short, because Audrey was already walking grimly back to them. Nathan finally went around to the other side of the car and got in. "Did I say asshole?" Duke began, "Because--"
"Shh." That was an actual hand slapped over Duke's mouth. Annoyed, he grabbed it by the wrist and dragged it clear -- and since Nate being that touchy in the first place without it involving fisticuffs was rare, kept it. Nathan was distracted enough to let him, leaning forward oblivious that Duke still had his hand wrapped between both his own, to ask Audrey as she climbed in, "What's happening, Parker?"
She craned around in the driver's seat. "Mr Garbutt took sick suddenly yesterday. If this had been a long-term condition I'd be less worried. As it is..." A scraping noise made them all turn to eye a crow on the car's hood. "I think we need to look into this pretty urgently."
"No shit," said Duke.
"How are we going to do that?" Nathan asked. "Chief's going to send me home the second he sees me in the station."
Audrey's expression set in determination. "You're involved now. The birds are attracted to you guys, too. I'd rather have you both where I can keep an eye on you. You might as well be helping at the same time."
"You did hear that she said 'helping'," Nathan qualified pointedly to Duke, frowning down at the seat between them but not commenting upon his captured hand.
"I help," Duke asserted. "You guys aren't even asking the question: where'd they all go?"
"Yeah." Audrey rolled her head on her neck with a sigh as she turned around to start the car. "Now that your natural pessimism brought that up, I have to worry about it, too."
"APB?" Duke suggested. Both cops dutifully ignored him. Audrey picked up her radio.
"Laverne?" she said, that sigh still infusing her voice. "I need to know if there are any more weird animal behaviour reports. Specifically birds. Oh, and there's a local GP, Dr Peters, who'll be arranging morgue transport for a body that I need Julia to take a look at ASAP... Yeah, another one. This one takes priority. It's something new." She set the radio down, shaking her head, and started the car.
Nathan wrested back his hand. Duke mouthed "why?" and "come on!" and made several other charades-style entreaties. Nathan sat and glowered, telling him with a twitch of his eyebrows to be patient.
***
Back at the station, Audrey had a serious dig into how many people had died of accidental or natural causes in the last few days, the deaths that wouldn't usually reach their desks, and no-one liked what she found.
"Five is way too many for a town this size." Audrey left the paperwork in Nathan's hands and sped out to corner the Chief.
Nathan poked at the reports, shuffled four of them out of his hands and into Duke's (what was he supposed to do? Make paper airplanes?) and got his cellphone out. "Sorry to disturb you, Miss Maitland, this is Detective Wuornos, Haven PD... Just one follow-up question. You see any birds around, when Mr Lears fell off his ladder...?" A pause. "Big, black birds. Right. No, that's all. Thank you." He cut the call and bowed his head, tapping the phone against it in a slow rhythm. "...Shit."
"Two of these people lived on the same street." Heroically resisting the urge toward origami, Duke had all four of the files across his lap, letting his eyes roam over them. "You know what? It's the same damn street Mortimer Kale lived on." He slapped his hand down hard on the files, making two of them jump clear and hit the floor. Fucking enough.
Nathan stared at him. "Garbutt didn't live there."
"No, but I bet we can verify where the window cleaner was on Thursday," Duke said, hearing his words come out biting, jerking his head at the file Nathan held. "Maybe the old codger was in the area, too."
"You think this is still...?"
"Wouldn't it be a huge fucking coincidence to have two mass-death Troubles in less than a week?"
"Jerry Coggins is dead." Nathan dropped the file and swung around to pace. "Audrey shot him."
"She says she shot him. Audrey... has not been the most forthcoming girl where the truth is concerned, this week."
Nathan predictably closed up and growled, "Damn it, Duke...!"
"No, listen." He raised his hands, not that such gestures usually worked to soothe the savage Wuornos. "Something's weird about Audrey. You know it. Look, I'm not saying..." He sighed, because there was no way he was getting anywhere with Nathan while Nathan was wearing a face like that. "Okay, what if Audrey just thinks she killed him? Or what if his Trouble was passed on to someone else? Or, hell, something's happening here that we don't even begin to understand. But one thing that's got to be true is that this." He wielded the death reports. "This is too much coincidence."
Nathan nodded tightly, giving him that much. "Agreed."
It seemed weird even for Haven that people were continuing to die in different ways after the source of the original Trouble was supposed to be dead, but who the hell knew how the rules worked with this shit? Fucking taxidermy! Who was to say a Trouble couldn't mutate? Or a death-Trouble couldn't continue to kill after the death of the person afflicted with it?
Garland Wuornos slammed in right then, cutting short any other conversation. "Nathan," he stopped at the sight of Nathan leaning against his police desk. His shirt sleeve had strayed up over the 'x' of tape.
"Dad." Duke watched Nathan's every trace of emotion crawl back inside and hole up at the sight of the Chief. Nathan straightened, brandished the 'x' on his arm, and demanded, "You knew about this?"
Garland's face twisted, and something snapped in him. Duke fell back as he lunged, but he wasn't the target, and it turned out that any instincts he might have to protect Nathan as a result of the recent change in their relationship knew their limits.
He'd never seen Nathan more astonished than when the Chief engulfed him in a bear-hug. It only lasted for an instant before Garland pulled brusquely away and delivered a few tremendous blows to Nathan's back that rocked him on his feet. Garland rounded off the punishment by shaking Nathan by the shoulders. "God damn it, son."
The expression on Nathan's face mostly said, Help, but no way in hell was Duke interrupting. Apparently neither was Audrey, who'd re-entered the office on the Chief's heels.
"What the hell?" Nathan demanded.
"When you've seen your kid dead, it puts a few things in perspective." The Chief's voice was gruff. He took an awkward, distancing step back and drew a cigarette out between shaking fingers.
...Oh. Oh, thought Duke. Garland had seen that? Was this the first time they'd been face-to-face since? How the hell had the Chief stood for that? Unless he'd intended things that way... passing messages using Audrey and keeping Nathan home to recover... Duke suddenly imagined all the questions and fears that had been going through his own mind, viewed from the other side. He thought about someone he cared for being resurrected from the dead by freakish means. How might they react? Would they be the same? Could he face it if they weren't?
Garland's admission seemed to have left Nathan unable to find words.
Audrey put in a few, soberly. "I told you, Chief. Nathan's fine." Fine was a word that could carry a whole lot of subtle charge. "They found out, but he's tough, like you raised him to be."
True to form, the words that burst out of Nate's mouth, stubbornly and fiercely, were, "I want to work. Whatever else I am, I'm not sick."
