"Gray. Safelike." II (Other)
Dec. 29th, 2008 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
riptide_asylumTitle: Gray. Safelike.
Rating/Category: R /Pre-Slash
Summary: The angst continues, back on-board the Riptide.
Part One
Back at the pier, Nick barely made it through dinner. He dimly registered Murray and Cody sharing a look before he felt Cody's hands on his shoulders, damn near carrying him out of the salon and downstairs. If he'd been less tired he could have told Cody how much it wasn't helping to feel his hand, gentle and warm in the small of Nick's back, guiding him to bed. He vaguely remembered growling when Cody tried to get him to change out of his clothes, then tugging the sheets tight around him, burrowing his head under the pillow. Then...nothing.
The problem with going to bed that early of course, was that you woke up in the middle of the night and got to lie there staring at the ceiling for a couple of hours.
Or if you were Nick, you lay there staring at Cody.
Nick's eyes adjusted to the darkness of the stateroom and he could just make out the contours of Cody's naked torso half-covered by the thin sheet. He was sleeping on his stomach, arms stuffed under the pillow, head turned toward the wall. As Nick watched, Cody shifted, lifting his ass and lowering it to accommodate a raised leg, hips rolling slightly. Nick took a deep breath and allowed himself a moment to imagine what it would be like to be under Cody as he moved. To feel his partner's weight on top of him, pinning him to the bunk, sliding a muscular thigh between his legs; Cody's warm arms holding him in place as he ground his hips into Nick's. As he continued to stare, Nick's body began to respond to thoughts of what it would be like for them to be together.
Nick sighed and shoved his head into his pillow, eyes screwed shut. If this is love, he thought bitterly, I'll take a bimbo in a bikini anyday.
He listened to Cody's soft, even breathing in the other bunk. After this afternoon, he couldn't think of a sound he'd rather hear more, or one that made him more miserable.
Nick softly thumped his head against the mattress in frustration. He sighed and took one last look at Cody resting peacefully, turned away from him. Figuring sleep was no longer in the cards for tonight, Nick quietly slid out of bed and changed out of his clothes from the afternoon, pulling on sweats and a t-shirt, staunchly refusing to look at his partner again at before he left the room.
Out on deck, the harbor was quiet with night sounds, waves gently lapping against hulls, the soft clink of an untethered line against a mast, the traffic noise ebbed down to a background hum, dwarfed by the silence of the water. Nick settled into a deck chair and looked up. The night sky called to him as it always had, even though this close to civilization the city lights burned it orange. Close enough, Nick thought, opening the beer he'd grabbed on his way through the kitchen. Close enough for government work.
Across the way, Nick could barely make out the forms of a couple of girls on the Contessa, sitting in the bow, staring up at the same night sky. He took a long pull off the beer. It was alright for them, he thought. A new guy every week, paying clients as far as the eye could see, Mama Jo to protect them. Nothing in the world to worry about.
Nick took another swallow and rested the cold wet bottle against his forehead. Maybe this was a bad idea, him and Cody working together again. Maybe it had been from the start.
He could find something to tell Cody----no, scratch that, he'd have to make something up for Cody, some reason he and the Mimi would need to leave King Harbor, leave Cody and Boz and the Riptide, go back to cargo work. Whatever else went wrong, he could still fly, wherever and whatever anyone told him to. If it came down to it, he'd rather get out of Cody's face than keep wondering if he was about to do something that would wreck their relationship. Plenty of places he could go, right? Plenty of ways to keep himself occupied.
Besides, he thought, without me mooning around the place, maybe Cody could--
Could what? Nick thought. Could find a girl and settle down? Find some nice girl to break his heart again? Find some nice girl who'd want Cody to live in a real house that didn't float and creak with the tide?
Besides, if he was honest with himself, there was no way he could ever leave Cody. Not again.
"What a goddamn mess," Nick whispered to the sky.
IT'S NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK.
The Roboz sat nearby, abandoned from earlier when they'd gotten the safe on-board. The red letters cast a glow on the white deck. Nick looked around uneasily. He took another sip of beer, then placed the bottle at his feet, reaching for the keyboard nearby. He typed slowly, frowning, then waited.
SKY'S ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE DAWN.
Nick smirked. That he already knew. He typed a few more words in, and the Roboz's display obligingly cleared, then refilled with six dashes, evenly spaced. He'd discovered Roboz's secret talent a couple of weeks ago, and the novelty hadn't remotely worn off.
Nick punched a key.
Two E's appeared atop two of the spaces.
Nick grinned and poked at another key.
This time a straight vertical line appeared above the array of dashes. He pulled a face.
