Post by Logan on Jun 10, 2012 3:06:17 GMT -5
It is a long ride home, but one the werewolf is blissfully ignorant of. Even the violent turbulence of the truck’s bed cannot break him from his own twisted torment; a pain that supersedes even his usual unconscious reverie that accompanies his change to human form. There is no blissful sleep, no easy slide into a deep, ignorant blackness and then back out again. There is only the fire in his skull and the twisting of his bones, and no outside force finds its way in; reality is a thing separate from the werewolf’s mind, a steady center he must first crawl towards before even attempting to ground himself.
Until then, there is only the wolf and the darkness.
When the man ascends, rises into a hazy approximation of consciousness, there are expanded moments of nothingness before memories take hold; a vast track of time unaccounted for, lost in the transition. While Nathan has a better memory of his wolf than many others – a skill gained over countless ears, untold shifts – the raw emotion and ache filtering through his animal’s limited avenues of perception is strange, too foreign to digest. The pieces of the puzzle slowly slide into place, filled in with assumption and inference; confirmed by the lump on the side of his head, the blood crusted into his hair, across his face. The metallic taste in his mouth is suddenly overwhelming, a disgusting residue he cannot stomach, and the man leans over the side of the pickup with a wracking dry heave he cannot stave off.
He vomits; feels some vague, detached sense of guilt at that fact, an irrational response. The simple act of moving leaves him nauseous – a sure sign as any that the pounding in his temple is a warning claxon of an impending concussion – and he slumps back into the truck with a defeated air, naked and shivering on the pockmarked metal. Fumbling fingers find his clothes where he had discarded them, only hours previous; it feels like days ago, now, but the true timing makes little difference. The werewolf begins the tedious, aching process of shimmying back into his jeans, and simply concentrating on keeping the remainders of his stomach contents down is enough to consume his thoughts.
Nathan doesn’t bother with his shirt; just presses the thing as a wadded bundle to his face, to the crook of his neck and his horrible red hands – he wipes the blood off of his skin with slow, methodical motions. It’s an almost compulsive desire to get himself clean – to remove the stains from his flesh and so cleanse the memories from his mind – and so spare Logan from ever witnessing him in such a state.
His nausea may not simply be from the blow to his skull; there is also a lurking revulsion, a doubt and a nagging horror.
With the onset of a growing clarity, every bump in the road becomes a hammer aimed precisely for the side of his head, for the burning line traced along the top of his shoulder, and it is all Nathan can do to keep himself steady as they round the final turn to home. Half of the light of the world is gone, lost beneath a layer of inflammation and blood crusted too tender to simply dab away dry, and the man pointedly avoids thinking about any lasting, long-term damage. What attempts at sight he allows himself seem smoother than the distorted images transmitted from his wolf’s memory, captured in snippets of fear and half panic, but there is little to truly see when he attempts to open that eye. A painfully bright world of flashing lights motion; a confusing onslaught of white noise. What diagnosis can come from that?
Nathan simply leans back, thoroughly exhausted, and waits – hopes – for Logan to rescue him from his own bleak stupor.
The drive home is a precarious balance between the demand for sanctuary and the responsibility of doing no more harm. Back country roads are all dips and uneven ground, which makes it impossible to keep the ride smooth – but Logan tries. The black wolf is laying prone within the truck bed at the mercy of each jostle and hiccup. Gray eyes are more on the rearview mirror than the path ahead, faithfully searching for that black mass of fur silhouetted against the dark of Blackwater. It is an emphatic, desperate need to remind himself that Nathan is there.
As the hunter’s old Ford diligently eats up mile after mile, Logan’s steely resolve starts to crack. The man is no Goliath of emotional distance, despite his methods. He has done his part, fulfilled his role, and under the distressing knowledge that the reason Logan is even in Blackwater is injured and hurting, he can no longer maintain the wall. It continues to crack, it starts to crumble. Something heated and rebellious and murmuring of fear seeps through. The man’s jaw clenches and his grip on the steering wheel turns vice-tight. Knuckles flash white and Logan has to concentrate because they need to get home.
They pass through Blackwater proper and Logan mindfully avoids the more popular roads. When the neighborhood changes and indicates the last stretch to Nathan’s little yellow house, Logan feels the smallest measure of relief. That feeling, though miniscule, is a godsend because the monster of worry is gnawing relentlessly into his gut. He is sick with it.
The car pulls up the driveway, smooth and steady. The moment the engine cuts out, the hunter is a flurry of motion. He is immediately out and rounding around the truck, and searching for Nathan. Surprise hits dully when he finds the wolf is gone and, in its place, a blood-covered, haphazardly dressed man. ”Just sit tight,” he says, tries to keep his voice even and succeeds, mostly. The truck bed door falls open and Logan maneuvers onto it, makes his way towards the werewolf.
