Fic - NC-17 - Misfits - Nathan - Science of Fear (2/?)
Title: Science of Fear (2/?)
Rating: R
Fandom: Misfits
Pairing: Eventual Simon/Nathan
Genre: Angst/Drama. Hurt/Comfort later.
Spoilers: Yes. Both seasons.
Word Count: 3100 ish
Warnings: Rape, and the general crudity of Nathan and overal grittiness of Misfits.
Summary: Nathan finally finds employment only to find out that his boss was also affected by the storm, and his immortality can't save him this time.
Timeline: Set a few months after they’ve finished their community service, but before the events of the Christmas episode. Marnie doesn’t exist, Simon and Alisha are not together, though they do have some history. Simon is NOT aware of ‘Future-Simon,’ but lives in Future-Simon’s pad after Alisha showed it to him (and cleaning a lot of it out) and telling him that Superhoodie lived there.
part 01
He wakes up on someone’s lawn. His face his sticky and his whole body hurts. Jokes about how he was given a good working over, about how one shouldn’t drop the soap in a prison shower, all start flickering through his head and at first he smirks and then he gags and has to rest his head on the dew for some time, collecting his thoughts. It’s very dark. No one else is around. Its fucking freezing.
He goes to Curtis first. He doesn’t know why he chooses Curtis. He’s got the most hit and miss power out of all of them. But Nathan doesn’t care, he has to try. And Curtis is the only who can actually erase events and make it like they never happened. This - Nathan thinks - is probably a best case scenario.
So he goes to him at the bar. He’s cleaned himself up a bit, but blood is still oozing slowly and thickly into his hair and the split in his head throbs and probably needs stitches. He’s wearing one of the new shirts that he got for himself thanks to the wage he made working for Fagin. He would prefer anything else right now. He’d even prefer his skanky, disgusting, community service overalls. But he didn’t have them available, and the button down shirt was the easiest thing he had to put on, because he didn’t have to pull it over the sharp strangeness pulsing in his head.
‘You know it doesn’t work that way.’ Curtis paused, eyes narrowed. ‘What happened to you, anyway?’
Nathan opens his mouth to say something, but a strange, cold sensation slinks down the back of his spine and he suddenly can’t find the words. He can’t even hint at it. And while he’s trying to find the right words while fighting off the feeling of cold slime slinking through him, he suddenly remembers Fagin’s power. The stupid, fucked up power he got from the storm.
Nathan remembers that Fagin had the power to stop him from talking, but he didn’t know it would be this effective. He searches for every phrase possible, but anything that even connects to the events of that night seem cordoned off. He can think about it, he can remember it, but he can’t get it across to Curtis.
‘Jesus.’ Is all Nathan manages to say, after about ten seconds pass. ‘Well, isn’t this a bucket of piss?’
‘I can’t turn back time if I don’t even know what it’s for, that’s like...impossible.’
‘That’s fantastic, isn’t it?’ Nathan says. He shoves his hands into his jeans and the denim rubs over bruises and he winces. His whole gut aches and he’s mostly forcing himself to stand up through sheer force of will. It’s not the first time he’s been abused before, but it’s the first time he’s been raped. It’s the first time it’s hurt like this.
‘It probably wouldn’t of worked anyway. I kind of need to be there. Sorry.’ Curtis says, making a face more at himself than anyone else.
‘Whatever, man. I get it.’ Nathan says, and leaves.
He’s a few steps away from the pub when he hears footsteps behind him. He turns quickly, probably too quickly, and stares dizzied as Simon runs up to him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Simon asks, mouth grim.
‘Nothing!’ Nathan laughs, even though the motion hurts his ribs, his gut.
‘Something’s wrong.’
‘You are, without a doubt, hands down, the most paranoid freak I’ve ever met.’
Simon studies him, and then his eyes widen. He reaches up for the gash on Nathan’s head, and Nathan steps back.
‘Hands off the merchandise, my friend!’
‘You’re bleeding! Tell me what happened.’
Nathan opens his mouth to brush Simon off, and then closes it. Even before he realises that he wants to tell Simon about what happened, the cold, slinking feeling crawls up the back of his spine and presses like wet, cold mucus into his lungs and his throat. He chokes on it. He turns away from Simon, forces himself to take deep breaths, to swallow repeatedly until he’s got it under control. He makes himself think of anything other than what happened that night.
But everything is making him think about it.
‘Did someone do this to you?’
Yes. Nathan thinks. Yes. Someone did this to me. I did it to myself. I’m an idiot.
He flinches when Simon steps closer to him. He can’t help but wince when Simon hovers a hand by the gash. And then Simon actually puts his fingers on Nathan’s face and tilts his head to take a closer look. He hears the intake of breath; the hiss. Nathan closes his eyes. It’s just too much to deal with.
‘You should get that stitched.’
‘It’s worse than it looks.’