Another key.
The letter D appeared over the first dash. Another key and an S appeared over the third dash.
Nick sighed and filled in the remaining spaces.
D E S I R E
There were definitely times Nick wished the Roboz could be a little less helpful. He scrubbed his hands over his face, feeling the fatigue of the long day crash over him anew. He hit another key.
The screen cleared, then eleven spaces appeared. Nick threw his hands in the air in mock exasperation.
A few minutes later he stared morosely at the Roboz. Below the drawing of a small stick figure was the word
R E C I P R O C A T E
Nick gave the Roboz a skeptical look, even though he knew the machine couldn't appreciate it. Then again, you never knew what improvements Murray had made from day to day. He wouldn't be surprised to find Roboz flying the Mimi one day. That is, he wouldn't be pleased, in fact pissed as hell would be closer to the truth, but--
"You're playing hangman?!? With the Roboz?"
Nick looked up suddenly. He hadn't heard Murray come up the steps behind him. "What?" Nick said. "All I did was push some buttons. I thought it was something you'd programmed there." He tapped a few more keys and the screen cleared, then filled with more additional dashes.
Murray rushed over and pulled open a flap in the front of the robot and looked inside. "Ha! That's great! I didn't think that module could really be activated?" Murray giggled excitedly and sat down on the storage bench next to Nick's chair. "Ooh! Try 'r'! Try 'r'! That's gotta be an 'r'!" He pointed.
Nick dutifully pushed 'r' on the keyboard and was rewarded with Roboz drawing a scaffold. He sighed and looked sideways at Murray.
"Oh, I could have sworn that was an 'r'. Oh! 'T'! Try 't'!"
Nick gingerly put the keyboard down next to Murray and sat back in his chair, hands on his knees. He looked at his friend.
"Oh. Sorry." Murray leaned back, folding his arms tight across his chest. He looked over at Nick. After a couple seconds, he said, "You know Nick, what you did out there today was really brave."
Nick took his time answering. "You know what it's like, Boz. You get in those situations and you don't have time to do anything but act."
"If you hadn't figured out what to do down there..." Murray paused and shrugged. "I don't know what would have happened."
Nick stared out at the waves, silent. Finally, he said, "I didn't do anything special. Cody would've done the same for me."
"Yeah, Nick, I know you'd do anything for Cody. And he'd do anything for you," Murray replied. "That's part of what makes you such a great team."
Nick looked up.
Murray pushed his glasses further back on his nose. "It's one of the reasons I'm so glad I'm your friend, Nick. Yours and Cody's."
Nick avoided Murray's eyes, grabbing the beer bottle, empty now, from the deck, playing with the label. "You guys are great," he said finally, his voice barely audible.
Murray looked over at him. "Nick, what's wrong?"
The only answer came from the waves and the wind, that same loose line clinking softly against its mast. Nick avoided Murray's eyes, looking out at the ocean with a scowl. Finally he sighed and looked back up at the wide, empty sky.
Murray picked up on Nick's unvoiced thoughts. "Nick! You're not thinking of leaving? You can't be serious?"
"Ssh! Murray!" Nick gestured for him to lower his voice.
"But Nick," Murray asked softly, "where would you go?"
Nick laughed mirthlessly and started peeling the label off the bottle in earnest. "Nowhere. Anywhere."
"I thought..." Murray stopped. He gulped and pushed his glasses back up his face with one finger. "Nick, I thought you liked being here, with Cody. With me."
Looking at Murray's face, Nick felt like a schmuck. Trust him to come up with a plan to make things worse. "I do Murray, I do like being here with you guys. You know that. I could never really leave. You guys are like--hell, you guys are my family, and maybe that's the problem." Nick sighed. "I think I like it....too much here." Nick looked up at Murray from under lowered brows, desperate that his message be received, and scared as hell it would be.
"Oh," Murray said after a second, then: Oh. So why not just tell him?"
"It's not that easy, Murray," Nick replied. "You can't just know a guy, know him better than you know yourself sometimes, go through hell on earth and walk out the other side with this guy, have the best damn time of your life with the guy, have him come rescue you from your old life of...." he waved a hand vaguely "...meaningless nights, the loneliest damn--the point is, Murray, you can't just turn to the most important person in your life one day and say, 'Oh hey, by the way, just wanted to let you know, something I've been kicking around for the past ten years, I think I'm in love with you.'"
After he realized he did in fact finish that sentence out loud he closed his eyes and sunk further into the deck chair, bottle dangling loosely from one hand. Great. Way to go, Ryder.
"Oh," Murray said again. He sat quietly and took his glasses off, polishing them with the tail of his shirt. "Why not?"
Neither of them said anything for awhile.
The night continued to support their silence with its own soft chorus: waves, birds, wind. A car drove slowly along the pier, windows down and radio up and the two of them automatically turned towards the noise.
Murray frowned and put his glasses back on. "You know, Nick, I had this friend in grad school--well, more like an acquaintance, really, just someone in my Statistical Learning Theory study group, and well, he really liked this other friend he had, a whole bunch. You know, they'd gone to Caltech together, written this killer AI app for DARPA that could pinpoint exactly--" Murray glanced over at Nick. "--Oh. But anyway, after awhile, my friend decided well, we were all finishing up, getting ready to graduate, so the last study group session we had, we, well we'd had a few beers, but we told him to just, just go for it!"
Murray illustrated with a wave of his fist. "And he did! And you know what? It turned out that she'd had the exact same feelings for him, all throughout undergrad. She even wrote a little text-editor and named it after him, and he never even noticed." Murray grinned and nodded.
Nick stared. "So what happened?"
Murray's face fell. "Well unfortunately she'd already accepted a position with the NSA, and her contract stipulated that she'd have to cut ties with everyone from her academic times, but--"
Nick rolled his eyes.
"--but that's not the point, Nick. The point is that if he'd have told her sooner, he'd have found out that while each of them thought the other...you know," Murray illustrated vaguely, "they would have been much happier. They could have been together the whole time, is what I'm trying to say." Murray's hands dropped to his sides. "Besides, aren't you making yourself more miserable not telling him?"
Nick didn't answer.
Murray tried again. "What are you afraid might happen if you said something?"
Nick and Murray look at each other for a second. "Right," Murray finally answered. "But what I meant to say is: what if he's wrestling with the same prob-"
"Sssh!" Nick held up a warning hand. "Boz, you hear that?"
Murray tilted his head to one side for a second. "Like whimpering and...thumping?"
Nick pushed himself out of the deck chair and stretched. He put a hand on Murray's shoulder and squeezed, then turned away and jogged down the stairs. He hated that sound, the one his brain picked up on while he slept, the one he'd give anything to never hear again, to just wipe off the face of the earth. Nick ran to the stateroom.
From the doorway, he could see Cody fast asleep, fighting his demons. Losing. Always, losing.
As Cody wrestled the blanket or whatever it had come to represent, his foot slammed into the wall with a solid thunk and he whimpered anew. Nick crossed to the bunk in two steps. "Cody!" He perched on the edge of the bunk, shaking his partner with as much force as he dared. "Come back, buddy. Come back," Nick pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper. "Come on, babe. Come back to me."
Nick grabbed Cody's arms, fingers wrapping around the biceps, shaking more than holding down. He'd learned that lesson right after they'd first gotten back. "Come on, Cody. Wake up, buddy."
After an agonizing couple of seconds Cody's eyes fluttered blearily open. "Nick?" he asked muzzily, then cried out, still half-asleep and fighting. "Nick, it's bad!"
Nick pulled Cody to his chest "I know babe, I know. But it's not real, okay? It's not real. You're safe, Cody. You're safe."
Cody reached for Nick in the autopilot world of nightmares. "I can't breathe! Nick!" His voice trailed off, near tears.
Nick tightened his hold. "It's okay, Cody. You're safe here. You're safe." He slid a hand through Cody's hair. "Buddy, you're safe." Nick drowned in the familiar feelings of helplessness: he feared he'd never be able to hold Cody tight enough to save him from the things that chased them through their dreams. Nick rested his chin on Cody's head.
"You're safe. Cody, it's okay, you're safe." Nick felt vaguely guilty for his earlier more carnal thoughts. As if to banish them, he loosened his grip, watching anxiously as his friend struggled to gain a foothold in the waking world.
Eventually, Cody's breathing became slow and even. Nick stared at the wood-paneled walls, this cocoon Cody'd tried to hide away in. The clock on the nightstand read 3:13 in sickly green letters. Between it and the light from the open doorway, he could barely make out the expression on his partner's face. A fact for which he was thankful.
Finally Cody pulled away. He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and rested his head in his hands. Nick dimly recognized he'd left his hand on Cody's back and wondered if he should still feel guilty.
Cody mumbled something, and though he leaned in close, Nick couldn't hear. "Cody?"
"It's never gonna end, Nick. Not now, not ever." Cody's elbows were on his knees, fingers laced behind his head, and Nick could see all the muscles in his shoulders tensed and drenched in sweat, his chest heaving with the effort of banishing his demons.
For once, Nick Ryder was at a loss as to what to do next. Come on, he told himself, you've run this drill a hundred times.
Nick moved his arm up to Cody's shoulders. "You okay, man? Come on back. You're safe here." Cody didn't answer, didn't move from his perch on the edge of his bunk, hands still clasped around the back of his head as if it would explode. Nick held on.
"You want some water? " he finally asked.
"Yeah," Cody said eventually. "That would be great."
Nick was already halfway to the bathroom. The answer never varied.
He returned with the water and shut the door behind him. Cody was still sitting up, but leaning back against the side wall, long legs stuck straight out over the edge of his bunk. Nick handed him the glass and watched as he took a few obligatory sips.
Nick took a seat on the bunk opposite, his knees only a few inches from the soles of Cody's feet. "Cody?" he whispered. "You okay, man?" Cody didn't answer, but Nick could make out the action of his long fingers, toying with the glass. "Cody?"
"When's it gonna stop, Nick?" Cody's voice was barely a whisper, so soft that Nick thought for a minute he'd imagined the noise, and then when the words made sense, he wished he had.
"I dunno, man" he whispered back. "We just gotta hang on."
The two of them sat there in the cramped closeness of the stateroom.
The night outside, so open and welcoming only a few minutes ago with Murray and the Roboz, seemed to creep in around them, filling all the available space in the tiny cabin, swirling through like ink in water, defiling and impenetrable. Nick felt utterly helpless. Only a few minutes ago, he'd been the one able to save Cody, to swoop in when no one else could find him, pull him out of the hellhole his memories coughed up at regular intervals. A few minutes ago, he'd been his best friend's lifeline; now he felt vaguely uncomfortable, seeing Cody so undone, at the mercy of a war they could never stop fighting.
"Just once," Cody said softly. "Just once I want to wake up and find that it's all a lie, you know?" He sighed. "Is it so wrong to want to wake up and find you're perfectly safe? Like that feeling you get when you're with someone you love?"
Nick sucked his breath in sharply. There's nothing wrong with that at all, Cody. I dream about it all the time. All the damn time.
"I mean, geez Nick," Cody continued whispering, "is it so wrong..." He leaned forward and set the glass of water, half-full, on the nightstand between their bunks. "Nick...this afternoon, when we were diving? I thought maybe that--"
"--Cody..."
"No, let me finish." Cody's voice was stronger now. "I thought maybe that was it for us, you know, that it was all just going to end down there. And I kept thinking, I just wanted one more day, you know? I just wanted one more day, here, on the Riptide, with you and Boz, just one more day...." Cody sighed and closed his eyes. "Just one more day so I could tell you: you're the best friend a guy ever had."
Relief and confusion washed over Nick in equal measures. Relief that on some level, Cody needed him as badly as he needed Cody, and that Murray was right (of course) and that they were in fact possibly the best team ever, the two of them.
And confusion as he realized he couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Cody was half-naked.
"What, Nick?" Cody asked softly. Nick could hear panic creeping around the edges of his voice. "Say something. Anything, man."
Nick stared, torn between wanting Cody, wanting to reassure him that he was loved and had been for years, more than anything or anyone, and yet being so desperately afraid to lose him. Nick moved his lips soundlessly, trying to find words to express what Cody meant to him without screwing everything up.
Cody leaned forward slowly and Nick reciprocated, until their foreheads nearly met. Nick closed his eyes as he felt Cody slip a hand round the back of his neck, holding them together. "Hey buddy?" Cody whispered. "You're scaring me. Just spit it out."
Nick couldn't move. He gripped the edge of the bunk with white knuckles. He tried desperately to make the words come. Any words.
I should just kiss him, Nick thought. I should just kiss him and get it over with and then finally we'd know, one way or the other.
There was a knock at the door and the two of them sprang apart. Nick looked at Cody then they both looked over at the door.
"I'm fine, Murray. Nothing to worry about," Cody called. Nick looked at him askance. Cody shrugged.
The knock was repeated with more urgency.
"Not now, Murray," Nick shouted.
"Uh, guys?" Murray called through the door. "This is kind of important."
"Not as important as this," Cody muttered, and Nick's heart leapt in his chest.
"Come on, Murray, give us a few minutes," Nick yelled back. "We'll be right out."
What gives? Nick thought. I just talked about this with him. Suddenly, all the hair on the back of Nick's neck stood on end. Something's not right, he thought. Murray's smarter than this.
The door to their stateroom opened and Murray unceremoniously marched into the room, hands clasped atop his head, followed by two very big men. With guns.
Cody reflexively reached to cover himself with the bedsheet, only to be stopped by a gesture from smaller of the two men, the one in the lead. Who was still, in Nick's practiced estimation of men with guns, way too big.
