Once More With Feeling (Nate)

[Will Blacktide]

He didn’t think he would ever get that sight out of his mind. Squeezing his eyes shut tight didn’t do any good at all. Still he saw it, in perfect, crisp clean lines. No, not clean. Dirty. Filthy. The same way that it was – that they were – smeared with the excrement of their own insanity. How could this have happened? His eyes popped open and then shut tight again, but it was no use. The images were burned into his brain with acid, engraved forever on his cerebral cortex, never to be forgotten. And not just visual imagery either. The smell – of blood. The sounds of the girl, thrashing and gasping for air. The feel of Nate’s sweat soaked shirt under his frantic hand as he tried to pull his cousin off of her. Her face. His face. And the goddess – that above all else. That Will would never forget. Never. He had tried to pull Nate away, but he had seemed frozen to the spot. Until he literally leapt up and ran – fled – with no thought at all for trying to be quiet or unseen. Thanks the gods – and in that thought there might have been much more to it than even Will suspected, for at least one of the pantheon – there were no crew members about. When Will followed Nate more cautiously, it was as if the ship was deserted – a ghost ship – but he didn’t wonder at that. He merely leapt into the water and swam, much as Nate had done, frantic to get away. Frantic to wash away the stain and stench and fear. Frantic to find Nate and . . . and . . . What? What would they do next? What could they do next? How would Will fix this one? Should they flee? Lay low? Was there any way to tie this crime to them? Would the non-existent law of Sunberth even care? Private retribution was much more likely – if the merchant’s crew gave a damn – or the girl’s family. That was much more likely – Svefra didn’t kill Svefra. Their own lia would cast them out for something that heinous. By the time Will had reached the casinor, a minute or so behind Nate, his mind was turning furiously. They needed to think this through, carefully. They needed to plan, to assess. If they stayed low, hidden, for a while, sussed out the feel of things – if no-one could tie this to them, then it was best to stay. If they left, they’d have no way to know what was going on behind them, or who might be on their tails. If they left, they might never again be able to return, to the pod. They needed to be calm, cool, strong. He could do that. He could do that for both of them. Will pulled himself aboard and saw the hatch leading to the forward cabin just slightly ajar. He saw the trail of wet, and he followed. Nate had not had time to strike flint to steel and light a lamp, so Will extended his arm, feeling for his cousin in the murky dark with only the moonlight from without to relieve the rectangle that was the hatchway. He heard him before he felt him. The gasping pants. The muffled, inarticulate sounds. Then his hand was in wet hair, his fingers grasping and his other hand finding a shoulder, pulling Nate to him. “Hush. Hush, lover,” he whispered, opening his eyes as much as he could. But he could make out nothing more than a hunched form, as he felt the cold, wet clothes against his bare arms.

[Nathaniel Blacktide]

Nate didn't feel well. His head was pounding, and it was the strangest sensation because he was never unwell. It was distracting, too, because he was wallowing in his own misery. He didn't have time for a damned headache. But there it was, making it hard to think, so that he could only see her in his mind's eye. Beautiful and bewitching on a beach, sand beneath her feet and the wind in her hair. Pale and horrified in death as she stared into nothingness, beneath his hand. He was a murderer. And not just some unimportant fool, but he'd killed a Svefra. It was almost unthinkable. The fingers in his hair went unnoticed, but when he was tugged forward to press into a familiar chest he didn't struggle. He allowed Will to speak softly into his hair, to rub that hand down his back, to attempt to soothe him as he had for every other upset he'd ever experienced. "I... Will... I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to... I don't know... Oh, gods," he sputtered, suddenly lurching away from his cousin so that the vomit that spilled forth fell onto the floor. He heaved until there was nothing left, until it hurt, and when he was left trembling and empty, he rocked back to his heels. He couldn't speak the sin aloud, couldn't name what it was that he had done. It wasn't so important that Will had killed the merchant. Just a man. An unimportant one. What Nate had done had crossed a hundred lines, and one. It was deplorable, and he felt sick again just thinking about it. And why wouldn't his damned head stop pounding?