‘I don’t think it is.’ Simon said, implacable. In that firm, unrelenting way he had of making a point. It pissed Nathan off at the best of times, but right now it was just the crappy icing on the very crappy cake the night had been. He pushes Simon back with his hand, but doesn’t realise how hard he pushed until Simon stumbles backwards a couple of steps.
‘I don’t need you to coddle me, man.’
And just like that, Nathan decides that he doesn’t want to tell any of them. He doesn’t want to see the way they’ll look at him once they know. And all of his abuse jokes won’t be funny anymore. He’s not interested in their pity or their faux sympathy. He’s more than capable of finding himself food and booze without working. It’ll be fine.
‘I’ll see you later.’ He says to Simon, who stands that looking at him with a kind of horror. He forces himself to turn and walk away.
He makes it back to the community centre without incident, though he has the suspicious feeling that he’s being watched. He keeps telling himself that it’s invisible Simon, making sure that he’ll get home okay. He tells himself that he doesn’t really mind this, it’d probably be one of the few times where he really wouldn’t mind it. His head is pounding and nausea turns his stomach every few seconds. He’s bleeding from his arse and his head and from scratches on his back and maybe even bite marks.
He’s about to slide up the security grille when he hears footsteps. He turns, genuinely expects it to be Simon, but it’s not. It’s Fagin again.
‘Are you serious?’ Nathan hears himself say.
‘I just really like you. That a problem?’ Fagin purrs, looking easy and good-natured and not like the demented asshole he actually is.
‘I’m still...’ Nathan goes to say, I’m still bleeding, but he can’t. Cold feeling, nausea, and he turns and throws up bile onto the pavement. He can’t even tell Fagin about it.
‘Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ Nathan gasps at no one in particular, when he feels a hand pull his hair hard, before throwing him down to the concrete. It’s pulled on the wound on his scalp and it starts bleeding freshly again. Nathan hears himself whimper. It’s a hopeless, helpless noise. He stands up, tries to get some distance from that level of pathetic. He’s not there yet, is he?
‘Look, man, I’m having a really bad night.’ Nathan says right before he’s punched in the kidney. He goes down and stays down this time.
*
It takes him days to recover, though he suspects it would’ve taken anyone else longer. His body seems to regenerate pretty quickly, all things being equal. But he still has broken bones, and - he thinks - maybe even internal injuries. He screens calls from Simon, from Kelly, even from Curtis. He avoids the community centre for a few days, and when he feels well enough, he finds a homeless shelter and uses their shower. He sleeps in public toilets, one night in a park, one night in a vacant house. He knows he could go home, use his old shower, but he doesn’t want the bother of dealing with all of that right now. Family. Friends. The stuff that doesn’t stop him from getting hurt or raped or abused or dying. The kind of stuff that always seems so great in theory and hasn’t done shit for him in practice.
He beams at his pallid reflection in the mirror. The last night in the vacant house had been the best; he’d stayed in a bed, had a warm shower, even managed to wash the clothes off his back and spent several hours walking around the house in a very womanly, violet robe that fit him perfectly.
‘You glorious, cynical bastard,’ he says to himself. He’s gotten dried blood out of his hair and his ear, the bruises are fading, and he looks more and more like his old self. Never mind that he’s scared of going back to the pub, and scared of going back to the community centre, and certainly scared of frequenting any of the streets that Fagin’s seen him walk down.
Immortality only takes you so far. Previously he’d thought being beaten to death was probably the worst thing he’d experienced. But at least that had finished relatively quickly, all things considered.
‘And now, time for plan B.’ He says. Flashes a wink, a quick smile, and then leaves the vacant house and hopes, even prays, that he can make it to his destination.
*
There’s now a recycled armchair in Simon’s industrial-looking apartment, and Nathan is occupying it while Simon fills the kettle. He looks up at the fluorescent lights, down at the huge bed, at the unfinished walls and the unfinished floors and thinks that Simon seems out of place here. It’s a strange thing to think, because he has no idea what sort of space Simon would look comfortable in. Whatever it is, he can’t actually imagine it.
Simon comes back with some tea, and sits opposite him on the floor.
‘Why do you want to stay here?’ He says.
‘It’s just such a nice place and all, imagine bringing chicks back to a place like this! You’re totally wasted on that bed, I can tell. I’ll improve it for you. It’ll be like living art; naked me, naked girls, and you’d get it all for free! You’d be living in porn!’
‘I’m serious.’ He says.
So am I! Nathan thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Serious answer. Okay, but he can’t give the serious answer he wants to give. He’s pushed around the boundaries of what he can say and can’t say, and what he’s learnt is that he can’t write about it, he can’t text it, he can’t say anything about it, and he’s trapped in this other guy’s power to the point that the more he thinks about doing these things, the more his gag reflex gets a work out. It’s one thing not to be able to talk about something, it’s another thing to feel like orally ejecting your stomach in the process.
