Page 176 of Golden Eagle

“Darling,” Sasha murmured. “You should try to eat–”

Nikita surged to his feet. He looked down at the piece of toast in his hand, crushed now, and dropped it back onto the plate with a look of disgust. “I don’t want to eat,” he snapped, and headed for the kitchen.

Sasha sighed and sent an apologetic glance toward Kolya, whowasreacting now, frowning again, his gaze following Nikita.

“He’s still like that?” he asked.

Sasha couldn’t contain the smile that pulled at his mouth. “Oh, yes. He still passes out sometimes, too.”

Kolya scoffed, shook his head.

A quick glance proved that Nikita had gone into the kitchen for the vodka, but stood frozen now in front of the open fridge, one hand propping it open, the other curled heedless around the bottle. He stared at Kolya, frozen, like an animal caught in a snare.

Sasha chuckled – he couldn’t help it – and looked back to Kolya. “He did it right on the street a few days ago. I had to drag him down to the pub and pour vodka in him until he came around.”

“Christ,” Kolya muttered, and he sounded like himself. Like the unimpressed, knife-wielding agent he’d been so long ago; a bored comment and the tiniest frown and an eye roll for the captain he was trying to keep from falling on his face in the middle of a dangerous op. “He’s had a death wish since he was born, I think. First it was Dima who kept him alive, then me, and now you. And you for a century.” The last he said like an apology, gaze strikingly earnest.

Sasha wanted to laugh. Delighted, triumphant. Kolya was alive, and Kolya was himself, and he’d failed his pack in that clearing, back then, but here was a chance to make up for some of it. To atone with one member, at least. To provide safety, shelter, and love to someone who needed it badly.

But things were so new, so tentative. And Nikita was standing there, letting the inside of the fridge get too warm, and it was up to Sasha to keep his head.

“It’s not such a bad job,” he told Kolya with a wink. “Definitely worth it.”

Kolya grinned at him, just for a moment, spare and with obvious effort. And then his face went slowly slack again. He took a breath, and a furrow appeared on his brow; his gaze drew inward, and he reached up to massage his forehead.

“Do you have a headache?” Sasha asked, alarmed suddenly. Did it physically hut? The cascade of returning memories? Was the strain too great?

“No. It’s…it feels normal, almost. For a bit. Like it’s still then, and I didn’t miss anything. Like Iknowyou.” His gaze, when he lifted it, implored Sasha to understand. “But then…I don’t, again. I don’t…it’s hard to explain.”

“I think you’re explaining just fine,” Sasha said.

The fridge door finally shut with a quiet clap, and Nik’s footfalls retreated to the bedroom. That door shut, too, a moment later.

Sasha took a deep breath and forced a smile on the exhale. “Come on and I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

~*~

Nikita wasn’t proud of himself. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been, really, but tonight felt like a new low.

He lay on his side on the bed, the vodka untouched on the nightstand, struggling to draw a deep breath, fighting the black spots that crowded at the edges of his vision. He shivered, cold down to his bones. If he sat up, he thought he might be sick or pass out.

He listened to the low murmur of voices in the room next door as Sasha showed Kolya where to sleep, and where to find clean towels in the bathroom, and offered him some old sweats. Asked if he wanted a glass of water to put beside his bed.

Sasha was being so good about this. Was being a proper host, and a friend. Wasn’t falling apart, shaking and sweating and unable to even stand upright.

Back on the roof, it had been numb disbelief; the detachment had carried him past the necessary declaration that they would take Kolya with them; had gotten them home and in the house. But then it had really started to sink in: Kolya was alive, was in New York, was in their apartment, back from the dead. And Nikita was…

Nikita was falling apart.

The last few days had been one shock after the next. The tectonic plates of his foundation had shifted, thoughts spinning too fast, adrenaline flooding his system again and again, too fast to tamp down, too much to ignore.

He was going into shock – purely emotional shock – and he was ashamed, but he was also helpless to prevent it.

He heard shuffling out in the apartment, and the shower cutting on. Sasha’s light step came to the door, and he slipped inside near-silently. Kolya was showering, and that meant they had a few moments of total privacy, for whatever that was worth.

Sasha undressed – quiet slide of fabric – and came to sit on the side of the bed in his underwear, right by Nik’s head. He raked gentle fingers through Nikita’s hair, and hummed a few low bars of a song Nik probably should have recognized, but didn’t. Sasha was the music lover of the two of them; case after case of old CDs and cassette tapes were stowed under the bed in the other room, rap, and rock, and pop, and big band.

“Sorry,” Nikita croaked.

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