"Goddamnit, Nathan," Garland growled, "I thought you were dead and gone and this harebrained scheme of hers was bound to bring nothing but heartache, but it ain't some ghoul with my son's face standing there, with that all he can say in the face of all this." Garland patted Nathan's chest fondly, his mouth twisted and eyes teary. So... Garland knew Nathan was real for the same reasons Duke did: because only the real thing could be such an emotionally constipated jerk.
Nate grabbed his dad's wrist, forestalling the next contact. He opened his mouth and for a moment it seemed he'd say something, but the Chief was drawing back now, and wasn't that the way it always went with these two? Nathan went defensive again. "...So now you know I'm still me. Am I still a cop? Or is that something you intend to keep withholding?" He read Garland's failure to come up with an immediate response badly. "What is it that you're looking for? What proof of trust?"
"That's not -- goddamn it." Garland delved in his pocket aggressively and hurled something black and silver that smacked against Nathan's chest before falling to the floor through his grasping hands. "Knock yourself out. 'Course, no-one knows what damage that fool body of yours can take now or can't. You want to tempt fate?"
Nathan dropped to retrieve his badge, keeping his eyes on the Chief with all the caution due an armed felon. But Garland didn't wait, turning on his heel as soon as he'd delivered the badge and marching out of the room. Audrey barely avoided getting slammed by his shoulder.
Nathan cursed, straightening, and lunged after him. That part was unexpected, and through the internal windows, Duke watched Nathan catch the closing door into Garland's office and follow him inside.
Duke and Audrey exchanged blank glances. "He saw Nathan," Duke said flatly, after a beat. "Dead Nathan." That would be enough to screw up any parent. Anyone.
Audrey had had her hands full with both of their corpses.
"It was a weird twenty-four hours," Audrey said. "It was a weird seventy-two hours, but the part right after... Landon wanted to try, but there was Garland, and there was me, and there were... words. A few of those."
"Garland didn't want to bring him back." Duke read between the lines.
"Garland said Nathan was dead, and no good would come of using any Trouble to fix that: something would go wrong, it always did, and it was a fool's game trying to use any curse for good... trying to bring back anyone who should be gone." She blinked hard and turned away.
So Nathan's dad was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, Duke could sympathise, because he was still waiting, too. In the meantime... "Look." He laid the files they'd been studying out on Audrey's desk.
She picked them up, staring at the addresses. "This makes no sense..."
"Now, why would you expect anything in this town to do that?" Duke mocked wryly.
"How could it be the same Trouble? Everyone affected last week just dropped dead. These all look natural or accidental."
"I don't know how," Duke said. "I only know it is. One more thing: Nathan managed to link at least one of them to crows." He explained the rest of their ideas.
"We really need to know where those birds went to. It's not necessarily the kind of thing that generates a police report, but maybe there's a... a Haven bird-watchers club?" She circled her hand in the air, testing, waiting for input.
Duke shrugged. "Birds. Who even knows? Ask Nathan, he likes the sorts of dull things people get intricate and obsessive about."
"I should check Mr Lears' personal effects. He must have had some sort of schedule. Maybe in his phone. If we can establish he was there that morning, that's a solid connection..." Her investigative patter ran down and she paused with her eyes on Duke. "Duke," she said, softly hoarse with emotion. "If you didn't want to live like this... I know I made the choice for you, and it wasn't as though I could ask... But I'm sorry."
Shit, thought Duke, who wasn't ready. "You are gonna have to give me a day or two to get used to this, Audrey. Assuming we have a day or two." Grudgingly, he added, "I guess even if all this ends today, at least I got one last dance with Nathan for old times' sake."
Audrey's expression perked up a little, though she instantly countered, "It's not going to end today. If this Trouble is still a threat to the two of you, we'll deal with that." The force in her voice startled him. She managed to calm herself and offered a sly grin. "Nathan's a... good dancer, is he?"
Duke blinked. "Does all right for a guy who can't feel what he's doing. Yeah."
"I'm really glad you guys sorted things out." She touched his hand tentatively. "Maybe it'll give you both a reason to tough through this once we've dealt with the... immediate problem."
And wouldn't you just love that? Duke thought. A handy free pass absolving all guilt. Aloud he said, "It's Nathan. He'll probably take offence at me breathing the wrong way and we'll be back to fists and name-calling tomorrow. Speaking of which, you think Wuornos and Wuornos need any intervention?"
"I'm sure they're fine." She didn't sound sure.
But while they were tapping their feet and not-so-surreptitiously watching the corridor a few minutes later, Nathan emerged from the Chief's office looking dazed. Audrey poked Duke's arm and they hurried to jump on him and demand details.
Nathan couldn't be pressed to say anything about how the conversation with Garland had gone, but it couldn't have been too badly, because when Audrey said they were after information about bird-watchers, Nathan ducked back into the office to get contact details for the rest of the Haven Twitchers from his dad. Who knew, huh?
Duke figured it was cause to break out the good stuff when they were effectively drinking at their own wake, and Nathan was fond of scotch. Even though it was quiet at the Gull at this time of day, Duke had no desire to linger around other people, so he grabbed the bottles and let Nathan drive them back to the Rouge.
He'd been dead. Was still dead, technically, because in his book stuffed sure as hell wasn't any definition of alive. Unspeakable things had been done to his body. Unspeakable.
"Well, here goes." On his kitchen counter, far too early in the morning, Duke filled two shot glasses with 21-year-old scotch that deserved better, slammed the bottle down then drained his glass. "Drink to the first day of the rest of your death, Nate." He turned to Nathan, offering the second glass. Nathan stood like a shadow, his eyes like coals. He took the glass carefully in his fingertips. "Come on, man! We're walking corpses! Who wouldn't drink to that?"
"Don't think about it that way." Nathan was trying, but he lacked conviction. He slipped the liquid into his throat in a smooth, slow motion, closing his eyes and visibly savouring as he followed the flavour down. Duke had to wonder how much he got of that whiskey burn without being able to feel. His face looked almost pornographic, though. You had to peg something amiss when Nathan was enjoying the finer things in life more than Duke.
But of course: not alive.
Nathan was still out to prove him wrong. "You didn't meet Landon before knowing any of this. You couldn't tell. He couldn't tell."
To Duke, the guy had looked like a walking mannequin, and his estimation of Nathan's ability to read someone else's physicality wasn't high. "Yeah, but we know, and so do plenty of other people. Vince and Dave!"
Nathan tipped one shoulder. "We know they can keep secrets."
Duke snorted. "And my body feels like it's been wrung inside out, stuffed with fucking rags and sawdust, and sewed up again. Sorry." He tagged that on as he realised who he was talking to. "It's like a..." 'Violation' came to mind pretty strongly, but that was too melodramatic a sentiment for the audience and Nathan would laugh at him. He shook his head and reached for the bottle again.
"Slow down," Nathan said.
Duke stared at him. "You're taking this with all the emotion of an action figure." He caught himself just in time, because 'puppet' was a far more apt description for Nathan now than before, but Duke didn't want to go there.