He kneels in front of Nathan, hooks an arm under the man’s knees, braces the other against his back. Nathan’s pride be damned because Logan is not going to let him so much as move on his own. ”Brace yourself,” he warns gently and, with adrenaline and an influx of testosterone fueling his muscles, picks Nathan up. The descent out of the truck bed has both Logan’s back and knee screaming complaint, but they go ignored, practically unnoticed.
On the way inside, he tries not to look at the hideous mess of blood and damage around Nathan’s eye. The injury, just glancing at it, shakes Logan in ways he’s never suffered before. He has seen worse, inflicted worse, and yet it is different now because Nathan is the one that is hurt. There is a weak, mute part of him that wonders if he can handle this.
Lark greets them and Logan shoos her away. The dog obeys but hovers and whines like she knows.
Nathan is sat gently at one of the chairs within the kitchen. Logan’s hand is a steady weight on the man’s shoulder, and it keeps him leaning against the backrest. The hunter looms, commits himself to assessing the damage. There is not much he can do until the area around the wound is cleaned and so Logan works quickly to gather supplies; the first aid kit, a basin of water, a number of rags. He sets them onto the kitchen table, rolls his sleeves up, and soaks one of the cloths in the lukewarm water.
”Talk to me, Nathan.” He needs to keep him awake, needs to listen for slurred words, to check the man’s recollection. Mostly Logan just needs to hear Nathan’s voice because little else can gentle the beast of disturbance running his pulse ragged.
Logan methodically dabs the blood away, mindful of the man’s impaired eye. It is difficult to proceed like he needs to when his insides twist and turn, and burn. He thinks maybe he’ll have to call a doctor, maybe Lynn. He knows he won’t because a ridiculous part of him refuses to trust anyone when it comes to this house, to the man that owns it. Logan grits his teeth, tries in vain to ignore the way his hands shake, twists his fingers tight into the rag and it helps – a little.
Around Nathan, stuck in the aftermath of Billy’s rescue, Logan is no longer the stoic, pragmatic veteran. He is a man, worried, quietly terrified, and in severe want for everything to be fine.
The truck stops; the engine idles, dies. The trees above him and the eaves of the houses looming overhead are a comforting facsimile of home, something Nathan clings to as Logan comes for him. He sits tight – as though he’s about to go anywhere else – but the man’s words are reassuring nonetheless. The hunter is there, and with him, absolution.
Nathan raises a hand to brush off Logan’s advances but it is nothing, little more than a paper tiger in the older man’s way, and his brain is too slow in putting his thoughts to vocalized complaints; ones which would, in any case, be ignored. Any further protests are stifled as he’s lifted – feeling like there have been far too many points in this relationship where he’s been carried like a child – but he murmurs a weak ”’m fine” into the hunter’s chest anyway. The world spins violently and he shuts his good eye to block it out, and he is suddenly doubtful that he could have hobbled his way inside, even with assistance, without spilling the rest of his lunch into the street. ”Fine” might have been an overstatement.
It is all he can do to simply hold on.
The floor stills beneath him, coming to rest under the feet of the chair he suddenly finds himself in, the minutes between car and kitchen a void of semiconscious oblivion. Logan wavers before him, teeters in and out of Nathan’s spotty vision, and the werewolf makes no attempt to rise. He simply rests, lifts a hand to prod delicately at the clotted mass of blood and hair behind his temple, to assess the extent of the damage with cautious fingers. He wonders if he’d know if anything were broken; if the pain alone would be enough to tell. A tongue quests about each tooth within his own mouth and the man is relieved to find no gaps; a loose molar, a jagged chip here or there, but nothing lasting.
Logan returns, supplies in hand, and Nate settles in for the long haul, all stubborn winces and stoic displays of discomfort. The wet rag knocks something loose, and as it moistens the dried, rust-colored collection of scabbed dirt and blood about his face, Nathan’s eye flutters open with a twitching, reactionary spasm. Light floods in, burning, cleansing, and the man tilts his head away in and unconscious response, avoiding further pain brought on by Logan’s careful, gentle actions. He stills himself again with a grunt, chin lifted high.
”Uh,” Nate begins dully, out of sorts and without focus, but trying because some piece of him knows this matters, knows this is important. It is difficult; concentration is only fleeting, and his head burns with the effort. ”It hurts.” There’s the obvious one; Nate struggles for relevance, to put thoughts to words. His voice is unsteady but there is little slurring, narrowly avoiding at least that one sign of further damage. ”I feel nauseous. Dizzy. Everything’s a little… woobly? But I can see,” and there is a hint of narrowly avoided panic in that last statement, a barely contained rise to the timbre of his voice. It may not be the clearest picture – one he is even desperate to avoid for how the world gyrates and shifts beneath him – but it is beautiful, a blurred and angelic vision of Logan and the man’s heartbreaking concern.
But the lights of the kitchen are each individual suns, burning only inches from his face, and the werewolf leans back and lets his damaged eye return closed to avoid the searing agony. ”I’m tired. I don’t think I’m supposed to sleep.” There’s more – a shadow of fear, of disappointment in his own self, a terrible guilt at putting Logan in his position. Again. ”Logan,” Nate whispers, only half a question, and he reaches out with a shaky hand to still the man’s wrist. ”Logan. It’ll be fine. I’m sorry,” because he is never good enough to take care of himself – because he can never stay out of trouble. He wonders, briefly, if his scattered though process is even making any sense, is coming through in translation.
”How bad’s it look?” He asks with a smile because it’s all he can manage to raise both their spirits – he knows he must look like death warmed over – even as the tightening of muscles twinges painfully along the side of his face. He is sick and he is hurting and he has no barometer by which to compare the damage to his face to anything else, but Nathan is alive, he is talking. It has to be enough.
But memories shift within the shadows of his mind, and Nathan is left with the same unsettled anxiety, an uncertainty he can’t –
”–Billy,” he remembers with sudden and awful acuity, and his sudden shifting sends a new wave of sickening nausea roiling through his gut. He chokes over the words. ”Is Billy – okay?”
Because physical pain is temporary.
”I know,” he acknowledges softly by way of apology. It hurts and Logan is compounding that hurt – a necessary evil as he diligently cleans around the wound. Coagulated blood breaks loose, slips and falls to the tile floor with a gross, visceral smack. Gore is not a foreign, bewildering idea. Logan has been subjected to every violent, bloody level imaginable but this is different, near insurmountable because Nathan is the one who bleeds, who exists within a state of dangerous disarray. Logan is not a devout person, but no one can fault him for sending up silent, begging prayers as he is now, sidled in close and doing his best to attend to the man he calls home.
A bright, unblinking gaze slides to try and catch the werewolf’s good eye. Further words of analysis do little to assuage the worry bearing heavy on his back, but there is solace to be taken because Nathan can see. An anxious battle of cautious optimism and bitter pessimism wages square inside of the hunter’s chest and it is enough to run his breathing stilted, strange. ”It’ll get better, you just got to ride it out.” He vehemently wishes he could magic the werewolf’s pain away, erase the damage, erase the entire goddamned event.
But he can’t and so Logan defers to the wash rags, the first aid kit, and years of expertise that must outweigh the nervousness running pinpricks just beneath his skin.
”No baby, you can’t.” Logan hates to deny Nathan anything but sleep will have to wait – for the both of them. Assessing fingers gingerly touch here and there around the gash and Logan knows with certainty that they are dealing with a skull fracture. ”You’re going to have to stay up and keep me company.” Nathan’s speaking clearly and he demonstrates healthy cognitive function, but there are seizures and concussions to remain vigilant for.
His name comes as a quiet question and Logan looks up, concern written into the lines of his tired features. The apology twists at his heart and he is immediately shaking his head – maybe in disbelief, maybe in denial, likely both. A hand drops to cover the one gripping at his wrist and the muscles in Logan’s jaw skip, twitch, because he’s clenching his teeth, trying to wall off the storm of emotion that has been beating against the door of his mind the entire night. The first break comes in the form of a hitched exhale. The second in a gesture; he leans forward, presses his cheek against Nathan’s inner knee and rests there.
While the wolves wreaked havoc, and while Logan played the diligent soldier, he was staving off the frantic need to return, to watch over Nathan. Distracting, debilitating thoughts that were near impossible to control. Nathan has, and always will be, Logan’s greatest weakness.
And he will never blame Nathan for that or for anything.
”Don’t,” he breathes out after regaining a thread of resolve. ”There’s nothing to be sorry for. Goddamn it, Nathan.” There is nothing remotely close to anger in Logan’s gravel-rough voice. It sounds closer to grief, and not one born of sorrow, but burgeoning relief. He continues to administer care, to disinfect the gash on Nathan’s head. Gentle fingers, butterfly stitches; there is little more he can offer. This will be a waiting game and if the werewolf proves to suffer from seizures or other symptoms, they will be forced to make a trip to the hospital.
For now, they will proceed one step at a time. ”You won’t be winning beauty contests anytime soon,” Logan replies quietly, latches onto that weak attempt at humor because it is familiar and so innately Nathan. ”Unless m’one of the judges, of course.” He gives the man’s thigh an encouraging squeeze.
Nathan’s face is clear of blood and bile, but the rest of him is painted in streaks of rust. Logan has to get rid of it, can’t stand to see Nathan like this, and a shower is not an option right now. He retrieves a fresh basin of water and soaks a new rag, wrings it out. ”She’s alive,” he says firmly in an effort to chase away any persisting doubt. ”Sabra’s taking care of her.” Logan begins with Nathan’s hands, the blood-caked finger nails. ”We’ll call in the morning.” When everyone is in a better state of mind.