‘I can’t say why.’ Nathan says, and even this dancing around the topic makes him feel queasy.
‘Somebody hurt you, didn’t they?’
And this is how Nathan learns that he can’t answer other people’s questions about it either. He turns and gags on being so close to the subject. He hears Simon calling his name in alarm, and when his vision clears and the cold feeling recedes like a tide, he’s shivering and wishing he had a blanket or something.
‘I really can’t say. I mean really.’ Nathan manages.
Simon now looks very concerned. He’s gone from regular-Simon-concerned, to ultra-concerned. He’s kneeling and leaning towards Nathan, like maybe he’d reached a hand out when Nathan had been gagging. His face is deadly serious and Nathan doesn’t even want to go through the motions of talking about it.
‘We can help you. You don’t have to protect them.’ Simon says.
Nathan laughs at this, though it’s closer to the truth to say that he cackles, bitterly. He stands up and moves away from Simon and the armchair and the illusion of comfort.
‘Look, Barry, you don’t fucking get it, and I can’t explain it to you. Are you gonna let me stay here or what? I can take the floor. I haven’t slept in an actual bed - aside from last night - in a while. But if you want me to stay in your bed, I promise I’ll make it good for you.’ He leers, and Simon shakes his head, he seems confused, upset, tired.
‘Just drink your tea, and I’ll find you some blankets.’ He says, and walks off to do just that.
*
That’s when Nathan finds out that he’s been having nightmares loud enough to wake up other people. The first night, it feels like he’s only just put his head on a new, soft pillow when he’s being shaken awake and is flailing out with hands and legs. He lands something, because there’s an ‘unf!’ next to him, and then the hands are off his shoulders. It gives him time to kick off the blankets as well. Call him mental, but he just doesn’t like the feel of heavy blankets as much as he used to, anymore.
‘You were having a bad dream.’ Simon says.
‘Maybe that’s what I sound like when I come,’ Nathan says, flippant, smoothing a hand over his hair and avoiding the place where his scalp had split open. It had healed over already, but he didn’t like to remember that it had happened at all.
‘I’m not stupid. Is it going to be like this every night?’
‘Jesus, you’re worse than my Mum, if it’s going to be like this I’m just going to find somewhere else to crash,’ and he gets up, frustrated with Simon for waking him up like that and scaring him, and angry at himself for ballsing up the one place where he might actually feel comfortable sleeping. He yanks his clothes up into one hand, gets up, and walks towards the elevator.
‘Nathan.’ Simon says, ‘what are you doing?’
‘What does it look like?’ Nathan is sliding back the grill so he can step into the elevator.
‘I’d prefer it if you stayed.’
And just like that, Nathan deflates. It’s like all the wind goes out of him. He leans against one of the pillars surrounding the elevator. He is unbelievably tired. He can’t remember what he was dreaming about, but he can guess. He knows from experience that memories of abuse fade, they become part of the patina of who he is after a while. He’s like a cobblestone pathway with years of newspapers and cum and piss and shit waxed into the stones. He still gleams in the right light, but if you look closer, it’s all just muck and grime. But right now it’s not yet a layer of who he is, it’s fresh, and he can’t even joke about it.
He turns to face Simon, who stares at him with a grim, dark expression on his face. It would be threatening if it wasn’t for the fact that it was Simon.
‘I know someone hurt you, now.’ Is all he says.
Nathan shivers. He has no idea what he says in his sleep, he could have been fighting off green gremlins for all he knew. He’s pretty sure that Fagin’s power would extend into his sleep, but then...maybe not? He has no idea how the brain works. He’s too afraid to ask what he was saying, so he just shrugs nonchalantly.
‘I think I know who it is.’ Simon adds, after more time has passed. Simon’s expression is flat out scary now. It’s so intense that Nathan looks away and stares instead at Simon’s bed. After a moment he looks up at a flaw in the concrete of the wall and leaves his eyes there.
‘Well, this night has taken an unexpected, weird turn,’ he manages, quietly. ‘I should go. I can’t promise I’m not gonna have another nightmare. And you’re being way freakier than usual, soooo-’
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Simon says, firmly and like he won’t listen to anything that Nathan has to say about it.
‘Why do you care so much, all of a sudden?’ Nathan feels cornered, even though he’s so close to the elevator and to leaving. He steps into the elevator and stares defiantly at Simon. The kid looks at him in exasperation.
‘If you’re going to leave, you’re going to hear my theory first. I think, based on what I’ve figured out and the contents of your dream, that you were raped by your boss. I think that’s what he’s been doing to those kids who don’t come back, and I think that’s what he did to you. And none of you have told anyone about it, because if just one of you had, he’d be back in jail because of his previous criminal record. I think...he was affected by the storm, wasn’t he?’