"No," Nathan's fist clenched at his side. With his other hand he groped to put the shot glass clumsily back on the table. "Yes. I have to." He rolled his eyes wearily at the perplexed twitch of Duke's frown. "I have to because not five weeks ago I calmly told Landon that his life wasn't over just because he was like this. So either I'm the biggest hypocrite who ever walked the Earth, or I'm dealing with this."
"Yeah? You already know which one gets my vote."
"Give me another drink. Find some better glasses this time. If this is our wake, we deserve more style."
"Says you."
But Duke complied and they both settled in some chairs, not that comfort made much difference to Nathan or to Duke at the moment, since every position hurt. Nathan sat like a robot, the only sign of life when he periodically raised the glass to his lips. Duke sat silent, trying to take it all in, but ended up sometime later thinking instead about how silence was something he and Nathan just didn't do together, and how Nathan was so determined not to freak out about this that it seemed he wasn't going to let himself feel anything.
Duke was offended by the idea of Nathan's numbness taking root inwards, because even if he was fake inside now as well as out, that didn't mean he had to be a total blank. Considering the combative nature of their relationship, there probably was room for some uncertainty whether it was Nathan's calm while Duke was freaking out that was actually intolerable. So Duke was either being a massive dick or a responsible friend when he poked, "You know how taxidermy works?"
Nathan regarded him over a near-empty glass, baleful expression at a simmer. "I know it's not my preferred topic of conversation right now."
"Well, first they fucking skin... the animal. All those bits and pieces that used to be inside, like organs and bones and blood, are just waste product, chucked out with the trash. Then they stretch and hang the skin out and cure that sucker to preserve and strengthen it..." Nathan's face was screwed up in disgust and God knew what his own face looked like. It was revolting, was what it was.
"--Oh my God." Duke broke off. His goal had been to make Nathan feel something, but it seemed he'd only succeeded in freaking himself out worse. God. He didn't do well with the blood-and-guts stuff at the best of times, and how the hell was he supposed to live in -- to occupy this body, knowing all that had been done to it?
Standing up probably wasn't his best idea, since sitting down he at least had less distance to fall if his panic attack were to turn into an embarrassing faint. But Nathan was up, too, grabbing his arms. "Take it easy."
"Easy!" Duke choked. He stumbled sort of through Nathan, trying to get past him, inadvertently dragging him along. "I'm so fucking screwed. I bet there are -- I haven't even checked -- seams or something. I bet we don't even look real, naked. You couldn't do that to a person and not leave a whole lot of ugly marks." He towed Nathan along to his bedroom and a full length mirror, trying to unfasten his clothes as he went.
Nathan swore at him and hung on. Duke had the notion that Nathan was actually still holding him upright, which would explain the dedication. When they got to the bedroom and Duke could cling to the wall or sprawl against the edge of his bed, Nathan let go and stepped back, watching with eyes that were withholding some kind of judgement. Duke tossed his shirt in a corner, twisting and turning, trying to see all of his back in the mirror. "Check me," he urged Nathan.
"Duke, there's nothing there," Nathan said, voice flat as ever, the fucking machine, and Duke was putting on this performance in front of the person least likely to actually grasp a human emotion.
But Duke needed to know even if Nathan didn't, and embarrassment could come later. Right now he only cared about the facts written on his skin, underneath his clothes. He'd showered earlier, but he hadn't known to look. Hadn't known there was anything to look for. He started stripping off his pants. Nathan's reflection in the mirror was rolling its eyes a lot. Duke threw his shoes and socks at him.
"Duke, I can't see anything." Nathan's eyes were wider than they needed to be. Did that mean he saw something he wasn't owning up to? "Maybe the Taylor's family Trouble repairs the damage done by the taxidermy process. Maybe the process doesn't even work that way when Landon does it."
Duke stumbled into Nathan and clutched at his collar. "I want to see. That means you, too, buddy." If Nathan had any marks, that would prove he was lying. Duke pulled at Nathan's shirt, ripping a few buttons.
Nathan sighed, set his mouth into a thin line and nodded. "All right. If that's what it takes to settle this." He shrugged out of his shirt as Duke pushed the edges over his shoulders. First thing Duke saw was the bullet scar, not even two months old and still pink.
"Whoa." He touched his fingers to it. "That's an actual--"
Nathan caught his hand and irritably pushed it away. "Not what we're doing." He turned his back on Duke, lifting the stubby tail of his hair, not that he really needed to, and bent his back so that his spine curved and every rib, mark and old scar was picked out from his skin. Shit, Nathan was clumsy. "Any seams?" he asked with challenge.
"No... no." Duke grabbed at Nathan's jeans, curling hands over the button and zipper from behind, and Nathan bucked backward into him and swore violently. "You want to prove it to me then prove it," Duke snapped, fighting back. "I've seen your body before."
Nathan got his hands off, wrenching them painfully as he did, because Nate was still the stronger of them at the moment. He turned and stepped away and hissed, "Okay, if it'll stop this lunatic obsession. But I'll do it myself." He bent to remove his shoes, then shucked down jeans and underwear together and kicked them loose.
"Socks," said Duke, who wouldn't believe Landon hadn't gotten it all out and back in again through the soles of their feet, though he could see both his own, if he curled his knees up and strained to look, and they looked okay.
Nathan gave a very concentrated glower, but pulled his socks off and after a quick check of the soles of his own feet -- see, he didn't believe it either -- made a full turn. It was a bit quick for Duke to really see, so he followed Nathan around and set his hands on the back of his shoulders to push him in place, then slid them down the back of his body. Knowing there was no way for Nathan to tell he was doing it, and therefore it wasn't like the presumption mattered, he tentatively parted his ass-cheeks on the way back up, just in case a row of stitches were hiding in there, and paid some attention to the inner thigh. No seam...
"Duke," Nathan growled, and Duke looked up and realised that the mirror had shown Nathan everything.
Duke might have reddened a little bit. Mostly he owned to the moment and grinned.
"Well? Do I have any... marks?" Nathan's brusque impatience -- and for that matter his uncharacteristic willingness to strip -- made Duke realise he didn't and couldn't know what state his body was in, had even less idea than Duke did, but was sitting on his freakout a whole lot better.
Duke admitted slowly, "No marks." He sighed, stepped back and slumped down on the end of the bed with his legs wide and head hanging, ready to admit he'd made an ass of himself. The Troubles worked to their own rules. Who was to say they couldn't be indistinguishable from life, like this? Until, of course, someone like Nathan cut down through the skin. He eyed the 'X' of tape on Nate's arm. It was a crappy fix, and they were going to need to do better.
He said, "I wonder if we have Landon repair that himself, it looks anything less like some horror movie scar."