[Will Blacktide]

For one moment, Nate nestled against him, and despite his garbled words of anguish, Will felt that things would be alright. With Nate in his arms, pressing into him, he knew they could somehow figure out a way to get through this nightmare. But before he could get a word out himself, his cousin was pulling away, and even in the dark there was no question what was happening. Will didn’t back off, though. Gods – how many times had he held Nate’s hand through all types of hurling – whether from illness or too much wine or ale? Will crouched behind his beautiful, wretched cousin and rested his hand lightly on Nate’s back. There wasn’t anything he could do to stop the vomiting – hell, it was probably best to let him work it out of his system. Shock – horror – terror – they played havoc on a body – and they had certainly experienced those this night. Once again Will clamped his eyes shut, despite the almost pitch black of the cabin, but the imagery was just as sharp and vivid as it had been. Finally, it seemed Nate was empty. Will leaned forward as Nate leaned back, wrapping his arms very loosely about his cousin, murmuring in his ear once more. “It’s alright, Nate. It will be alright – I promise you. I’ll think of something – someway to make this all blow over. No-one saw us, I’m sure of it. Trust me – we’ll get through this, somehow.” He hardly knew what he was saying, only wanting to close the horrific silence with something – some noise – to give comfort and reassurance. Will hadn’t a clue how he was going to make things right, but he would – or die trying.

[Nathaniel Blacktide]

Those gentle words were meant to comfort, to console. Nate knew that Will loved him, and only ever intended good for him. But this time, instead of smoothing away the hurt and calming his tormented spirit, they were like tiny blades. The pain pierced through his aching head and aimed directly at his heart. It would never be okay. Nevermind if they escaped the trouble this murder could cause. They could never undo it. They could never give her life again. And he'd become something so filthy, so vile... it would never be alright again. "Stop!" Nate yelled when the voices bounced around inside his miserable head, and he swung his arm back to give Will a shove away. Haphazard as his attempt was, the back of his hand struck his cousin's lower lip too forcefully and split the tender flesh, causing it to bleed in the darkness. The sharp his cousin expelled somehow drained all of the painful cloudiness from Nate. His throbbing headache was instantly relieved, and it was almost pleasurable, the absence of it. Nate gave a shuddering sigh. Somehow, with that piece of his hurting relieved, things seemed a bit less dismal. If Will would only hold him again, and promise him such ridiculous things again... well, perhaps he could get through the night. "I'm sorry," he muttered quickly, urgently. "I didn't mean to hurt you," he croaked, emotion in his voice. He'd hurt enough for one night. Nate collapsed onto his knees and reached blindly for Will. "I'm so, so sorry..."

[Will Blacktide]