Nathan’s feeling increasingly sick. Some of it is that cold, queasy feeling of being so close to the topic in the presence of another person. Some of it is that Simon is really too fucking smart for his own good, and hearing the events related with a kind of cold passion feels a little like knives stabbing into his chest. He’s still staring on the flaw in the concrete on the wall, and he can feel his breath getting shakier. He’s going to puke. He knows he is. His face is getting colder. It’s not like the apartment is particularly warm in the first place.
‘When you say you can’t talk about it, you really can’t? You can’t give me any indication that I’m right?’ That’s a question, like Simon has put the last piece of the puzzle together.
Nathan can’t say anything. He is breathing long, shallow breaths, trying to shut down the clammy feeling on the back of his neck, the cool squeeze of his stomach. His fingers stray up and scratch at the back of his head. He’s nervous and fidgety, suddenly wishing he was out at the clubs getting wasted, looking to get laid. He’s in the wrong place, at the wrong time. He feels like this might always be the case.
‘Nathan.’ Simon says, drawing his attention back. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’
Nathan looks back at Simon now, and his face has changed, it’s gone from intense and dangerous to scared and vulnerable. So very much like the perpetual look he used to have on his face. Nathan is confronted by the idea that Simon might be frightened for him, on his behalf, and that’s so discordant that he tries to force a leer to his face, an easy expression. But he can’t, and it slides off immediately after.
‘Shit.’ He manages, and his voice is hoarse.
Simon gets out his phone.
‘I’m calling Kelly. She might be able to use her power and help you. I won’t do anything until it’s confirmed. But I have to know, Nathan. Someone hurt you.’
‘Look, man, if we don’t talk about something else in the next five seconds, I’m going to be puking my guts up for the rest of the night. And I don’t think I’ve kept much down for at least a few days, yeah? I’ve always wondered what colour Alisha’s nips are? Tell me about that.’
Simon takes a deep breath, opens his mouth and then closes it again.
‘A-alright. Just let me call Kelly first.’
*
Kelly comes over first thing the next morning. Nathan’s avoided sleeping again; it’s not like he can die of sleep deprivation after all, but he’s feeling wretched and like a dog pissed in his mouth as a result. She’s worried, but not stupid, so after snapping at him for not answering her calls, she doesn’t crowd him.
‘Think about it. Think about what happened.’ Simon directs him, without any preamble.
Nathan gives Simon a look, which hopefully says ‘are you fucking shitting me?’ and ‘fuck you, cunt,’ all in one go. But just like that, he can’t help thinking about it. The dinner with the roast and the split across his head, the beatdown and spectacular finish outside the community centre; Fagin grunting the kinds of things into his ears that Nathan himself had said during consensual experiences. He didn’t know if he’d ever say them again. Not for a while, anyway.
‘Well?’ Kelly said, hands on her hips.
‘Are you thinking about it?’ Simon asks, gentler now, watching his face the entire time.
‘It’s not going to work.’ Nathan says, ‘trust me, if it was going to work, I would’ve found a way by now.’
‘Maybe it would help if you were closer to him.’ Simon says to Kelly, and gestures to where he thinks she should stand. Nathan wants to make a quip about how he’s a dominating bastard and he could get paid good money for that shit in certain circles, but he’s desperately curious to know if there’s any way that he can communicate what happened.
Kelly stands closer, looking bored and worried at the same time. Clearly she also doesn’t think this will work.
‘I suppose you want me to...’ Nathan chokes off a swallow as a swamp of frigid nausea rockets up through him. He was going to say, ‘I suppose you want me to think about it again, you sadistic pervert,’ but once more, talking around the subject makes him feel awful.
‘Oh, what’s that?’ Kelly said, taking a step back. ‘Ugh, it’s like spiders crawling up my back or something.’
‘What can you hear?’
‘I can’t hear anything, but I felt something really weird. Like stomach flu or something. But like it’s a thought, I know it came from him.’
Nathan can’t help it, this is the closest he’s gotten to breaking through to anyone and he’ll be damned if he’s going to stop now. Instead of imagining the events, he makes himself imagine telling them about it, bringing it up. Immediately, he bends over and throws up, tastes bile and gum and toothpaste. Simon makes a sound of disgust, but a second later, Kelly does the same thing. She bends over and pukes on Simon’s concrete floor.
Simon shouts Kelly’s name, and she’s taking steps back from Nathan, gasping.
‘I’m not hearing it properly. It’s like...photos and, I don’t know. All scrappy and shit. I feel awful.’
‘Try dealing with it 24/7, you pussy.’ Nathan manages, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
‘What’d you see?’ Simon says and Kelly shakes her head.
‘Come over here,’ she says, and moves far away from where Nathan is, to the other side of the flat.
Nathan makes a face at them both and then gets up to finish throwing up in the toilet properly. He half expects one of them to come and check if he’s okay, but neither of them do. He can hear them quietly talking at the opposite end of the flat, and he closes his eyes and rinses his mouth out at the tap, he doesn’t want to know what they’re saying. He doesn’t want to know what Kelly saw.
Rating: R
Fandom: Misfits
Pairing: Eventual Simon/Nathan
Genre: Angst/Drama. Hurt/Comfort later.
Spoilers: Yes. Both seasons.
Word Count: 3100 ish
Warnings: Rape, and the general crudity of Nathan and overal grittiness of Misfits.
Summary: Nathan finally finds employment only to find out that his boss was also affected by the storm, and his immortality can't save him this time.
Timeline: Set a few months after they’ve finished their community service, but before the events of the Christmas episode. Marnie doesn’t exist, Simon and Alisha are not together, though they do have some history. Simon is NOT aware of ‘Future-Simon,’ but lives in Future-Simon’s pad after Alisha showed it to him (and cleaning a lot of it out) and telling him that Superhoodie lived there.
part 01
He wakes up on someone’s lawn. His face his sticky and his whole body hurts. Jokes about how he was given a good working over, about how one shouldn’t drop the soap in a prison shower, all start flickering through his head and at first he smirks and then he gags and has to rest his head on the dew for some time, collecting his thoughts. It’s very dark. No one else is around. Its fucking freezing.
He goes to Curtis first. He doesn’t know why he chooses Curtis. He’s got the most hit and miss power out of all of them. But Nathan doesn’t care, he has to try. And Curtis is the only who can actually erase events and make it like they never happened. This - Nathan thinks - is probably a best case scenario.
So he goes to him at the bar. He’s cleaned himself up a bit, but blood is still oozing slowly and thickly into his hair and the split in his head throbs and probably needs stitches. He’s wearing one of the new shirts that he got for himself thanks to the wage he made working for Fagin. He would prefer anything else right now. He’d even prefer his skanky, disgusting, community service overalls. But he didn’t have them available, and the button down shirt was the easiest thing he had to put on, because he didn’t have to pull it over the sharp strangeness pulsing in his head.
‘You know it doesn’t work that way.’ Curtis paused, eyes narrowed. ‘What happened to you, anyway?’
Nathan opens his mouth to say something, but a strange, cold sensation slinks down the back of his spine and he suddenly can’t find the words. He can’t even hint at it. And while he’s trying to find the right words while fighting off the feeling of cold slime slinking through him, he suddenly remembers Fagin’s power. The stupid, fucked up power he got from the storm.
Nathan remembers that Fagin had the power to stop him from talking, but he didn’t know it would be this effective. He searches for every phrase possible, but anything that even connects to the events of that night seem cordoned off. He can think about it, he can remember it, but he can’t get it across to Curtis.
‘Jesus.’ Is all Nathan manages to say, after about ten seconds pass. ‘Well, isn’t this a bucket of piss?’
‘I can’t turn back time if I don’t even know what it’s for, that’s like...impossible.’
‘That’s fantastic, isn’t it?’ Nathan says. He shoves his hands into his jeans and the denim rubs over bruises and he winces. His whole gut aches and he’s mostly forcing himself to stand up through sheer force of will. It’s not the first time he’s been abused before, but it’s the first time he’s been raped. It’s the first time it’s hurt like this.
‘It probably wouldn’t of worked anyway. I kind of need to be there. Sorry.’ Curtis says, making a face more at himself than anyone else.
‘Whatever, man. I get it.’ Nathan says, and leaves.
He’s a few steps away from the pub when he hears footsteps behind him. He turns quickly, probably too quickly, and stares dizzied as Simon runs up to him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Simon asks, mouth grim.
‘Nothing!’ Nathan laughs, even though the motion hurts his ribs, his gut.
‘Something’s wrong.’
‘You are, without a doubt, hands down, the most paranoid freak I’ve ever met.’
Simon studies him, and then his eyes widen. He reaches up for the gash on Nathan’s head, and Nathan steps back.
‘Hands off the merchandise, my friend!’
‘You’re bleeding! Tell me what happened.’
Nathan opens his mouth to brush Simon off, and then closes it. Even before he realises that he wants to tell Simon about what happened, the cold, slinking feeling crawls up the back of his spine and presses like wet, cold mucus into his lungs and his throat. He chokes on it. He turns away from Simon, forces himself to take deep breaths, to swallow repeatedly until he’s got it under control. He makes himself think of anything other than what happened that night.
But everything is making him think about it.
‘Did someone do this to you?’
Yes. Nathan thinks. Yes. Someone did this to me. I did it to myself. I’m an idiot.
He flinches when Simon steps closer to him. He can’t help but wince when Simon hovers a hand by the gash. And then Simon actually puts his fingers on Nathan’s face and tilts his head to take a closer look. He hears the intake of breath; the hiss. Nathan closes his eyes. It’s just too much to deal with.
‘You should get that stitched.’
‘It’s worse than it looks.’
‘I don’t think it is.’ Simon said, implacable. In that firm, unrelenting way he had of making a point. It pissed Nathan off at the best of times, but right now it was just the crappy icing on the very crappy cake the night had been. He pushes Simon back with his hand, but doesn’t realise how hard he pushed until Simon stumbles backwards a couple of steps.
‘I don’t need you to coddle me, man.’
And just like that, Nathan decides that he doesn’t want to tell any of them. He doesn’t want to see the way they’ll look at him once they know. And all of his abuse jokes won’t be funny anymore. He’s not interested in their pity or their faux sympathy. He’s more than capable of finding himself food and booze without working. It’ll be fine.
‘I’ll see you later.’ He says to Simon, who stands that looking at him with a kind of horror. He forces himself to turn and walk away.
He makes it back to the community centre without incident, though he has the suspicious feeling that he’s being watched. He keeps telling himself that it’s invisible Simon, making sure that he’ll get home okay. He tells himself that he doesn’t really mind this, it’d probably be one of the few times where he really wouldn’t mind it. His head is pounding and nausea turns his stomach every few seconds. He’s bleeding from his arse and his head and from scratches on his back and maybe even bite marks.
He’s about to slide up the security grille when he hears footsteps. He turns, genuinely expects it to be Simon, but it’s not. It’s Fagin again.
‘Are you serious?’ Nathan hears himself say.
‘I just really like you. That a problem?’ Fagin purrs, looking easy and good-natured and not like the demented asshole he actually is.
‘I’m still...’ Nathan goes to say, I’m still bleeding, but he can’t. Cold feeling, nausea, and he turns and throws up bile onto the pavement. He can’t even tell Fagin about it.
‘Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ Nathan gasps at no one in particular, when he feels a hand pull his hair hard, before throwing him down to the concrete. It’s pulled on the wound on his scalp and it starts bleeding freshly again. Nathan hears himself whimper. It’s a hopeless, helpless noise. He stands up, tries to get some distance from that level of pathetic. He’s not there yet, is he?
‘Look, man, I’m having a really bad night.’ Nathan says right before he’s punched in the kidney. He goes down and stays down this time.
*
It takes him days to recover, though he suspects it would’ve taken anyone else longer. His body seems to regenerate pretty quickly, all things being equal. But he still has broken bones, and - he thinks - maybe even internal injuries. He screens calls from Simon, from Kelly, even from Curtis. He avoids the community centre for a few days, and when he feels well enough, he finds a homeless shelter and uses their shower. He sleeps in public toilets, one night in a park, one night in a vacant house. He knows he could go home, use his old shower, but he doesn’t want the bother of dealing with all of that right now. Family. Friends. The stuff that doesn’t stop him from getting hurt or raped or abused or dying. The kind of stuff that always seems so great in theory and hasn’t done shit for him in practice.
He beams at his pallid reflection in the mirror. The last night in the vacant house had been the best; he’d stayed in a bed, had a warm shower, even managed to wash the clothes off his back and spent several hours walking around the house in a very womanly, violet robe that fit him perfectly.
‘You glorious, cynical bastard,’ he says to himself. He’s gotten dried blood out of his hair and his ear, the bruises are fading, and he looks more and more like his old self. Never mind that he’s scared of going back to the pub, and scared of going back to the community centre, and certainly scared of frequenting any of the streets that Fagin’s seen him walk down.
Immortality only takes you so far. Previously he’d thought being beaten to death was probably the worst thing he’d experienced. But at least that had finished relatively quickly, all things considered.
‘And now, time for plan B.’ He says. Flashes a wink, a quick smile, and then leaves the vacant house and hopes, even prays, that he can make it to his destination.
*
There’s now a recycled armchair in Simon’s industrial-looking apartment, and Nathan is occupying it while Simon fills the kettle. He looks up at the fluorescent lights, down at the huge bed, at the unfinished walls and the unfinished floors and thinks that Simon seems out of place here. It’s a strange thing to think, because he has no idea what sort of space Simon would look comfortable in. Whatever it is, he can’t actually imagine it.
Simon comes back with some tea, and sits opposite him on the floor.
‘Why do you want to stay here?’ He says.
‘It’s just such a nice place and all, imagine bringing chicks back to a place like this! You’re totally wasted on that bed, I can tell. I’ll improve it for you. It’ll be like living art; naked me, naked girls, and you’d get it all for free! You’d be living in porn!’
‘I’m serious.’ He says.
So am I! Nathan thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Serious answer. Okay, but he can’t give the serious answer he wants to give. He’s pushed around the boundaries of what he can say and can’t say, and what he’s learnt is that he can’t write about it, he can’t text it, he can’t say anything about it, and he’s trapped in this other guy’s power to the point that the more he thinks about doing these things, the more his gag reflex gets a work out. It’s one thing not to be able to talk about something, it’s another thing to feel like orally ejecting your stomach in the process.
‘I can’t say why.’ Nathan says, and even this dancing around the topic makes him feel queasy.