Nathan's face flickered minutely. "Really don't feel like talking to Landon. Besides, he's got one of his own. I'm not sure damage like this does anything other than stick around."
"We could ask," Duke said glumly. He stared at his hands, rested between his knees. Flexed his fingers. Thought about his own flesh and blood, bone and sinew, no longer inside there. Skin. He was just skin. All the rest had been scraped out and thrown away.
If damage they acquired now didn't heal, Nathan was fucked, he thought, and kept it private.
It was more depressing than it should be. Like he still had any involvement or investment in Nathan Wuornos' life.
A shadow loomed over him. Startled, Duke looked up.
Nathan was really close. He tentatively reached down and rested his hands on Duke's shoulders. He licked his lips, and Duke followed the slow flick of that pink tongue almost hypnotically. Things didn't really register properly, because he'd have known where he was if someone else had been this close and looking at him that way, but this was Nathan and that rendered such an explanation impossible.
Still, Nathan pushed him backwards to a soft landing on the mattress, hesitation disappearing in a decisive move, and climbed on top. A hand under Duke's hip guided him further onto the bed, rucking up the sheets. Then Duke felt the brush of naked thighs against the outside of his own as Nathan straddled him and, astonishingly -- because the biggest part of him was still expecting a blow, expecting to fight -- Nathan leaned in, seized Duke's hair between his fingers, and used the leverage to kiss him hard.
Okay, the kiss was kind of like a fight.
Duke made an unintelligible noise and strove for words. "Nate. What are you doing?"
Nathan pulled back.
"Reclaiming our bodies," Nathan stuttered, embarrassment turning his cheeks pink. "Nuh. It's a bad idea." He almost swung away, but Duke saw him bracing to do it and grabbed and clung on for dear life.
"It's not," he said thickly, burying his face in Nathan's neck. "It's really not." He trailed kisses more like bites around Nathan's jawline, and thrust his hips upwards, aiming for where Nathan's groin straddled tantalisingly above him. "Fucking brilliant idea. Best you've ever had." God, it had been a really long time.
Nathan tasted the same as he remembered, plus whiskey, but the response of his lips was erratic, different. He'd never kissed Nathan when he couldn't feel, and when they were this close, Nathan had fewer ways to cover the deficit. Duke thought Nathan might pull away once he realised, but he didn't. He pressed Duke down in the bed, grinding their bodies together. The unmistakable sensation of Nathan's cock, hard and hot, sliding against his own made Duke grin. "Checking out that other bodily functions still work?" he asked.
"Much more interesting ones." Nathan raised himself on hands and knees to look down between their bodies, then dived back in. His hand found Duke's hardening erection, lining them up better. Duke felt all of Nathan's length against his own and groaned.
So, Nathan still functioned. Duke marvelled. It had never been a given. In fact, he'd thought... "Thought you didn't do this anymore," he gasped. Thought was whiting out. There was no space for thought. Duke wrestled and rolled them over, and Nathan rolled them over again, ending up back on top with a knee between Duke's legs this time. He pressed a wet thumb against Duke's ass, letting it sink in slow.
It had been a long time since they'd done this, but not that long. "You are not gonna fuck me on spit and whiskey," Duke grunted, and desperately flailed his arm behind him, sending most of the contents of the nightstand onto the floor. His fingers hit a tub and he hurled it in the direction of Nathan.
"Hope it's not hair gel," Nathan said, daubing it over his fingers. A moment later, he slipped those fingers into Duke's ass, pushing and stretching just a little too much too soon, but it felt cool and good. Duke groaned and bucked against Nathan as the fingers did their work, trying to strike an angle where he could rub his cock against any part of Nathan, needing the contact.
If he'd really thought about it, he might have balked at the idea of Nathan inside him when Nathan couldn't feel, when he already ached to the bone over his whole body. Except whiskey and lust were making his decisions, and were obviously better at it, because they said he wanted this. When Nathan's hands tried to move him, he rolled over obediently, giving better access to his ass. He swore softly as six foot plus of warmth and firm muscle pressed close over his back and he felt Nathan's cock slowly sink into him.
Nathan paused and said, voice wavering, "You tell me if anything's wrong, if anything hurts."
"Anything hurts and I will make sure you fucking know about it," Duke said, and ground back. The sensation drew a sharp breath from him. Nathan thrust into the move with a high, desperate noise like he really couldn't have held back any longer. Duke had harboured an unkind scepticism about what Nathan could still get out of sex -- not that any of that had been sour grapes -- but he was clearly getting plenty out of this. That erection wasn't a product of Duke's imagination. He felt the burn of it as his body adjusted.
Nathan's arms braced past Duke's ribs to the mattress and he felt the tickle of hair and brush of stubble on his shoulder, a scrape of teeth he didn't think was deliberate. He managed to change his automatic yelp of pain at the nip into, "Holy crap!" Didn't want Nate to get the wrong idea.
'Holy crap' summed it up pretty well, considering that Nathan was an unfeeling blunt object, these days, and the last person Duke would have predicted to experience sex that fried his brain with. Moving slow and forceful together, their bodies shuddered in unison. It seemed to last both an age and a suspended moment, pushing back onto Nathan while Nathan thrust to meet him. Until finally Nathan slumped, his weight bearing both of them down, and Duke felt the pressure inside him start to relax.
Since returning to Haven he was no longer used to this. Small fucking towns and it was easier and more stress-free, if you didn't mind which sex your bed partners were, to pick up women. He'd forgotten the weight and physicality of another man with him in bed.
He felt Nathan's fingers fumble across his thigh, searching for his cock. Duke wriggled his fingers between Nathan's to guide him and they finished the job together. Duke was almost there, practically spent already.
Nathan groaned into his shoulder. The sound had a note of disgruntlement and Duke really hoped they hadn't got to the regret and recriminations part already. As if to refute their reported physical status, Nathan felt like a furnace against his back. Duke found it just as boggling to remember Nathan was unable to feel any of that body heat himself.
Duke rolled over, reluctant to face whatever expression Nathan was wearing.
Nothing scary awaited him, and the look on Nathan's face softened further as they faced each other, so maybe that noise had only been distress at being unable to see. Nathan ran both palms up Duke's shoulders, for all the world like he could feel it, applying pressure to the skin and watching it wrinkle and distort under his touch. His face twisted into a wry, tiny smile.
"Why'd you need to get so many tattoos?" It was only a small grumble he dredged up, after all.
Duke shrugged. "Mementos of here and there, that felt right at the time." Last one had been five years ago, so maybe he'd lost the impulse to decorate his skin by now. He poked the pink bullet scar on Nathan, and a reasonably big slice above his nipple. "Not like you've been shirking on the body modifications either."
"Not my choice," Nathan asserted. "I try to keep away from assholes with guns and knives."
