savetheearth | love of mine

Entry tags:

love of mine

Who: Nick Burkhardt and Randolph Lyall
What: PTZD pseudo-death and emotional confessions
When: Tuesday night
Where: Lyall and Nick's place in Germany
Warnings: Fake!death, more will updated if needed!

With the mafia taken out, and enough distance between him and the city, Nick's... calmed down quite substantially. He still thinks they'd done the right thing - well, no. He doesn't. But he does think what they did was the best of a bunch of wrong things, and he isn't sure there is a right thing that they could have done.

He still misses Anthony, still thinks about him, still knows that he failed him, that he should have done so much better. But away from the apartment, away from the city, with the people responsible for Anthony's death either dead or behind bars, it's an 'every day' thing instead of 'every hour.' He might not be a detective anymore, might not be the supervisor for the homicide department, but that's bothered him a lot less than he thought it might.

Honestly, he kind of just feels done. The self-destructive drive he'd had in the last few months is gone, and even the dedicated workaholic one he'd had before that is subdued. It's been a really long time since he'd had a vacation, a real vacation, and with his savings and the money he'd gotten from his aunt - he'd told her he wanted to go on vacation to Europe with his boyfriend, and she'd been thrilled enough that he was finally doing something besides work that she'd given him more than expected - he has a little bit of a grace period before he really needs a job. Maybe something in security.

And he has Lyall. Who is the real reason that he hasn't gone crazy. Well, crazier, anyway. The fact that Lyall stood by him, is still with him, despite everything... if Nick didn't know he was head over heels in love with the guy before, he definitely does now. He's just - still figuring out how he's supposed to tell him.

But for the moment, he's stretched out on the couch, taking a nap. A pretty heavy nap, actually, one that means he doesn't notice when he shifts a little, rolls off the couch and ends up sprawled on the floor. He doesn't realize he isn't breathing, his skin's gone cold, and that he's almost literally dead to the world.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's nice having a couch again. It's nice, actually, being somewhere that he feels safe enough asking the police to lock him up for the full moon. He's trying to do things right, in this country.

After sleeping most of the day, however, recovering from the night before and said locking up for the full moon, he's wide awake now that the sun has set, and putting together dinner for the two of them. Even better, that they're both able to stay in the same place without fear of repercussions from Nick's work, his work, or anything else but the occasional funny look from a neighbor....

The thump of Nick falling off the couch is impossible to miss, and he rolls his eyes, expecting an "ouch" or a curse or something as the little tumble wakes the man up. When it doesn't come, he frowns, pokes his head out of the kitchen, and listens. ... there's no sound of breathing. That's weird.

Surprised and a little worried, he hurries into the living room of the little condo they're renting, moving around the couch so he can actually see Nick. "Nick? Are you all right?"

Honestly, that's one of the best damn things about living here. No sneaking around, no having to be careful what he says to who, no worrying who might have seen him going to and from Lyall's place or vice versa - just them, and for the first time in a long time, he almost feels normal.

So of course, then he falls off the couch in the middle of a nap and doesn't get up.

When Lyall calls his name, there's no response from Nick.

There's nothing from him, actually, not even a heartbeat - and while his resting heartbeat might have slowed a little bit thanks to one of his pulses, it's always been there. His color has faded, gone a little grey, with bruises under his eyes.

At the moment, there's nothing distinguishing him from a very recent corpse.

The lack of a heartbeat is the most disturbing of all. "Nick?" he exclaims, dropping down to his knees on the floor beside him. "Nick!" He doesn't bother feeling for a pulse, since he can't hear one, he just shakes his shoulder once, briefly, before, in a sudden panic, rolling him over to start somewhat clumsy chest compressions. As a decade-long high school health teacher, he knows perfectly well how to handle first aid in cases like this. He just never expected to have to actually use it!

There's a pulse sensation, as he presses in time, trying not to actually break any bones in the process-- it's after sundown; why couldn't he have had a heart attack (or whatever this is) during the day when he didn't have supernatural strength??-- overlaying the scene with even more panic at the mental image of a man lying dead and bloody at the paws of a horrible wolf. "Nick!"

It’s not for a long minute or two after Lyall starts CPR that Nick returns back to himself - but it happens suddenly, pulse rate picking back up, color returning and his breathing back to normal, like nothing had ever happened. Nick’s eyes fly open, exactly like someone startled awake from a nap.

He has no idea what’s going on, but he registers the panic in Lyall’s expression before anything else, and reaches out immediately, one hand curling around Lyall’s forearm.

“What, what happened? What is it, are you okay?”

And it happens from nothing at all Lyall is doing, he's pretty sure. His compressions and his one attempt at blowing air into Nick's lungs had no effect whatsoever, and the sudden reappearance of all the signs of life takes him entirely by surprise.

Relieved surprise, but still. Surprise. He makes a strangled noise and pulls Nick up into his arms. He can't quite manage any words yet, sorry, man. You get to wait a little for an explanation.

He allows himself to be pulled up, still a little too confused to protest. Whatever's going on, if it's something that's made Lyall want contact with him, Nick's more than okay with providing it. He wraps his arms around Lyall in return, one hand coming up to run through his hair.