There were no protests, no recriminations, despite the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Will instantly pulled Nate into his arms and smothered his face with kisses, tasting the salt of ocean and tears as they mingled in a confusing mess. His hands went almost roughly to Nate’s soaking wet hair, pushing the tangled locks back and stroking it, over and over, ritualistically trying to wipe away the pain and the horror of this night. With no more thought than breathing, one hand slipped to caress Nate’s cheek and then to unbutton his shirt, as he began to once again hum a mantra of meaningless reassurances into his cousin’s ear. He thought he could quell Nate’s shivering, until he realized that it was his own body that shook in shocked reaction to what they had done. Somehow, mindlessly, he dragged Nate onto the bunk and with no words to truly dispel the evil of their actions, he made love to him, fiercely, passionately, protectively. Spent, exhausted by all that had transpired, unable to really fathom it had been no more than a few hours ago that they had last lain together like this – in a totally different world, it now seemed - he gathered Nate in his arms once more and held him close, praying for the release of sleep, as his fast open eyes stared unseeing at the underside of the deck above them. His mind refused to shut off. His eyes refused to stop seeing it play out, over and over. Will groaned and beside him, he knew that Nate was finding no more rest than he. Turning, his ran his fingers through Nate’s drying hair, kissing his jaw, his thumb tracing over that beautifully arched cheekbone. “Remember that storm, Nate?” Will whispered. “The one off of Riverfall, three years back? How bad it was?” He paused, hearing the wind howling through the rigging and the troughs thirty feet deep or more. “And when we finally found the pod again – what the lia said? Do you remember?” His hand moved down to rest lightly on his cousin’s chest. “She said we were lucky, Nate. That Laviku had his eye on us. That we were blessed.” Will rested his cheek on Nate’s still damp head, his arm encircling him again. “Don’t worry, little cousin. We just lay low for a bit. Keep to ourselves. It’ll come out right. I promise you. Long as we stick together, things’ll work out. I got us into this. I promise you, I’ll make it right. And somehow . . . if I can’t . . . “ He drew a deep breath. “If I can’t, then don’t you worry. No-one’ll ever know you had a hand in it, Nate. No-one saw us. No-one knows you were there. If things blow up, then I’ll take the fall. It was my idea to do this. I’m not going to let you suffer for this.” It was the best he could do. It was all he could do. The other image so sharply burned into his brain had materialized once again, at his mention of Laviku. The image of the third one present in the cabin earlier, the one witness, though by all accounts she seemed quite pleased at the way events had unfolded. Try as he might, Will could not make heads or tails out of that divine presence at that specific moment when all hell seemed to break loose. "Nate," he asked, his voice rising a wee bit in volume. "Who was that? Back . . . back there? That - woman. She - she must have been a goddess, yeh?" He was clearly baffled beyond any hope of figuring out what had prompted that divine appearance. "What - what . . . happened? She - was she watching you?" For indeed, what his alarmed vision had taken in, was the female divinity curled on the bed beside the dying girl - egging Nate on - or at the least, doing nothing to stop him. "What the fuck was that all about?"

[Nathaniel Blacktide]

It was enough, if only for a while, to give into Will. To allow him to take control, to manipulate their bodies in such a way so that he could not refuse the pleasure which made him feel guilty at once. The relative peace of his cousin's embrace was welcomed, and Nate had almost fallen asleep before Will began to speak again. Nate did not bother arguing the logistics of who would take the fall. He had no doubt in his mind that Will would argue it to his last breath, but he also knew that there was no way in the world he would let his cousin take the fall for what had occurred. It had been his irrational desires, his own fall from grace that left one of their own dead in a pool of his seed. It was his fault. The mere mention of that divinely wicked figure that had hovered so close in his darkest moment caused Nate to shudder uncontrollably. He clenched his fingers into his palm. Even though it was dark, and he couldn't see any difference, he could feel her there, in his hand. In his very veins. Focused on her as he was, he could almost feel the pleasure she'd taken in the Svefra's death. The terrible part was that he felt it as his own. "I don't know," Nate spoke abruptly, if only to shake that revelation. He hadn't meant to kill her, but a small voice in his head asserted that he'd certainly enjoyed it. "I don't know, but... I think it's important." It was a paltry contribution, to be sure. Of course it was important. Nate was simply having a difficult time finding words to express how he felt like that beautiful, laughing face had somehow become inextricably connected with the path his life would take now. He hated her at once, for watching him in his darkest moment, for enjoying it. And yet somehow he felt a kinship there, too, because their pleasure had been simultaneous. She'd understood as no one else alive ever would.

[Will Blacktide]

He felt that shudder, passing through Nate like a cold wind had struck him. He heard the vague words, the doubt. But the thoughts passing through his cousin’s mind – the feelings, in his hand, his head, his heart – no, for once in their lives, Will had no part in that – no inkling of what was going on inside Nate. And Nate was right – if he had tried to explain it, Will would never have understood. With no better explanation to offer, Will hugged Nate a bit tighter. “We’ll get through this, my lover. It’s – it’s over, all over. Don’t think about it, and you’ll see. In a few days time, the worst will be past, and . . . things will go back to how they were – before.”