"Buddy, you chose your job." A job that was kind of asking for it, for someone with Nathan's peculiar disability. Duke felt fear run through him, reliving his earlier dark thoughts.
Seriously, was that all it took? One roll in the hay after nearly twenty years and his subconscious was already worrying like he was married to the guy? But then there were some old flames that burned with you for fucking ever, and Nathan always had been Duke's brightest. First and brightest.
He was going to have to tread carefully, because this had been a fraught situation and there'd been alcohol, and who knew whether Nathan felt anywhere near the same?
Nathan kissed him again, then pulled back and played with Duke's hair, running it through his fingers.
"I am right in thinking you can't feel that?" Duke posed, hoping it wouldn't be interpreted as a criticism.
"I haven't miraculously started to feel again after being stuffed," Nathan confirmed.
"Because I didn't think you did this. I wasn't sure you could do this, with the... not-feeling thing, but I was damn sure you didn't do this." Duke watched his face closely.
"I... a couple of weeks ago, I tried." Nathan puffed out an uncomfortable breath. "With Jess." Duke had been aware of Nathan's brief attempt at dating again, but hadn't realised it had gone that far. "Properly tried, Duke, don't look at me like that. Then Parker interrupted and -- it was right before Jess left. But it was enough to make me realise sex was at least... possible."
So Duke hadn't been the first to break down those walls. Maybe he should send some flowers to the chick who'd paved the way. He grunted brief laughter and they rolled apart. Nathan half sat up, leaning back on his hands, legs sprawled, while Duke started to register all the aches in his body which had not been helped by sex, though endorphins had made him not care too much about them and he was still floating on a bit of that haze.
He didn't have to look too far for distraction. Their bodies really were different from how they used to be, he mused in a contented haze. Nathan was solid and trim, and not actually as skinny as he always looked in the sort of clothes he chose to wear, a lot more filled out than at seventeen. He hadn't the degree of muscle definition of someone who worked out, but Duke hadn't expected that. Nathan was always at work, and his chosen sport was golf, for fuck's sake. That was fine. Duke would take him natural and unassuming.
Nathan was returning the inspection, and Duke wasn't modest enough to have to wonder if he liked what he saw.
It was only then that Duke really remembered why they had ended up doing this in the first place. Maybe for the first time ever, Nathan had actually had a brilliant plan, because Duke felt a hundred times better about his body now than half an hour ago. Even with all the aches, it was singing at him.
"We could be dead now," he murmured, "and we'd never have done this again." It put things in perspective.
"I can't say I'd rather not be normal--" There was a touch of hesitation in Nathan's voice. His 'normal' would never be normal to start with. "But I... don't regret that." He shot an unnerved look Duke's way, as if admitting so much was a step too far. "Made me feel more real." His eyes averted.
Duke considered not even having sensation to reassure himself that he was still alive, and felt an unpleasant twist in his stomach. "You felt plenty real," he said, rolling back over to grab at Nathan's legs, shedding the lingering threads of lassitude. "How about we work on making you feel a bit more real?"
Abruptly, he wanted Nathan, the desire almost consuming -- almost twenty saved-up years of it, after all -- needed to take him as he'd thought he'd never have chance to again, and see what he could get past the infuriating wall of his Trouble. After what they'd already done, it was going to take a while to work up to, but he could cope with that.
"Unh," grunted Nathan, as Duke yanked his legs and flattened him to the bed. "Audrey..."
Duke had his hands on Nathan's torso and his knees around Nathan's hips, and what part Audrey Parker had in that scenario, Duke had no clue. He leaned down and worried into Nathan's neck with his lips.
"No," Nathan hissed impatiently, with a definite edge of horror, and grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him up. "Audrey."
There was a little perky tap on the skylight above as Nathan pointed, and Duke cricked his neck jerking it up too fast. That entertained face, a little startled, but very interested, peeking at them intently through the window... Oh, shit. "How'd she get up there?" Duke asked stupidly.
"How does she get anywhere?" Nathan shot back. He fumbled off the bed and grabbed for his clothes. Audrey offered them a tentative wave then disappeared from the window. She must have knocked and they hadn't heard... which wasn't hugely surprising.
Fuck! Now Audrey knew, Nathan was going to freak out, and Duke wasn't going to have the chance to claim him back. He bounced off the bed, moving too fast for his sore body, and snaked his arms around Nate from behind as he was pulling his jeans up. "This is not over." Duke rubbed his face right up to Nathan's ear. "We're picking this up later."
"All right," Nathan said huskily.
Duke couldn't resist groping him, then using that touch to guide Nate's body back against his own.
"Uhn..." Nathan stuttered, eyes fixed downwards. "Damn it, Duke, we have to deal with Audrey right now."
They stumbled onto the deck still rearranging clothes and fastening buttons, what buttons they had left, no dignity intact. Audrey raised her eyebrows, although that quirky expression was a great improvement from earlier. Her eyes were still red-rimmed. Maybe Duke could start to forgive her a little for choosing to make him into something other than human, if it had brought Nathan back to him after all these years. "You two... working things out?"
Nathan's face was traffic-light-red. "It's not -- not like that." Which, really, Nate? She'd seen them stark naked and climbing all over each other, on the verge of very dirty things. That was not a position you backed down from with a 'who, me?'
"Trying to prove signs of life," Duke said more stonily. He wasn't going to apologise. "How come the interruption?" That part was definitely not forgiven.
"There's a Trouble. The Chief doesn't want Nathan back on duty yet, but I thought it might... take your minds off things... to have a ride along."
"We were managing to do that pretty well ourselves. On both counts," Duke said, provoking Nathan into a coughing fit that made him look like a struggling asthmatic until he got a grip on himself.
"What's the problem?" he asked, dredging up his best gruff, Clint Eastwood tones.
"It's up on Bloy's Cliff. I'm not sure of all the details, but it sounded like one of ours." Audrey leaned forward and sniffed. "Have you been drinking?"
"Not nearly so much as we could've been drinking, sweetheart," Duke said. Actually, considering where they'd ended up, they had done remarkably little drinking.
Audrey tipped her head judgmentally but evidently concluded they were sober enough. "Okay. I'm driving anyway." She gestured toward her little grey rental. "That's if you want to go? Because if you're busy..."
She waited, looking at Nathan and not Duke, like she'd already sussed that she could count on Duke to follow Nathan wherever he went, at the moment.
...Fuck it, he wasn't getting away. They were this close, this close, to having something again...
Nathan looked between them and Duke willed him to say 'screw the Trouble'. He didn't. "The Chief doesn't want me back?"
It would take someone who knew him to recognise the disguised hurt in his voice.
Damn it.
"I think he's... worried, more than anything." Audrey took a tentative stab at comfort. "It's not unreasonable of him to want to gauge the physical repercussions of this before he puts you back on active duty."