"Okay, Randy, it's gonna be okay," he murmurs. "Whatever it is, we'll handle it."

"You-- you stopped breathing. Your heart stopped!" It comes out a little strangled, half-muffled against Nick's shoulder, still hugging him tight-- maybe a little too tight, but not quite enough to actually hurt him. It might be a little uncomfortable, though. "God, you felt like you'd been dead for hours, nothing I did helped, and--" He breaks off, keeping the pulse's new memories to himself for the moment. It'll come out eventually, maybe sooner than later, but he needs to focus on the now first.

“I - what?” All right, that he hadn’t been expecting, and it throws him. His heartrate’s been slower, yeah, and he’s figured out that he doesn’t need to breathe as much as he had before, but stopped?

The hug is actually a little uncomfortable, but Nick doesn’t mind, not at the moment. He can focus on Lyall first, then try to figure out what the hell. His hold tightens as well, fingers tangling a little firmer in Lyall’s hair as he conscious takes a few slow, deep breaths. “Whatever it was, I’m okay now. I’m here, I’m still here.”

The hug, the breathing, the heartbeat he feels as much as hears, holding Nick this close, all are reassuring, but he's still not calming down quite yet. Nick will probably notice the trembling, in that embrace, as well. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what brought you back. It wasn't me." If he doesn't know what fixed it, how can he make sure it won't be permanent if it happens again??

There's a pause before he replies, as he runs his fingers through Lyall's hair and just kind of breathes. Both because he's trying to be comforting, and because hearing what'd happened triggered a pulse of his own.

"I think-" he starts, then stops for a moment, trying to sort through the memory. "It happened before, to the other me. I think it's a side effect."

Now Lyall finally loosens his grip, enough to actually look at Nick, trying not to look quite as panicked and shaken as he really is-- and failing, pretty much. "Side effect of what?" he exclaims incredulously. "To-- to the whole-- zombie thing?" He's not entirely lost his wits. They're just a little slower than he'd like.

Nick lets him pull back, though he keeps his hand firmly tangled in Lyall's hair. Right about now, he'd really like to just kiss that panicked look off his face, but he's pretty sure that's not actually a viable option at the moment.

"Yeah. Or, I guess. That's what the other me thought, anyway, that it kicked in when he slept too deep sometimes." He lets out a breath, a little bit of anxiety coiling in his stomach as he tries to wrap his head around this, around what Lyall must have thought.

"This kind of crap would be so much more helpful to know before it happens."

"It really, really would." Lyall relaxes a little more, dropping his forehead onto Nick's shoulder. "So you know what it was. And it always fixes itself? You won't-- you won't stay like that if it happens again?" That, after all, is exactly what his biggest worry is. He can't lose Nick. They've already lost so many, but he can't lose Nick, not like-- his other fellow lost that one.

“Yeah. He snapped out of it, I don’t think it ever lasted longer than a few minutes. He didn’t seem worried at all.” Nick is a little, though. If only because he really doesn’t want Lyall to have to find him like that again, even if they know what it is now.

“I’m not going anywhere, okay?” He turns his head a little, nuzzling into Lyall’s temple. “I promise. You’re stuck with me, for as long as you want me.”

It’s a stupid thing to promise, he knows, because he’d promised the same thing to Anthony and look how that turned out. But that just means he means it more, that he’ll have to fight harder to make sure he doesn’t break it.

Nick swallows, squeezing his eyes shut as he whispers, “I love you.”

At that, Lyall's eyes squeeze shut, too, half because he'd been hoping for those words for a long time to cement what he already felt, and half because he could hear, somewhere in his memory, the echo of another dark-haired man saying the same thing. He twists his hand in Nick's shirt, swallows, and answers hoarsely, "Good. Because I love you, too, and I'd hate for that to be one-sided after all this."

Honestly, he thought he'd be terrified after he said it, especially in the moments when he was waiting to hear Lyall's reply. But mostly, there's just relief, because at least he knows now. It's not something that's ever going to go away, Nick's pretty sure, and he's kept himself for way too long.

Still, he can't help but light up a little when Lyall says it back, tilting his head so he can move in for a kiss. "It's not, god no, it's not. I've been in love with you for a while. I should have told you sooner, I was just..."

The kiss Lyall returns with probably isn't as fervent as Nick might want, but he does return it, at least. And then he puts his head back on Nick's shoulder, wanting to just be close, fill his nose with Nick-smell and not remembered blood and wolves and death. "You were just afraid. And the timing was never right. I didn't say anything, either." And he probably should have, but he'd been afraid, too.

At least he returns it, yeah. Nick kind of gets the feeling that there's something else to this that Lyall's not telling him, something else bothering him, but he's not sure how to ask about it yet. Instead he tangles his fingers back in Lyall's hair, petting through it again. "I was terrified," he admits, quirking a tiny smile. "Loving people hasn't turned out all that well for me."

"Mm. Yes." He can think of at least one time that's true, that he knows about for sure, and he can believe in multiple others. After all, they don't exactly talk about Nick's family much. He pets Nick's arm with one hand, half reassuring himself he's still there, half reassuring Nick, holding on with the other. "Perhaps this time it will work out better. It's been going pretty well, so far. Aside from minor moments of death and zombification."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

love of mine

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject