Fic - M - Misfits - Nathan - Science of Fear (4/?)
Title: Science of Fear (4/?)
Rating: M
Fandom: Misfits
Pairing: Eventual Simon/Nathan
Genre: Angst/Drama/Hurt/Comfort. All the squishy things that I love.
Spoilers: Yes. Both seasons.
Word Count: 3500 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.
Author's Note: Apologies for the massive delay. Dealing with my own crippling mental demons right now, makes me too busy to deal with Nathan and Simon's!
part 01
part 02
part 03
Nathan is fast, but Simon is faster. But Nathan had a head start when he bolted from the apartment, and so it takes a little while for Simon to catch up with him. Nathan’s turning down an alley, sprinting hard, when he hears the running footsteps from behind and prepares himself to be tackled down. Instead Simon runs past him, slows and then stops in front of him, turns and faces him. Nathan is too exhausted anyway. No food. Hardly any water. Probably shouldn’t run on still healing bones. He bends double and supports himself with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He looks wildly around a few times, to make sure Fagin hasn’t followed. He hasn’t.
In the distance they hear a gang of people swearing violently at each other and the sound of shattering glass. Light pollution means they can hardly see the stars overhead. It reeks of old food and refuse. In the alley, the sound of their breathing reverberates off the walls.
‘You...killed him.’ Nathan manages. ‘I hope you realise that murdering people isn’t the way to solve all of your problems. And it certainly hasn’t solved any of mine!’
‘No one could ever testify against him in a court.’ Simon says, sounding a lot less out of breath. He delivers it quietly, though he doesn’t seem too concerned about being overheard. ‘And I double-checked first, I looked him up, his criminal record is serious. He would’ve killed someone else eventually; if-if he hasn’t already. He had the perfect power to keep getting away with it.’
Nathan stretches up and leans against the damp wall. It’s cold and in between catching his breath, he’s starting to shake. He notices that Simon has a backpack with him, hanging off one shoulder. When did he have the time to get that? Was it already prepared? Always there? And where’s Fagin? He’s hopeful that Fagin can’t just turn up without knowing where Nathan is first, because it seemed that when Jamie was with him, he had to follow him everywhere to know where he was. He wasn’t just there. He’s hopeful that this means he can outrun the man. He can’t live with that ghost in his life. He just can’t.
‘I know I’ve made your life pretty miserable in the past, mate.’ Nathan says. ‘So okay, okay, I guess it’s my turn to say fucking touché?’
‘He would’ve kept doing that to you. You’re the perfect target for someone like that. You can’t die.’ Simon says, serious. But beneath that, he looks guilty too. In fact, he looks awful.
‘What...’ Nathan trails off and looks up at the sky for some inspiration, but he doesn’t find any. ‘What did Kelly see?’
‘We should get out of the cold.’
‘Where?’ Nathan laughs, but something about the run and then bending double and now this jags at his ribs, and he clutches at them. ‘Shit.’ He adds.
‘I thought a hotel. I thought if any one of us was ever in trouble, a hotel would be best. I’ve...I’ve planned for a few contingencies. This wasn’t one of them but I still think a hotel-’
‘What about Kelly’s place?’
‘She lives with her mother. And I know you wouldn’t want to stay with Alisha or Curtis. Our parents both aren’t an option. If you’re worried about money you don’t need to be. I’ve been...saving for a while.’
‘You really do think of everything except ‘hmm, Nathan can see dead people! If I kill this dick, it’s likely to have major repercussions!’ Fucking wanker.’
Nathan feels like he wants to hurt Simon again, but it comes and goes in a wave of exhaustion. The back of his shirt is damp and probably dirty. He wasn’t wearing any shoes and now he’s aware that his right foot hurts and maybe he stepped on some broken glass or something. He looks down. Simon isn’t wearing any shoes either. Christ, they both must be freezing.
‘You should be able to talk about it now.’ Simon says. ‘We should probably test and make sure. Did...did he hurt you?’ Simon asks, even though they both know the answer.
Nathan opens his mouth to respond and the cold, slimy feeling doesn’t come, but in its place is a kind of hopelessness, a kind of denial about it. He doesn’t want to admit that it happened. He doesn’t want it to be true. When he couldn’t talk about it, all he wanted to do was tell people. And now, what if he can talk about it? He doesn’t want anyone to know how he was asking for it. He can’t be glorious and fucking fantastic if all people see when they look at him, is how he deserved it.
‘Nathan?’ Simon prompts. His teeth are starting to chatter now.
‘Yeah.’ Nathan answers the original question. His voice is pulled out from somewhere deep in his torso and isn’t high or melodramatic or spectacular. It would be easy to miss if Simon wasn’t watching him like a hawk.
Nathan thought he’d feel kind of happier again once he knew he could talk about it. Instead he feels completely indifferent. A total letdown.
And then it hits him. Simon killed someone. Simon killed someone to protect him. He swallows hard and runs his hand through his hair a few times. He doesn’t understand this kid at all. Not even remotely. He knows people who, if they knew what Fagin had done to him, would probably have given the man a medal and told him ‘good job, kind sir!’ It’s not like he ever thought - while it was happening - well, fuck me, never expected this! He acted like a twat all the time. He expected some level of retaliation. Maybe not that, but...something.
Why would Simon do something like that? He had the least reasons out of all of them to do something like that. Nathan puts it down to Simon’s deeply entrenched sense of civic justice. Nothing else explains it.
He realises that Simon is saying something to him and looks up to realise that he’s saying they should probably find a hotel. Yes, before his feet freeze off. Helplessly, he follows, limping around the object embedded in his heel and blindsided by this new information about Simon that his brain has provided him. And still, shaken, aware that the ghost of that prick is out there. Maybe still in Simon’s apartment. Just waiting. Dead but not gone.
*
They almost don’t get let in on account of the both of them not wearing any shoes. But Simon’s money is good, and they end up getting one of the last rooms available. A room with a king-sized bed on one of the upper floors. Nathan is still scanning the environment for Fagin, which he can’t seem to stop doing. Simon is still scanning Nathan, which he also can’t seem to stop doing. Together, they look paranoid, drugged out of their minds, with dirty bare feet and Simon in black pyjamas which kind of make him look like a ninja.
Simon ends up sitting in an armchair by the bed, and Nathan ends up on top of the covers, digging a piece of metal out of his foot with his nails and using one of the provided hand-towels to mop up the blood. Simon offers to help him, but he’s not interested. He’s had enough ‘help’ to last him multiple lifetimes. When the bleeding finally stops, he pulls a doona over his feet to warm them up. He keeps thinking he should be making jokes about room service and hookers and hiring a midget to make it a night to remember, but none of it comes together properly and the punchlines aren’t working in his head. So instead he waits to see what will happen next. He feels like he hasn’t stopped for days, for weeks. Like he’s on this wild rollercoaster and it’s still going, even though he’s sitting on a bed. Only a few weeks ago he was thinking about how awesome his job was, his boss was.
‘He killed you.’ Simon says, quietly. ‘It’s one of the things Kelly felt when she listened to you. I know that it happened twice. Once...when you came to the pub and wouldn’t tell me where you got the cut on your head.’ Nathan ignores the accusatory tone in his voice. ‘And then again, at the community centre. And he killed you.’
‘I don’t remember that.’ Nathan says, shrugging. ‘I thought I was just knocked out.’
‘He just left you there. And because he knew you’d survive it from the first time he did it, he would’ve just...’ Simon trails off.
‘Oh, I know.’ Nathan says, with a half smile. ‘He would’ve made every night a night to remember.’ He spreads his arms in a flourish and then they drop to his sides.
‘Kelly didn’t say anymore. But I think there were things she wasn’t telling me. Things she couldn’t say. She didn’t tell me you’d been raped. I figured that one out. I mean I’d already told you, but I knew for sure, after her reaction. It wasn’t hard.’
‘It wasn’t?’ Nathan frames it as a question, but it comes out deadened and toneless. He runs a hand through his hair again and it all feels greasy now; his hand, his hair, his scalp. He can still feel minute tremors in his bones, even though he’s not cold anymore. He folds his arms around himself and wonders when it was that he felt able to show these things to Simon. This side of himself, even more fucked up than the other side.
‘You never asked Curtis to turn back time for being beaten up before. You’ve never asked him to rewind you dying. Not even all that time you spent in a coffin. I knew it had to be worse than that. It wasn’t hard.’
‘Fuck you and your criminal mastermind. You know, it’s freakish that you have that. All those times I joked about your deviance but it’s true isn’t it?’ Nathan looks up, to see if his barbs have hit, but they haven’t. Simon is watching him with a kind of sadness, and for some reason, this registers as pain for Nathan. That hurts. He looks away and bites the inside of his mouth. Because he’s already chewed it to shreds, he starts to taste blood pretty quickly. He swallows some, but there’s too much to feel comfortable and he leans over to take a tissue from the box by the small chest of drawers by the bed. He dabs it to his mouth and looks to see how much blood there is. There’s a bit. He keeps dabbing. Simon makes a noise in his throat when he realises what Nathan is doing.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Which part?’ Nathan says, and it’s almost amiable.
‘It will be okay, Nathan. We’ll deal with it.’
‘Why do you have to say that Hallmark bullshit anyway?’ Nathan clenches the tissue in his fist. ‘Do you believe it? Because I don’t. And I don’t know that you do either when we’re hiding out from a rapist ghost in a fucking hotel, shoeless! If you’re trying to convince yourself, fine, say it silently. But stop trying to convince me.’ He feels brittle around the edges, frayed, like one hard tug and he’ll come apart.
‘I think you need to hear it too.’ Simon says.
‘Oh, you think you know what I need? You don’t know shit, my friend.’
Simon’s hand comes up and brushes his throat briefly, and Nathan squints, but can’t see a bruise there. They’ll develop though. There will be bruises. He wonders if now they’re both remembering Nathan losing it back at Simon’s apartment. He’s seen a lot of scary things in his life. Now he can say that he’s been one of them.
‘What do you need, Nathan?’ Simon asks, and Nathan glares at him.
‘I need a shower.’ He says, and gets off the bed, limps into the bathroom, and closes the door behind him.
*
The nightmares are getting to him. He won’t lie. He knows what it is even as he knows that he needs to wake up, but he can’t seem to drag himself out of it. He fell into an unfortunate habit of sleep-dreaming, or dream-waking, or whatever, when he was in the coffin. Especially towards the end. The battery had run out pretty quickly on the iPod, and after that he just let his mind wander and wander and wander around. Often it went to sex, the most obvious target. But sometimes it just went everywhere. He’d have extraordinarily vivid dreams of standing on a train, of looking for the right brand of condoms at the shops, even of using a can opener to open a tin of baked beans. And sometimes it got so real that he’d be awake, but it was like it was still happening. They did his head in. He’d mostly gotten out of the habit once he’d gotten out of the coffin, but every now and then he got trapped back in the dreams where he was awake, but dreaming.
When he finally woke up, he felt like he’d been underwater for hours. He sat up, gasping, hand at his chest and eyes wildly roving around the room. Half-convinced he was in a coffin. Half-convinced it was still a dream. Half-convinced Fagin was still on top of him.
It was dim, and most of the light came from the laptop Simon was hunched over while sitting in the same chair he’d occupied as Nathan had fallen asleep. Simon was not even looking at him, but reading something with intent. Nathan realised after a few moments that his eyes weren’t moving, and that he wasn’t reading at all. Just intently staring at the screen, waiting for Nathan to speak.
‘That is like the worst fucking alarm clock. Jesus.’ Nathan said, and Simon finally looked at him. ‘You could’ve woken me up, man.’
‘You hit me, last time.’
‘I hardly think the two situations are comparable!’ Nathan said, and then pursed his lips, because it was statements like that would really remind him how difficult everything had been. That was definitely not what he was aiming for.
‘I-I threw a cushion at you. It seemed to help.’
‘So now you’re a murdering, perverted bastard who throws projectiles at the vulnerable? Lovely.’
Simon opened his mouth, shocked. It was clear he was scrambling some thoughts together to try and defend himself, and after a few seconds Nathan took pity on him and simply waved his hand to indicate that he didn’t mean it. His heart was slowing down, and he grabbed the cushion Simon had thrown at him and stuffed it behind him so that sitting was more comfortable.
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ Nathan said, after a beat, bored already.
‘Not really.’ Simon said with a half-smirk, as he looked at something on his laptop and then typed on the keypad. ‘I’ve never slept well.’
‘Your problem, my friend, is that you take everything too seriously. Someone’s mean to you, try and burn their house down. Someone’s attacked, you resort to murder. I don’t know about you, but you might want to start some Life of Brian shit. Always look on the bright side of life and all that.’
‘Because it’s doing so well for you.’ Simon leant back in his chair and folded his arms.
‘I’m starving.’ Nathan changed the subject.
‘Pizza should be here soon.’
‘What?’
Simon smiled, in that slightly creepy way that suggested that - for the most part - he really did think of everything. After a beat though, a frown quickly replaced it, and he looked at Nathan with gravity. It made Nathan uncomfortable. What felt like a million jokes and sledges came to his mind and passed again. He needed to do something. So he did jazz hands, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
‘I was just so angry.’ Simon said, as though the jazz hands were an invitation to speak. ‘I thought that I’d gone over it properly in my mind. Thinking of how you were being treated, the way he took advantage of you...’
He trailed off when they both heard footsteps and then a knock on the door. Simon got up and paid for the pizzas, which to Nathan smelled like a cornucopia of heaven. There was one each, and Nathan tucked into his with gusto, feeling like the very marrow in his bones needed replacing. The conversation they’d been having, the topic they’d been talking about but not talking about, hung between them. It wasn’t exactly awkward, but it left a space between them both. A space where Nathan didn’t know what to think of Simon anymore.
They finished eating in the relative silence of Nathan chewing and swallowing loudly, and then burping an almost operatic tune. Simon made a face at him, and then grinned.
‘Glad you liked it.’
‘Liked it? I wanted to take it into a master bedroom and do dirty, despicable things to it. I almost wish I had more than one mouth, sometimes, to really appreciate food.’
‘It would get confusing.’
‘I’m the king of multi-tasking. I can wank, eat a sandwich and watch TV all at the same time. My talents are truly under-appreciated.’ He spread his arms and gestured at himself to indicate his own awesomeness, and then just like that, with no preamble, it hit him and his arms fell to his side.
‘Fuck. What are we going to do?’
‘I need to go back to the apartment and pick up some things. Like shoes.’
Nathan nods like this makes perfect sense and then he feels queasy. It takes a while for his mind to catch up with the messages his body is sending him, and then he panics.
‘You can’t go back! Fagin will follow you here! Oh shit. We’re fucked. We’re truly fucked. I’m going to be on the lam with a fucking perverted criminal mastermind who throws projectiles and murders people for the rest of my life!’ He pauses. ‘Well technically for the rest of your life.’
‘Or I could use my power so he can’t see me.’
‘Or...’ Nathan scowls. ‘Shut up.’
The corner of Simon’s mouth pulls up in a half smile again, and he shakes his head at his laptop. Nathan thinks that in an alternative world, in another lifetime, Simon could have been handsome. He could have been charming. His taciturn ways could’ve made the ladies and the fellows fall over themselves for him. Nathan tried mysterious and charming once upon a time, too long ago, and it made him laugh at himself harder than anyone else laughed at him. He was a balls-on-the-table open book type.
‘You need sleep.’ Simon says at his screen, like he’s Skyping with someone, but his eyes flicker up and he directs that seriousness at Nathan instead.
‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of the harrowing, crushing, mind-splitting nightmares for one night, cheers.’
‘What are you dreaming about?’ Simon puts his laptop aside, watches him attentively, and Nathan grins ear to ear.
‘Now, now, Barry, you’re already a criminal mastermind, it’s best not to double-up on being my therapist as well.’
‘I was trying to be your friend.’
‘Look, I’m an advocate for talking about one’s feelings. I do it all the time! So why don’t you give me a little trust, and just leave it alone. Not everything should be talked about. I think you know that better than anyone.’
Simon lets a silence expand between them, and Nathan wants to open his mouth and fill it with endless stream of consciousness so that he doesn’t have to think, but there’s only a few things on his mind, and most of those things he doesn’t want to talk about. He laughs under his breath. There was Fagin, trying his hardest to make sure Nathan couldn’t talk to anyone. And there’s Nathan, trying his hardest to make sure he wasn’t going to talk to anyone. A nice little conspiracy.
‘Fine.’ Simon says, like he’s angry, or hurt, which Nathan finds confusing. Simon stands up, closes his laptop completely and Nathan can’t see a damned thing until Simon turns the overhead light on. It casts a warm, bright light over the room. Simon packs everything away into his backpack and then slings it over his shoulder. ‘You stay here, I’m going back to my place. I’ll be back in a few hours.’
‘What if he sees you?’ Nathan blurts. ‘What if he can see you even if you’re invisible?’
Simon pauses with his hand on the doorknob, and he turns back to face Nathan. He looks incredibly tired, and Nathan wonders if he’s always looked that tired, or if this is just a new development.
‘He won’t be able to see me. And we’ve outrun him once. I’m pretty sure I can do it again.’
‘Thanks. I feel much better.’ Nathan says, laying the words heavy with sarcasm. Simon pretends to be oblivious to the tone.
‘You’re welcome.’ He says gently, and closes the door behind him.
Rating: M
Fandom: Misfits
Pairing: Eventual Simon/Nathan
Genre: Angst/Drama/Hurt/Comfort. All the squishy things that I love.
Spoilers: Yes. Both seasons.
Word Count: 3500 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.
Author's Note: Apologies for the massive delay. Dealing with my own crippling mental demons right now, makes me too busy to deal with Nathan and Simon's!
part 01
part 02
part 03
Nathan is fast, but Simon is faster. But Nathan had a head start when he bolted from the apartment, and so it takes a little while for Simon to catch up with him. Nathan’s turning down an alley, sprinting hard, when he hears the running footsteps from behind and prepares himself to be tackled down. Instead Simon runs past him, slows and then stops in front of him, turns and faces him. Nathan is too exhausted anyway. No food. Hardly any water. Probably shouldn’t run on still healing bones. He bends double and supports himself with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He looks wildly around a few times, to make sure Fagin hasn’t followed. He hasn’t.
In the distance they hear a gang of people swearing violently at each other and the sound of shattering glass. Light pollution means they can hardly see the stars overhead. It reeks of old food and refuse. In the alley, the sound of their breathing reverberates off the walls.
‘You...killed him.’ Nathan manages. ‘I hope you realise that murdering people isn’t the way to solve all of your problems. And it certainly hasn’t solved any of mine!’
‘No one could ever testify against him in a court.’ Simon says, sounding a lot less out of breath. He delivers it quietly, though he doesn’t seem too concerned about being overheard. ‘And I double-checked first, I looked him up, his criminal record is serious. He would’ve killed someone else eventually; if-if he hasn’t already. He had the perfect power to keep getting away with it.’
Nathan stretches up and leans against the damp wall. It’s cold and in between catching his breath, he’s starting to shake. He notices that Simon has a backpack with him, hanging off one shoulder. When did he have the time to get that? Was it already prepared? Always there? And where’s Fagin? He’s hopeful that Fagin can’t just turn up without knowing where Nathan is first, because it seemed that when Jamie was with him, he had to follow him everywhere to know where he was. He wasn’t just there. He’s hopeful that this means he can outrun the man. He can’t live with that ghost in his life. He just can’t.
‘I know I’ve made your life pretty miserable in the past, mate.’ Nathan says. ‘So okay, okay, I guess it’s my turn to say fucking touché?’
‘He would’ve kept doing that to you. You’re the perfect target for someone like that. You can’t die.’ Simon says, serious. But beneath that, he looks guilty too. In fact, he looks awful.
‘What...’ Nathan trails off and looks up at the sky for some inspiration, but he doesn’t find any. ‘What did Kelly see?’
‘We should get out of the cold.’
‘Where?’ Nathan laughs, but something about the run and then bending double and now this jags at his ribs, and he clutches at them. ‘Shit.’ He adds.
‘I thought a hotel. I thought if any one of us was ever in trouble, a hotel would be best. I’ve...I’ve planned for a few contingencies. This wasn’t one of them but I still think a hotel-’
‘What about Kelly’s place?’
‘She lives with her mother. And I know you wouldn’t want to stay with Alisha or Curtis. Our parents both aren’t an option. If you’re worried about money you don’t need to be. I’ve been...saving for a while.’
‘You really do think of everything except ‘hmm, Nathan can see dead people! If I kill this dick, it’s likely to have major repercussions!’ Fucking wanker.’
Nathan feels like he wants to hurt Simon again, but it comes and goes in a wave of exhaustion. The back of his shirt is damp and probably dirty. He wasn’t wearing any shoes and now he’s aware that his right foot hurts and maybe he stepped on some broken glass or something. He looks down. Simon isn’t wearing any shoes either. Christ, they both must be freezing.
‘You should be able to talk about it now.’ Simon says. ‘We should probably test and make sure. Did...did he hurt you?’ Simon asks, even though they both know the answer.
Nathan opens his mouth to respond and the cold, slimy feeling doesn’t come, but in its place is a kind of hopelessness, a kind of denial about it. He doesn’t want to admit that it happened. He doesn’t want it to be true. When he couldn’t talk about it, all he wanted to do was tell people. And now, what if he can talk about it? He doesn’t want anyone to know how he was asking for it. He can’t be glorious and fucking fantastic if all people see when they look at him, is how he deserved it.
‘Nathan?’ Simon prompts. His teeth are starting to chatter now.
‘Yeah.’ Nathan answers the original question. His voice is pulled out from somewhere deep in his torso and isn’t high or melodramatic or spectacular. It would be easy to miss if Simon wasn’t watching him like a hawk.
Nathan thought he’d feel kind of happier again once he knew he could talk about it. Instead he feels completely indifferent. A total letdown.
And then it hits him. Simon killed someone. Simon killed someone to protect him. He swallows hard and runs his hand through his hair a few times. He doesn’t understand this kid at all. Not even remotely. He knows people who, if they knew what Fagin had done to him, would probably have given the man a medal and told him ‘good job, kind sir!’ It’s not like he ever thought - while it was happening - well, fuck me, never expected this! He acted like a twat all the time. He expected some level of retaliation. Maybe not that, but...something.
Why would Simon do something like that? He had the least reasons out of all of them to do something like that. Nathan puts it down to Simon’s deeply entrenched sense of civic justice. Nothing else explains it.
He realises that Simon is saying something to him and looks up to realise that he’s saying they should probably find a hotel. Yes, before his feet freeze off. Helplessly, he follows, limping around the object embedded in his heel and blindsided by this new information about Simon that his brain has provided him. And still, shaken, aware that the ghost of that prick is out there. Maybe still in Simon’s apartment. Just waiting. Dead but not gone.
*
They almost don’t get let in on account of the both of them not wearing any shoes. But Simon’s money is good, and they end up getting one of the last rooms available. A room with a king-sized bed on one of the upper floors. Nathan is still scanning the environment for Fagin, which he can’t seem to stop doing. Simon is still scanning Nathan, which he also can’t seem to stop doing. Together, they look paranoid, drugged out of their minds, with dirty bare feet and Simon in black pyjamas which kind of make him look like a ninja.
Simon ends up sitting in an armchair by the bed, and Nathan ends up on top of the covers, digging a piece of metal out of his foot with his nails and using one of the provided hand-towels to mop up the blood. Simon offers to help him, but he’s not interested. He’s had enough ‘help’ to last him multiple lifetimes. When the bleeding finally stops, he pulls a doona over his feet to warm them up. He keeps thinking he should be making jokes about room service and hookers and hiring a midget to make it a night to remember, but none of it comes together properly and the punchlines aren’t working in his head. So instead he waits to see what will happen next. He feels like he hasn’t stopped for days, for weeks. Like he’s on this wild rollercoaster and it’s still going, even though he’s sitting on a bed. Only a few weeks ago he was thinking about how awesome his job was, his boss was.
‘He killed you.’ Simon says, quietly. ‘It’s one of the things Kelly felt when she listened to you. I know that it happened twice. Once...when you came to the pub and wouldn’t tell me where you got the cut on your head.’ Nathan ignores the accusatory tone in his voice. ‘And then again, at the community centre. And he killed you.’
‘I don’t remember that.’ Nathan says, shrugging. ‘I thought I was just knocked out.’
‘He just left you there. And because he knew you’d survive it from the first time he did it, he would’ve just...’ Simon trails off.
‘Oh, I know.’ Nathan says, with a half smile. ‘He would’ve made every night a night to remember.’ He spreads his arms in a flourish and then they drop to his sides.
‘Kelly didn’t say anymore. But I think there were things she wasn’t telling me. Things she couldn’t say. She didn’t tell me you’d been raped. I figured that one out. I mean I’d already told you, but I knew for sure, after her reaction. It wasn’t hard.’
‘It wasn’t?’ Nathan frames it as a question, but it comes out deadened and toneless. He runs a hand through his hair again and it all feels greasy now; his hand, his hair, his scalp. He can still feel minute tremors in his bones, even though he’s not cold anymore. He folds his arms around himself and wonders when it was that he felt able to show these things to Simon. This side of himself, even more fucked up than the other side.
‘You never asked Curtis to turn back time for being beaten up before. You’ve never asked him to rewind you dying. Not even all that time you spent in a coffin. I knew it had to be worse than that. It wasn’t hard.’
‘Fuck you and your criminal mastermind. You know, it’s freakish that you have that. All those times I joked about your deviance but it’s true isn’t it?’ Nathan looks up, to see if his barbs have hit, but they haven’t. Simon is watching him with a kind of sadness, and for some reason, this registers as pain for Nathan. That hurts. He looks away and bites the inside of his mouth. Because he’s already chewed it to shreds, he starts to taste blood pretty quickly. He swallows some, but there’s too much to feel comfortable and he leans over to take a tissue from the box by the small chest of drawers by the bed. He dabs it to his mouth and looks to see how much blood there is. There’s a bit. He keeps dabbing. Simon makes a noise in his throat when he realises what Nathan is doing.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Which part?’ Nathan says, and it’s almost amiable.
‘It will be okay, Nathan. We’ll deal with it.’
‘Why do you have to say that Hallmark bullshit anyway?’ Nathan clenches the tissue in his fist. ‘Do you believe it? Because I don’t. And I don’t know that you do either when we’re hiding out from a rapist ghost in a fucking hotel, shoeless! If you’re trying to convince yourself, fine, say it silently. But stop trying to convince me.’ He feels brittle around the edges, frayed, like one hard tug and he’ll come apart.
‘I think you need to hear it too.’ Simon says.
‘Oh, you think you know what I need? You don’t know shit, my friend.’
Simon’s hand comes up and brushes his throat briefly, and Nathan squints, but can’t see a bruise there. They’ll develop though. There will be bruises. He wonders if now they’re both remembering Nathan losing it back at Simon’s apartment. He’s seen a lot of scary things in his life. Now he can say that he’s been one of them.
‘What do you need, Nathan?’ Simon asks, and Nathan glares at him.
‘I need a shower.’ He says, and gets off the bed, limps into the bathroom, and closes the door behind him.
*
The nightmares are getting to him. He won’t lie. He knows what it is even as he knows that he needs to wake up, but he can’t seem to drag himself out of it. He fell into an unfortunate habit of sleep-dreaming, or dream-waking, or whatever, when he was in the coffin. Especially towards the end. The battery had run out pretty quickly on the iPod, and after that he just let his mind wander and wander and wander around. Often it went to sex, the most obvious target. But sometimes it just went everywhere. He’d have extraordinarily vivid dreams of standing on a train, of looking for the right brand of condoms at the shops, even of using a can opener to open a tin of baked beans. And sometimes it got so real that he’d be awake, but it was like it was still happening. They did his head in. He’d mostly gotten out of the habit once he’d gotten out of the coffin, but every now and then he got trapped back in the dreams where he was awake, but dreaming.
When he finally woke up, he felt like he’d been underwater for hours. He sat up, gasping, hand at his chest and eyes wildly roving around the room. Half-convinced he was in a coffin. Half-convinced it was still a dream. Half-convinced Fagin was still on top of him.
It was dim, and most of the light came from the laptop Simon was hunched over while sitting in the same chair he’d occupied as Nathan had fallen asleep. Simon was not even looking at him, but reading something with intent. Nathan realised after a few moments that his eyes weren’t moving, and that he wasn’t reading at all. Just intently staring at the screen, waiting for Nathan to speak.
‘That is like the worst fucking alarm clock. Jesus.’ Nathan said, and Simon finally looked at him. ‘You could’ve woken me up, man.’
‘You hit me, last time.’
‘I hardly think the two situations are comparable!’ Nathan said, and then pursed his lips, because it was statements like that would really remind him how difficult everything had been. That was definitely not what he was aiming for.
‘I-I threw a cushion at you. It seemed to help.’
‘So now you’re a murdering, perverted bastard who throws projectiles at the vulnerable? Lovely.’
Simon opened his mouth, shocked. It was clear he was scrambling some thoughts together to try and defend himself, and after a few seconds Nathan took pity on him and simply waved his hand to indicate that he didn’t mean it. His heart was slowing down, and he grabbed the cushion Simon had thrown at him and stuffed it behind him so that sitting was more comfortable.
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ Nathan said, after a beat, bored already.
‘Not really.’ Simon said with a half-smirk, as he looked at something on his laptop and then typed on the keypad. ‘I’ve never slept well.’
‘Your problem, my friend, is that you take everything too seriously. Someone’s mean to you, try and burn their house down. Someone’s attacked, you resort to murder. I don’t know about you, but you might want to start some Life of Brian shit. Always look on the bright side of life and all that.’
‘Because it’s doing so well for you.’ Simon leant back in his chair and folded his arms.
‘I’m starving.’ Nathan changed the subject.
‘Pizza should be here soon.’
‘What?’
Simon smiled, in that slightly creepy way that suggested that - for the most part - he really did think of everything. After a beat though, a frown quickly replaced it, and he looked at Nathan with gravity. It made Nathan uncomfortable. What felt like a million jokes and sledges came to his mind and passed again. He needed to do something. So he did jazz hands, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
‘I was just so angry.’ Simon said, as though the jazz hands were an invitation to speak. ‘I thought that I’d gone over it properly in my mind. Thinking of how you were being treated, the way he took advantage of you...’
He trailed off when they both heard footsteps and then a knock on the door. Simon got up and paid for the pizzas, which to Nathan smelled like a cornucopia of heaven. There was one each, and Nathan tucked into his with gusto, feeling like the very marrow in his bones needed replacing. The conversation they’d been having, the topic they’d been talking about but not talking about, hung between them. It wasn’t exactly awkward, but it left a space between them both. A space where Nathan didn’t know what to think of Simon anymore.
They finished eating in the relative silence of Nathan chewing and swallowing loudly, and then burping an almost operatic tune. Simon made a face at him, and then grinned.
‘Glad you liked it.’
‘Liked it? I wanted to take it into a master bedroom and do dirty, despicable things to it. I almost wish I had more than one mouth, sometimes, to really appreciate food.’
‘It would get confusing.’
‘I’m the king of multi-tasking. I can wank, eat a sandwich and watch TV all at the same time. My talents are truly under-appreciated.’ He spread his arms and gestured at himself to indicate his own awesomeness, and then just like that, with no preamble, it hit him and his arms fell to his side.
‘Fuck. What are we going to do?’
‘I need to go back to the apartment and pick up some things. Like shoes.’
Nathan nods like this makes perfect sense and then he feels queasy. It takes a while for his mind to catch up with the messages his body is sending him, and then he panics.
‘You can’t go back! Fagin will follow you here! Oh shit. We’re fucked. We’re truly fucked. I’m going to be on the lam with a fucking perverted criminal mastermind who throws projectiles and murders people for the rest of my life!’ He pauses. ‘Well technically for the rest of your life.’
‘Or I could use my power so he can’t see me.’
‘Or...’ Nathan scowls. ‘Shut up.’
The corner of Simon’s mouth pulls up in a half smile again, and he shakes his head at his laptop. Nathan thinks that in an alternative world, in another lifetime, Simon could have been handsome. He could have been charming. His taciturn ways could’ve made the ladies and the fellows fall over themselves for him. Nathan tried mysterious and charming once upon a time, too long ago, and it made him laugh at himself harder than anyone else laughed at him. He was a balls-on-the-table open book type.
‘You need sleep.’ Simon says at his screen, like he’s Skyping with someone, but his eyes flicker up and he directs that seriousness at Nathan instead.
‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of the harrowing, crushing, mind-splitting nightmares for one night, cheers.’
‘What are you dreaming about?’ Simon puts his laptop aside, watches him attentively, and Nathan grins ear to ear.
‘Now, now, Barry, you’re already a criminal mastermind, it’s best not to double-up on being my therapist as well.’
‘I was trying to be your friend.’
‘Look, I’m an advocate for talking about one’s feelings. I do it all the time! So why don’t you give me a little trust, and just leave it alone. Not everything should be talked about. I think you know that better than anyone.’
Simon lets a silence expand between them, and Nathan wants to open his mouth and fill it with endless stream of consciousness so that he doesn’t have to think, but there’s only a few things on his mind, and most of those things he doesn’t want to talk about. He laughs under his breath. There was Fagin, trying his hardest to make sure Nathan couldn’t talk to anyone. And there’s Nathan, trying his hardest to make sure he wasn’t going to talk to anyone. A nice little conspiracy.
‘Fine.’ Simon says, like he’s angry, or hurt, which Nathan finds confusing. Simon stands up, closes his laptop completely and Nathan can’t see a damned thing until Simon turns the overhead light on. It casts a warm, bright light over the room. Simon packs everything away into his backpack and then slings it over his shoulder. ‘You stay here, I’m going back to my place. I’ll be back in a few hours.’
‘What if he sees you?’ Nathan blurts. ‘What if he can see you even if you’re invisible?’
Simon pauses with his hand on the doorknob, and he turns back to face Nathan. He looks incredibly tired, and Nathan wonders if he’s always looked that tired, or if this is just a new development.
‘He won’t be able to see me. And we’ve outrun him once. I’m pretty sure I can do it again.’
‘Thanks. I feel much better.’ Nathan says, laying the words heavy with sarcasm. Simon pretends to be oblivious to the tone.
‘You’re welcome.’ He says gently, and closes the door behind him.