Under the florescent kitchen light, Logan works in relative quiet, taut with concentration as he washes away the violence of the night. It is a methodical, obsessive process, like uncovering a defiled masterpiece.
He thinks about earlier in the week when they were all smiles and comfortable ease. When Blackwater was still Blackwater. He wonders if it’ll ever be like that again. He remembers Nathan’s anxiety issues, looks up with a deliberate gaze.
”Everything is going to be okay.” It won’t be an empty promise if Logan does everything within his power to usher the statement into reality. And he will. If not for Billy, if not for Blackwater, then for Nathan.
Nathan wants nothing more than to be a source of comfort in exchange – to lean forward, to wrap the other man up in his arms and draw strength from his very warmth; to give it back in return. But there are rules, cruel laws dictated by the crack in his skull and the gash in his flesh, ones that warn him against leaning his forehead into Logan’s for fear of the pain, the renewal of his endless headache. Nathan makes do with a pathetic clutching, fingers wrapped tight about the hunter’s hand, his shirt, and he hushes his gentle reassurances.
It is the weakest he has ever seen the man, and the thought nearly breaks him, wraps tendrils tight around his heart and tugs. This is his burden to bear; Nathan is the only one who will ever know this vulnerable side of Logan, and he will keep that secret safe and clasped close to his chest. A hand brushes lightly over the hunter’s head, his hair, and his touch draws him back to life. Their eyes catch – two grey focused on one point of blue – and Nate shrugs, fingers ghosting along Logan’s cheek affectionately before dropping back to his lap.
”Yeah, well,” the werewolf mumbles, watching Logan with a sad, tired smile, ”I’ll still try not to get pistol whipped in the future.” Humor is the only thing he has, the worn shield he’s used since long before the hunter stepped into the picture – a pathetic attempt to stave off darker thoughts that harkens to his evasive nature. Logan moves to continue his assistance, and Nathan turns his head away, leaning forward to let himself fall back into the hunter’s tender care; back to the hissed exhalations of quiet displeasure and the tense efforts to keep himself steady, still, upright. His only consolation is that a hospital may have very well shaved his head – and the safety of his own kitchen, of Logan’s trusted and known skill, seems far preferable.
He grunts out something that might be a laugh, extending an arm for Logan to scrub at almost neurotically; Nathan is just as glad to see the stains and scratches, the blood beneath his nails, wash away in wave after wave that leave the water basin foggy and crimson. ”Guess you’re the only judge I care about anyway.” There is no room left in his crowded, flooded brain for the thought processes of pride, of masculinity, and Nathan simply eases back into his chair with a sigh, letting Logan do his work. The idea that Billy is alive, with Sabra and safe, though he has no idea of the extent of the damage, is enough of a relief to set him somewhat at peace. There will be time enough for worrying; there will be time enough to learn the truth.
In the morning.
For now, there is only an aching tiredness, an exhaustion so complete it threatens to drown him, and that is adequate for his conscience to allow him this one night; to stave off concern until his own, immediate problems are dealt with. Nathan cracks his good eye open to stare up at the ceiling, the light sensitivity driving a new, sharp knife into his pinpricked pupil, but the feeling is enough to keep him awake.
Logan’s words of encouragement, of support, are almost sufficient to make him believe; the werewolf has faith in few things on this earth, but the hunter is one such item, and Logan does not lie.
”I know,” the man whispers, though he does not move. ”I know.” When it comes down to it, his pressing instincts are for the safety of himself, of Logan, and of their relationship. If that is all right – if they are all right – everything else will fall into place. No matter how long it takes; and Nathan hasn’t had the time for more long-term fears to take root, to fill him with doubt. His anxiety is nothing if not selfish, and Lucas is dead. Lucas is dead, Billy is alive, and Logan is here – three simple facts which enable him to simply let go.
For this one evening, he allows himself not to care.
Nate reaches a hand out, rests it on Logan’s shoulder for support. ”C’mon. Help me to the couch.” Things like walking – like getting his feet and knees under him and all lined up without falling over – seem a little too complicated for the pounding in his skull. There’s a dull ringing in his right ear that’s becoming more apparent the longer he sits, an incessant tinnitus he hopes will not become more permanent; but the distraction of the television might help. The presence of Logan at his side might ease it all away – or it might not, but the option seems preferable to being alone, or to spending another instant on this uncomfortable wooden chair.
He sags into and against the other man after rising, his weight nearly entirely supported by Logan’s efforts. The process slows his thoughts and muddles his mind, settles a fog down over the lucidity he’d managed to scrape together; a wave of vertigo leaves him reeling, confused.
”I just wanna sleep,” he groans, a complaint born of frustration, as if unconsciousness the one thing in the world that will make this go away, simply by virtue of it being denied to him.