But Audrey was offering a case, against the Chief's express wishes, and Duke knew how this would go even before Nathan said, "Duke doesn't have to come," and looked back at him with a trace of apology.
"Oh, hell no," Duke said. "You are not ditching me now, Nathan. Get in the damn car."
"I'd say I'm surprised, but... I'm not, really," Audrey observed, watching Duke's hand fall on Nathan's shoulder as he herded him into the back seat, providing an extra push to stop him clocking his numb head on the vehicle's bodywork. "I figured there had to be more between you guys than some schoolyard vendetta."
"You don't know what we used to get up to in the schoolyard," Duke responded, and from inside the car, Nathan growled at him to shut up, like there hadn't been a time Nate was the one leading the charge for cigarettes and blow jobs behind the gym building.
***
Nathan recovered his prickliness during the car journey, piling it on like a shield, and Duke could feel the distance between them expanding across the back seat. Even if Nathan probably needed that to get into the mindset for work, Duke couldn't help but feel his own fears grow in response. He wanted to grab Audrey and shake her.
But he had needed that interlude on the boat to convince him he could resume life again. He had to accept that this was probably what Nathan needed to achieve the same, even if he wasn't freaking out over it, yet: Nathan needed to work.
Damn him.
Duke had also realised it was early afternoon and he'd had only sex and whiskey for lunch, but that complaining about it was not going to get him anywhere productive now. They were already too far out of town to ask to pull over to grab snacks. The fact he still wasn't hungry didn't change his desire to make a point of eating.
Bloy's Cliff was a rock pinnacle, harshly exposed to the elements, dropping from an overhang to the sea forty feet below. On top of it perched a handful of determined houses that weren't arranged in anything like a line, but were still generally referred to as a street.
The wind whistled around the car, rocking it as Audrey drew them to a halt. They had to wrestle with the doors to get out. Elsewhere, it had not been too bad a day, but this was one of those spots where the weather was permanently sour.
Audrey walked around to Nathan. Duke didn't hear what she said, only Nathan's reply of, "No, I'm all right," a pause, and then his belligerent continuation: "I keep telling you I'm all right. I don't need -- the only thing I need is for you to treat me normally."
He backstepped as Audrey reached up to put a hand on his shoulder, and she stared at him, eyes widening a fraction. Duke still didn't know what was going on there, but he thought it had been going on before their current problems started.
Then he saw the crows, and whatever weirdness lay between Audrey and Nathan was scattered from his thoughts.
There were dozens of them, perched on trees and wires and the low roof of the nearby house. It didn't seem a natural place for them to be, because they had to struggle to be there at all, feathers ruffling and feet shifting, straining against the wind. Rows of jet black birds crowded every available surface, their beady eyes watching.
Duke shuddered. "Fuck. I'm in a Hitchcock movie."
One of the birds flapped erratically down and landed on the grey roof of Audrey's car. It gave him a direct look and a raucous caw, then its feet pattered as a gust of wind blew it sideways and it struggled for purchase on the shiny surface.
Duke watched it warily, but it didn't attack, just stayed there looking at him.
Nathan swore suddenly, and Duke turned to see him flailing an arm. One of the birds had landed on his shoulder. The aggressive movement sent it to a more wary distance, settling on a gatepost a few feet away. "What the hell is this?"
"Our sort of puzzle," Audrey confirmed in a low voice.
A woman came down to open the garden gate for them. The birds appeared to have no interest in her. She was perplexed but professional in a pants suit, with fluffy strawberry-blonde hair and a stethoscope around her neck. The birds had no interest in Audrey, either, leaving her alone while she introduced herself to the doctor and flashed her badge, but as Duke and Nathan tried to enter the gate several of the crows from the fence closed curiously in. Duke edged one away with his boot while flapping his arms to scare the rest. He and Nathan luckily remained a side interest to the birds' eerie focus upon the house, but it made him wary. Any sign they were going to be mobbed by hundreds of the things, and he was out of there.
"They were all here when I came to see Mr Garbutt on my rounds," said the doctor. She'd introduced herself to Audrey as Dr Peters. "It's strange. Not that animals acting weird in this town is all that strange. The paper's always talking about gas leaks, but I don't think it's the man-made infrastructure. Got to be the geology. Gas pockets under the ground, minerals seeping out of the rocks into the water supply... You only need to check the historical records to see that Haven's been too weird for too long."
At his side, Nathan grunted, and Duke supposed it was as good a lie to tell yourself as any. "Creepy," was his own verdict, raised on second thoughts to, "Fucking creepy."
"Wait until you see them out back." The doc paused in the doorway, frowning at both men. Nathan did a small double-take, lost without a badge to flash. Audrey shook her head and waved the GP onward.
"Looks more like a job for animal control," Duke muttered, leaning in to Nathan.
He got back an are-you-kidding? glower. "It has to be a Trouble. Look at them all." Nathan closed the door behind them with difficulty and left the crows scraping at the small window next to it.
Duke averted his eyes and did his best to ignore them.
"Dr Peters! Dr Peters! Something's wrong..." A desperately worried little old lady hurried out on to the hallway and urged the doc back into the same room. The old woman wrung her hands while the doc examined the frail old man lying in the bed there. The doc started to shake her head grimly.
Audrey seized Duke and Nathan's arms and slid her eyes to the windows where hordes of the crows perched. With a last glance at the body of Mr Garbutt, she dragged both of them out of the room.
In the hallway, Nathan murmured, "Crows are a death-omen in some cultures."
"Maybe that came from a Trouble like this one." Audrey kept her voice hushed. "Let's get outside." The air seemed thick and choking in the small house.
The crows were outside, but the dead body was inside, so Duke was willing to opt for the crows. The three of them spilled out of the front door, Nathan gulping for breath like that had been a particular trial for his working senses, and they found the majority of the birds were simply gone. The few remaining sidled close and Audrey shooed them off.
"Death omens," Duke gritted out, un-charmed. Audrey looked pale and unhappy.
"I think we confuse them," Nathan tried. "We should be dead and we're not. We're not going to be anytime soon." He shot Duke a hard look.
"I'm sorry," Audrey scraped her hands through her hair, distressed. "I didn't know it would be something like this."
"The population of this town are just dropping like flies this week," Duke said, with a bitter bark of laughter. "So tell me, resident experts: are the crows an omen, or did they kill this guy? Will they kill us? Oh, wait -- I forgot."
"Don't." Nathan grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, leading him away from Audrey, out of the gate and to the car, where he backed Duke up against the hard metal. "She is trying. This has been a trauma for her, too."
Duke stretched his jaw into what he figured could entirely appropriately be called a death-mask grin. "I know she's very cute and there's all that winsome FBI-cop charm. But she had us stuffed, Nate! Personal fucking boundaries! Did you really want to spend the rest of your life dead?"