‘Somebody hurt you, didn’t they?’
And this is how Nathan learns that he can’t answer other people’s questions about it either. He turns and gags on being so close to the subject. He hears Simon calling his name in alarm, and when his vision clears and the cold feeling recedes like a tide, he’s shivering and wishing he had a blanket or something.
‘I really can’t say. I mean really.’ Nathan manages.
Simon now looks very concerned. He’s gone from regular-Simon-concerned, to ultra-concerned. He’s kneeling and leaning towards Nathan, like maybe he’d reached a hand out when Nathan had been gagging. His face is deadly serious and Nathan doesn’t even want to go through the motions of talking about it.
‘We can help you. You don’t have to protect them.’ Simon says.
Nathan laughs at this, though it’s closer to the truth to say that he cackles, bitterly. He stands up and moves away from Simon and the armchair and the illusion of comfort.
‘Look, Barry, you don’t fucking get it, and I can’t explain it to you. Are you gonna let me stay here or what? I can take the floor. I haven’t slept in an actual bed - aside from last night - in a while. But if you want me to stay in your bed, I promise I’ll make it good for you.’ He leers, and Simon shakes his head, he seems confused, upset, tired.
‘Just drink your tea, and I’ll find you some blankets.’ He says, and walks off to do just that.
*
That’s when Nathan finds out that he’s been having nightmares loud enough to wake up other people. The first night, it feels like he’s only just put his head on a new, soft pillow when he’s being shaken awake and is flailing out with hands and legs. He lands something, because there’s an ‘unf!’ next to him, and then the hands are off his shoulders. It gives him time to kick off the blankets as well. Call him mental, but he just doesn’t like the feel of heavy blankets as much as he used to, anymore.
‘You were having a bad dream.’ Simon says.
‘Maybe that’s what I sound like when I come,’ Nathan says, flippant, smoothing a hand over his hair and avoiding the place where his scalp had split open. It had healed over already, but he didn’t like to remember that it had happened at all.
‘I’m not stupid. Is it going to be like this every night?’
‘Jesus, you’re worse than my Mum, if it’s going to be like this I’m just going to find somewhere else to crash,’ and he gets up, frustrated with Simon for waking him up like that and scaring him, and angry at himself for ballsing up the one place where he might actually feel comfortable sleeping. He yanks his clothes up into one hand, gets up, and walks towards the elevator.
‘Nathan.’ Simon says, ‘what are you doing?’
‘What does it look like?’ Nathan is sliding back the grill so he can step into the elevator.
‘I’d prefer it if you stayed.’
And just like that, Nathan deflates. It’s like all the wind goes out of him. He leans against one of the pillars surrounding the elevator. He is unbelievably tired. He can’t remember what he was dreaming about, but he can guess. He knows from experience that memories of abuse fade, they become part of the patina of who he is after a while. He’s like a cobblestone pathway with years of newspapers and cum and piss and shit waxed into the stones. He still gleams in the right light, but if you look closer, it’s all just muck and grime. But right now it’s not yet a layer of who he is, it’s fresh, and he can’t even joke about it.
He turns to face Simon, who stares at him with a grim, dark expression on his face. It would be threatening if it wasn’t for the fact that it was Simon.
‘I know someone hurt you, now.’ Is all he says.
Nathan shivers. He has no idea what he says in his sleep, he could have been fighting off green gremlins for all he knew. He’s pretty sure that Fagin’s power would extend into his sleep, but then...maybe not? He has no idea how the brain works. He’s too afraid to ask what he was saying, so he just shrugs nonchalantly.
‘I think I know who it is.’ Simon adds, after more time has passed. Simon’s expression is flat out scary now. It’s so intense that Nathan looks away and stares instead at Simon’s bed. After a moment he looks up at a flaw in the concrete of the wall and leaves his eyes there.
‘Well, this night has taken an unexpected, weird turn,’ he manages, quietly. ‘I should go. I can’t promise I’m not gonna have another nightmare. And you’re being way freakier than usual, soooo-’
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Simon says, firmly and like he won’t listen to anything that Nathan has to say about it.
‘Why do you care so much, all of a sudden?’ Nathan feels cornered, even though he’s so close to the elevator and to leaving. He steps into the elevator and stares defiantly at Simon. The kid looks at him in exasperation.
‘If you’re going to leave, you’re going to hear my theory first. I think, based on what I’ve figured out and the contents of your dream, that you were raped by your boss. I think that’s what he’s been doing to those kids who don’t come back, and I think that’s what he did to you. And none of you have told anyone about it, because if just one of you had, he’d be back in jail because of his previous criminal record. I think...he was affected by the storm, wasn’t he?’
