Page 109 of Incubus
“Nathan! Jim!”
Schuesteron the other hand...
“You boys up ye—!” Schuester’s voice cut off abruptly, close and loud enough that Nathan knew he had to be standing at the mouth of the living room.
Instinct had Nathan harshly pushing Sasha away, and he didn’t miss the slightly hurt expression on Sasha’s face afterward, either.
“Oh…” Schuester was clearly thrown by what he had walked in on, eyes wide and mouth fumbling for words. “So…yer up then?Awake! I mean. Right. Breakfast is gettin’ cold, so…best get a move on.” Then Schuester made a quick turn around and headed back out of the living room.
“Schu!” Nathan called. “Wait! Listen, we—!”
“I don’t need to know!” replied Schuester’s now disembodied voice.
Nathan wiped a hand over his face and peeked at Sasha, who at least looked more amused now than upset. Nathan hadn’tmeantto react that way. But it was Schuester. It was almost as bad as having his dad walk in on them. Almost.
“I’m taking a shower,” Nathan said, slumping off toward the bathroom. Since there was highly inappropriate and loud giggling coming from beneath the pillow-covered head on the sofa, Nathan gave it a good bop as he passed. “Save me some food, okay?” he called back to Sasha.
The redhead was laughing by now too, but he nodded when Nathan glanced back, wearing a satisfied smile that made Nathan feel at least a little better again. He almost didn’t want to leave the room, because it would take Sasha out of his sight, and that meant this was all the more likely to be a dream that would evaporate if Nathan looked away. Nathan remembered he had felt that way for days when he first got his brother back.
Five minutes into his shower, with steam rising and water running down Nathan’s face, everything suddenly started to catch up to him. He started thinking about things too hard, ormaybe it was because he was trying so hard not to think at all, but the sobs he had been holding back since Chicago found an opening, and tears streamed down his face, mixing with the shower water down into the drain.
Nathan couldn’t even keep his sobs quiet. They were loud and harsh, barely drowned out by the sound of the water running. He had to lean against the tile for a minute, take a few breaths and try to stop shaking.
It didn’t count as crying if he was in the shower. The tears didn’t leave any streaks. No one could prove they had ever been there. But he didn't understandwhyhe was crying. It didn’t matter if he had failed. Sasha was fine. The scar had been so faint on Sasha’s chest, Nathan almost hadn’t noticed it. Even though Gabriel had gotten away again, everything would be okay in time. Nathan believed that, but he spent twenty minutes crying in the shower anyway.
The bathroom was filled with steam when Nathan finally had enough control over himself to step out. He had to wipe his hand over the mirror to see his face, but he looked fine. Refreshed. No sign of tears or puffy eyes.
His eyes…
For a moment, Nathan’s reflection was not his own. His mirror-image smirked at him, alive somehow as if it was someone else, and the green eyes in the glass flashedslit.
Nathan slammed the flat of his palm against the wall beside the mirror. The illusion vanished, but he felt the same tears rise up in him again and had to will them away. He remembered having slit eyes in one of his nightmares—a different version of himself pulling Sasha away into the darkness.
If Nathan’s dreams were starting to bleed into reality...then he was running out of time.
Tucking a towel tight around his waist, Nathan turned around, but jumped at the sight of Walter. He scrubbed at his eyes again, knowing they had to look damp. "Hey...I, uhh..."
"It's alright, Nathan, I know there is much on your mind," Walter said. "I won't push you to talk about anything you don't wish to. I just wanted you to know that I am here. Always. If there is anything you need."
A flash of Gabriel stuck in Nathan’s mind and he found himself frowning. "You knew Gabriel was our uncle, didn’t you?” he said, the words not coming out quite as accusing as he had envisioned. “What else did you know? Did you always know Jim would be taken? Did you know we’d get swept up in all this mess about the Veil?”
Walter retained his usual somber expression. “I did,” he admitted. “I am sorry there are things I have to keep from you, Nathan, but you must understand that telling you certain things in advance would not save you from them. It might simply become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You must make your own choices. And every choice you make changes what I see and what I know. There was always the chance that Jim would not be taken, for example.”
“Semantics,” Nathan huffed, though he wasn’t really angry. “This is all getting a little too big for me, Walt. I'm not looking to save the world. I’m trying to save myself and my brother. That's it. If you got onboard because you were expecting a hero out of me...you chose the wrong guy. My priority is taking care of Gabriel. Then my bounty. Then...we'll see what happens."
"I understand," Walter said. "Though you give yourself too little credit. I am glad Sasha is well."
Nathan looked up, steadier into Walter’s warm brown eyes. "So…my path doesn't contradict being with him?”
“Not at all, but as I have said, it won’t make things any easier."
"Tell me something I don’t know,” Nathan said, but somehow he managed to smile despite the weight resting heavy on his shoulders.
Chapter 43
“No,itwasawerewolf,” Sasha argued. He had been happily interrupting whenever he disagreed with how Shiarra was telling the story of how his parents had first met. “I swear it was a werewolf. It’s in Dad’s notes.”
“Fine, fine,” Shiarra conceded, “a werewolf. So as I was saying, if my sister’s story is to be believed, they were enjoying perhaps thirty seconds of afterglow before the thing came crashing into Deklin’s hotel window. The sudden uncovering of his arsenal gave away that he was a seal fairly quickly, as well as his generally rational approach to fighting off a werewolf. And then, of course, the appearance of claws and fangs gave away my sister since she rushed in to assist him.”