Nathan fingers curled in his collar. "Do you really wish she hadn't done it? She saved us."
"She saved something. Are we alive? Are we us? Shit, maybe we're just stuffed mannequins with a collection of stale memories."
Nathan flinched, and ow, because that came with a reflexive tightening of his fingers at Duke's neck. "What about back on the boat?" Nathan hissed. "Was that real? Is this?"
Duke got the impression that Nathan opted to kiss him, if mashing his lips over Duke's quite so violently could truly be deemed a 'kiss', because he was at a loss for anything else to do.
Maybe right after the first time Nate had slept with him in nearly twenty years wasn't the wisest moment to imply that Nathan was a pod person. Even if Duke had been implying that for years, in some way or other. Nathan resorting to sexual wiles instead of violence to try and get what he wanted had to be a sign he was nearing the end of his tether, if not a sign of the apocalypse. He pulled back leaving Duke's lips smarting. "Did that feel real? You'll have to tell me, since I don't know."
Ouch.
Nathan backed off disgustedly at the lack of answer. "Fuck you. I'm not sorry to still be here." He turned and started to stalk away. Since they were already at the car and they were a hike from town by foot, Duke didn't know where he thought he was going.
"Nate." Duke was so not done with this, but he knew when he was beat. "I'm not sorry you're still here, either, all right? If it helps, I'm pretty sure no mere dummy could fake being this much of an asshole. I know that's one hundred percent genuine Nathan Wuornos."
Nathan covertly flipped him off and shot a steely look past Duke, who followed his gaze to where Dr Peters had ventured out and was soberly exchanging words with Audrey. Duke bit his tongue and kicked at a crow strutting too near. He was chastened enough to obediently walk to the car when Nathan held the door open for him and climb in. Nathan closed the door then turned around and leaned on it, waiting for Audrey.
Bastard. Way to get rid of a guy, Duke thought, but gnashed his teeth and seethed in silence, because causing a scene at some poor old bugger's death bed was, on reflection, tasteless.
He leaned to peer around Nathan at the conversation Audrey and the doctor were having, but apparently it had been short, because Audrey was already walking grimly back to them. Nathan finally went around to the other side of the car and got in. "Did I say asshole?" Duke began, "Because--"
"Shh." That was an actual hand slapped over Duke's mouth. Annoyed, he grabbed it by the wrist and dragged it clear -- and since Nate being that touchy in the first place without it involving fisticuffs was rare, kept it. Nathan was distracted enough to let him, leaning forward oblivious that Duke still had his hand wrapped between both his own, to ask Audrey as she climbed in, "What's happening, Parker?"
She craned around in the driver's seat. "Mr Garbutt took sick suddenly yesterday. If this had been a long-term condition I'd be less worried. As it is..." A scraping noise made them all turn to eye a crow on the car's hood. "I think we need to look into this pretty urgently."
"No shit," said Duke.
"How are we going to do that?" Nathan asked. "Chief's going to send me home the second he sees me in the station."
Audrey's expression set in determination. "You're involved now. The birds are attracted to you guys, too. I'd rather have you both where I can keep an eye on you. You might as well be helping at the same time."
"You did hear that she said 'helping'," Nathan qualified pointedly to Duke, frowning down at the seat between them but not commenting upon his captured hand.
"I help," Duke asserted. "You guys aren't even asking the question: where'd they all go?"
"Yeah." Audrey rolled her head on her neck with a sigh as she turned around to start the car. "Now that your natural pessimism brought that up, I have to worry about it, too."
"APB?" Duke suggested. Both cops dutifully ignored him. Audrey picked up her radio.
"Laverne?" she said, that sigh still infusing her voice. "I need to know if there are any more weird animal behaviour reports. Specifically birds. Oh, and there's a local GP, Dr Peters, who'll be arranging morgue transport for a body that I need Julia to take a look at ASAP... Yeah, another one. This one takes priority. It's something new." She set the radio down, shaking her head, and started the car.
Nathan wrested back his hand. Duke mouthed "why?" and "come on!" and made several other charades-style entreaties. Nathan sat and glowered, telling him with a twitch of his eyebrows to be patient.
***
Back at the station, Audrey had a serious dig into how many people had died of accidental or natural causes in the last few days, the deaths that wouldn't usually reach their desks, and no-one liked what she found.
"Five is way too many for a town this size." Audrey left the paperwork in Nathan's hands and sped out to corner the Chief.
Nathan poked at the reports, shuffled four of them out of his hands and into Duke's (what was he supposed to do? Make paper airplanes?) and got his cellphone out. "Sorry to disturb you, Miss Maitland, this is Detective Wuornos, Haven PD... Just one follow-up question. You see any birds around, when Mr Lears fell off his ladder...?" A pause. "Big, black birds. Right. No, that's all. Thank you." He cut the call and bowed his head, tapping the phone against it in a slow rhythm. "...Shit."
"Two of these people lived on the same street." Heroically resisting the urge toward origami, Duke had all four of the files across his lap, letting his eyes roam over them. "You know what? It's the same damn street Mortimer Kale lived on." He slapped his hand down hard on the files, making two of them jump clear and hit the floor. Fucking enough.
Nathan stared at him. "Garbutt didn't live there."
"No, but I bet we can verify where the window cleaner was on Thursday," Duke said, hearing his words come out biting, jerking his head at the file Nathan held. "Maybe the old codger was in the area, too."
"You think this is still...?"
"Wouldn't it be a huge fucking coincidence to have two mass-death Troubles in less than a week?"
"Jerry Coggins is dead." Nathan dropped the file and swung around to pace. "Audrey shot him."
"She says she shot him. Audrey... has not been the most forthcoming girl where the truth is concerned, this week."
Nathan predictably closed up and growled, "Damn it, Duke...!"
"No, listen." He raised his hands, not that such gestures usually worked to soothe the savage Wuornos. "Something's weird about Audrey. You know it. Look, I'm not saying..." He sighed, because there was no way he was getting anywhere with Nathan while Nathan was wearing a face like that. "Okay, what if Audrey just thinks she killed him? Or what if his Trouble was passed on to someone else? Or, hell, something's happening here that we don't even begin to understand. But one thing that's got to be true is that this." He wielded the death reports. "This is too much coincidence."
Nathan nodded tightly, giving him that much. "Agreed."
It seemed weird even for Haven that people were continuing to die in different ways after the source of the original Trouble was supposed to be dead, but who the hell knew how the rules worked with this shit? Fucking taxidermy! Who was to say a Trouble couldn't mutate? Or a death-Trouble couldn't continue to kill after the death of the person afflicted with it?
Garland Wuornos slammed in right then, cutting short any other conversation. "Nathan," he stopped at the sight of Nathan leaning against his police desk. His shirt sleeve had strayed up over the 'x' of tape.