Nathan’s feeling increasingly sick. Some of it is that cold, queasy feeling of being so close to the topic in the presence of another person. Some of it is that Simon is really too fucking smart for his own good, and hearing the events related with a kind of cold passion feels a little like knives stabbing into his chest. He’s still staring on the flaw in the concrete on the wall, and he can feel his breath getting shakier. He’s going to puke. He knows he is. His face is getting colder. It’s not like the apartment is particularly warm in the first place.
‘When you say you can’t talk about it, you really can’t? You can’t give me any indication that I’m right?’ That’s a question, like Simon has put the last piece of the puzzle together.
Nathan can’t say anything. He is breathing long, shallow breaths, trying to shut down the clammy feeling on the back of his neck, the cool squeeze of his stomach. His fingers stray up and scratch at the back of his head. He’s nervous and fidgety, suddenly wishing he was out at the clubs getting wasted, looking to get laid. He’s in the wrong place, at the wrong time. He feels like this might always be the case.
‘Nathan.’ Simon says, drawing his attention back. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’
Nathan looks back at Simon now, and his face has changed, it’s gone from intense and dangerous to scared and vulnerable. So very much like the perpetual look he used to have on his face. Nathan is confronted by the idea that Simon might be frightened for him, on his behalf, and that’s so discordant that he tries to force a leer to his face, an easy expression. But he can’t, and it slides off immediately after.
‘Shit.’ He manages, and his voice is hoarse.
Simon gets out his phone.
‘I’m calling Kelly. She might be able to use her power and help you. I won’t do anything until it’s confirmed. But I have to know, Nathan. Someone hurt you.’
‘Look, man, if we don’t talk about something else in the next five seconds, I’m going to be puking my guts up for the rest of the night. And I don’t think I’ve kept much down for at least a few days, yeah? I’ve always wondered what colour Alisha’s nips are? Tell me about that.’
Simon takes a deep breath, opens his mouth and then closes it again.
‘A-alright. Just let me call Kelly first.’
*
Kelly comes over first thing the next morning. Nathan’s avoided sleeping again; it’s not like he can die of sleep deprivation after all, but he’s feeling wretched and like a dog pissed in his mouth as a result. She’s worried, but not stupid, so after snapping at him for not answering her calls, she doesn’t crowd him.
‘Think about it. Think about what happened.’ Simon directs him, without any preamble.
Nathan gives Simon a look, which hopefully says ‘are you fucking shitting me?’ and ‘fuck you, cunt,’ all in one go. But just like that, he can’t help thinking about it. The dinner with the roast and the split across his head, the beatdown and spectacular finish outside the community centre; Fagin grunting the kinds of things into his ears that Nathan himself had said during consensual experiences. He didn’t know if he’d ever say them again. Not for a while, anyway.
‘Well?’ Kelly said, hands on her hips.
‘Are you thinking about it?’ Simon asks, gentler now, watching his face the entire time.
‘It’s not going to work.’ Nathan says, ‘trust me, if it was going to work, I would’ve found a way by now.’
‘Maybe it would help if you were closer to him.’ Simon says to Kelly, and gestures to where he thinks she should stand. Nathan wants to make a quip about how he’s a dominating bastard and he could get paid good money for that shit in certain circles, but he’s desperately curious to know if there’s any way that he can communicate what happened.
Kelly stands closer, looking bored and worried at the same time. Clearly she also doesn’t think this will work.
‘I suppose you want me to...’ Nathan chokes off a swallow as a swamp of frigid nausea rockets up through him. He was going to say, ‘I suppose you want me to think about it again, you sadistic pervert,’ but once more, talking around the subject makes him feel awful.
‘Oh, what’s that?’ Kelly said, taking a step back. ‘Ugh, it’s like spiders crawling up my back or something.’
‘What can you hear?’
‘I can’t hear anything, but I felt something really weird. Like stomach flu or something. But like it’s a thought, I know it came from him.’
Nathan can’t help it, this is the closest he’s gotten to breaking through to anyone and he’ll be damned if he’s going to stop now. Instead of imagining the events, he makes himself imagine telling them about it, bringing it up. Immediately, he bends over and throws up, tastes bile and gum and toothpaste. Simon makes a sound of disgust, but a second later, Kelly does the same thing. She bends over and pukes on Simon’s concrete floor.
Simon shouts Kelly’s name, and she’s taking steps back from Nathan, gasping.
‘I’m not hearing it properly. It’s like...photos and, I don’t know. All scrappy and shit. I feel awful.’
‘Try dealing with it 24/7, you pussy.’ Nathan manages, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
‘What’d you see?’ Simon says and Kelly shakes her head.
‘Come over here,’ she says, and moves far away from where Nathan is, to the other side of the flat.
Nathan makes a face at them both and then gets up to finish throwing up in the toilet properly. He half expects one of them to come and check if he’s okay, but neither of them do. He can hear them quietly talking at the opposite end of the flat, and he closes his eyes and rinses his mouth out at the tap, he doesn’t want to know what they’re saying. He doesn’t want to know what Kelly saw.