"Dad." Duke watched Nathan's every trace of emotion crawl back inside and hole up at the sight of the Chief. Nathan straightened, brandished the 'x' on his arm, and demanded, "You knew about this?"
Garland's face twisted, and something snapped in him. Duke fell back as he lunged, but he wasn't the target, and it turned out that any instincts he might have to protect Nathan as a result of the recent change in their relationship knew their limits.
He'd never seen Nathan more astonished than when the Chief engulfed him in a bear-hug. It only lasted for an instant before Garland pulled brusquely away and delivered a few tremendous blows to Nathan's back that rocked him on his feet. Garland rounded off the punishment by shaking Nathan by the shoulders. "God damn it, son."
The expression on Nathan's face mostly said, Help, but no way in hell was Duke interrupting. Apparently neither was Audrey, who'd re-entered the office on the Chief's heels.
"What the hell?" Nathan demanded.
"When you've seen your kid dead, it puts a few things in perspective." The Chief's voice was gruff. He took an awkward, distancing step back and drew a cigarette out between shaking fingers.
...Oh. Oh, thought Duke. Garland had seen that? Was this the first time they'd been face-to-face since? How the hell had the Chief stood for that? Unless he'd intended things that way... passing messages using Audrey and keeping Nathan home to recover... Duke suddenly imagined all the questions and fears that had been going through his own mind, viewed from the other side. He thought about someone he cared for being resurrected from the dead by freakish means. How might they react? Would they be the same? Could he face it if they weren't?
Garland's admission seemed to have left Nathan unable to find words.
Audrey put in a few, soberly. "I told you, Chief. Nathan's fine." Fine was a word that could carry a whole lot of subtle charge. "They found out, but he's tough, like you raised him to be."
True to form, the words that burst out of Nate's mouth, stubbornly and fiercely, were, "I want to work. Whatever else I am, I'm not sick."
"Goddamnit, Nathan," Garland growled, "I thought you were dead and gone and this harebrained scheme of hers was bound to bring nothing but heartache, but it ain't some ghoul with my son's face standing there, with that all he can say in the face of all this." Garland patted Nathan's chest fondly, his mouth twisted and eyes teary. So... Garland knew Nathan was real for the same reasons Duke did: because only the real thing could be such an emotionally constipated jerk.
Nate grabbed his dad's wrist, forestalling the next contact. He opened his mouth and for a moment it seemed he'd say something, but the Chief was drawing back now, and wasn't that the way it always went with these two? Nathan went defensive again. "...So now you know I'm still me. Am I still a cop? Or is that something you intend to keep withholding?" He read Garland's failure to come up with an immediate response badly. "What is it that you're looking for? What proof of trust?"
"That's not -- goddamn it." Garland delved in his pocket aggressively and hurled something black and silver that smacked against Nathan's chest before falling to the floor through his grasping hands. "Knock yourself out. 'Course, no-one knows what damage that fool body of yours can take now or can't. You want to tempt fate?"
Nathan dropped to retrieve his badge, keeping his eyes on the Chief with all the caution due an armed felon. But Garland didn't wait, turning on his heel as soon as he'd delivered the badge and marching out of the room. Audrey barely avoided getting slammed by his shoulder.
Nathan cursed, straightening, and lunged after him. That part was unexpected, and through the internal windows, Duke watched Nathan catch the closing door into Garland's office and follow him inside.
Duke and Audrey exchanged blank glances. "He saw Nathan," Duke said flatly, after a beat. "Dead Nathan." That would be enough to screw up any parent. Anyone.
Audrey had had her hands full with both of their corpses.
"It was a weird twenty-four hours," Audrey said. "It was a weird seventy-two hours, but the part right after... Landon wanted to try, but there was Garland, and there was me, and there were... words. A few of those."
"Garland didn't want to bring him back." Duke read between the lines.
"Garland said Nathan was dead, and no good would come of using any Trouble to fix that: something would go wrong, it always did, and it was a fool's game trying to use any curse for good... trying to bring back anyone who should be gone." She blinked hard and turned away.
So Nathan's dad was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, Duke could sympathise, because he was still waiting, too. In the meantime... "Look." He laid the files they'd been studying out on Audrey's desk.
She picked them up, staring at the addresses. "This makes no sense..."
"Now, why would you expect anything in this town to do that?" Duke mocked wryly.
"How could it be the same Trouble? Everyone affected last week just dropped dead. These all look natural or accidental."
"I don't know how," Duke said. "I only know it is. One more thing: Nathan managed to link at least one of them to crows." He explained the rest of their ideas.
"We really need to know where those birds went to. It's not necessarily the kind of thing that generates a police report, but maybe there's a... a Haven bird-watchers club?" She circled her hand in the air, testing, waiting for input.
Duke shrugged. "Birds. Who even knows? Ask Nathan, he likes the sorts of dull things people get intricate and obsessive about."
"I should check Mr Lears' personal effects. He must have had some sort of schedule. Maybe in his phone. If we can establish he was there that morning, that's a solid connection..." Her investigative patter ran down and she paused with her eyes on Duke. "Duke," she said, softly hoarse with emotion. "If you didn't want to live like this... I know I made the choice for you, and it wasn't as though I could ask... But I'm sorry."
Shit, thought Duke, who wasn't ready. "You are gonna have to give me a day or two to get used to this, Audrey. Assuming we have a day or two." Grudgingly, he added, "I guess even if all this ends today, at least I got one last dance with Nathan for old times' sake."
Audrey's expression perked up a little, though she instantly countered, "It's not going to end today. If this Trouble is still a threat to the two of you, we'll deal with that." The force in her voice startled him. She managed to calm herself and offered a sly grin. "Nathan's a... good dancer, is he?"
Duke blinked. "Does all right for a guy who can't feel what he's doing. Yeah."
"I'm really glad you guys sorted things out." She touched his hand tentatively. "Maybe it'll give you both a reason to tough through this once we've dealt with the... immediate problem."
And wouldn't you just love that? Duke thought. A handy free pass absolving all guilt. Aloud he said, "It's Nathan. He'll probably take offence at me breathing the wrong way and we'll be back to fists and name-calling tomorrow. Speaking of which, you think Wuornos and Wuornos need any intervention?"
"I'm sure they're fine." She didn't sound sure.
But while they were tapping their feet and not-so-surreptitiously watching the corridor a few minutes later, Nathan emerged from the Chief's office looking dazed. Audrey poked Duke's arm and they hurried to jump on him and demand details.
Nathan couldn't be pressed to say anything about how the conversation with Garland had gone, but it couldn't have been too badly, because when Audrey said they were after information about bird-watchers, Nathan ducked back into the office to get contact details for the rest of the Haven Twitchers from his dad. Who knew, huh?