"Sorry guys," Murray looked at Cody and then Nick, his eyes staying with Nick in sympathy. "But this is kind of important, too. Nick, Cody, you know our client from this afternoon, Mr. Haskell."
"Don't sweat it, Murray," Nick told him. Addressing the gunmen, he said, "We may be a small operation, but we do keep normal business hours. These aren't them."
In response, Mr Haskell nodded at his friend with the gun. The second man struck Murray hard across the back of the head with his pistol. As Nick and Cody both reached for him, the two men waved them back. Murray grimaced and swayed on his feet, but stayed up.
"That's how I feel about smartmouths, got it? You lip off to me, the shrimp takes another one to the brainpan."
Nick just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He could see blood glimmering obscenely on the back of Murray's neck.
"That's what I thought," Haskell continued. He wore a natty gray suit, the jacket hanging open, and was shorter than Nick would have guessed, maybe five-five in dress shoes but thick as a barge, with a nose that looked to have bested both his and Cody's record for breakages several times over. Not good, Nick thought.
"Now, when I hired you clowns, my instructions were simple: recover my safe. Should've been simple enough, even for you three clowns. But I hedged my bets anyway. How the three of you failed to notice one small fishing boat, a quarter mile away, watching all your antics through high-powered binoculars does not reflect well on your organization."
Cody closed his eyes and cursed softly.
"But then again," Haskell continued, leering at Nick and Cody, "it looks like the two of you at least, had other things on your minds."
I'm going to kill him with my bare hands, Nick thought.
"And despite being given adequately simple instructions, you guys decided to not just get my safe, but go ahead and open it." Haskell leaned back on his heels and narrowed his eyes. "So now I have just one question: where the fuck is my coke?"
"Your what?" the three PI's asked in unison.
Haskell nodded again and before Nick had time to react, the other thug clobbered Murray again. The little guy sprawled on the floor at Nick's feet, clutching his head with a whimper. Cody reached a hand out to Murray and Haskell hit him himself. Cody sat back, stunned and rubbing his jaw.
I'm going to enjoy killing him with my bare hands, Nick thought.
Without taking his eyes off the two thugs, Nick slowly bent forward and laid a hand on Murray's shoulder. "You okay, Boz?"
Murray started to nod, then winced. Nick could feel blood where his fingers made contact with Murray's neck. "Yeah....I'm okay," Murray said slowly.
"Attaboy," Nick told him. He looked Haskell squarely in the eyes. "Now I'm going to say this only once, Mr Haskell. There was no coke in that safe. What was in there is still in there. We made a deal with you, and we kept our end of it. And no matter how much you hit us the contents of your safe won't change. So now, why don't we all go up top and talk about how we can help you find out what actually happened with your safe."
"Damn, I hate wiseguys," Haskell answered.
Nick barely had time to lower his head in frustration before Haskell's goon hit him with a fist like an anvil. Then everything went black.
Part Three
Rating/Category: R /Pre-Slash
Summary: The angst continues, back on-board the Riptide.
Part One
Back at the pier, Nick barely made it through dinner. He dimly registered Murray and Cody sharing a look before he felt Cody's hands on his shoulders, damn near carrying him out of the salon and downstairs. If he'd been less tired he could have told Cody how much it wasn't helping to feel his hand, gentle and warm in the small of Nick's back, guiding him to bed. He vaguely remembered growling when Cody tried to get him to change out of his clothes, then tugging the sheets tight around him, burrowing his head under the pillow. Then...nothing.
The problem with going to bed that early of course, was that you woke up in the middle of the night and got to lie there staring at the ceiling for a couple of hours.
Or if you were Nick, you lay there staring at Cody.
Nick's eyes adjusted to the darkness of the stateroom and he could just make out the contours of Cody's naked torso half-covered by the thin sheet. He was sleeping on his stomach, arms stuffed under the pillow, head turned toward the wall. As Nick watched, Cody shifted, lifting his ass and lowering it to accommodate a raised leg, hips rolling slightly. Nick took a deep breath and allowed himself a moment to imagine what it would be like to be under Cody as he moved. To feel his partner's weight on top of him, pinning him to the bunk, sliding a muscular thigh between his legs; Cody's warm arms holding him in place as he ground his hips into Nick's. As he continued to stare, Nick's body began to respond to thoughts of what it would be like for them to be together.
Nick sighed and shoved his head into his pillow, eyes screwed shut. If this is love, he thought bitterly, I'll take a bimbo in a bikini anyday.
He listened to Cody's soft, even breathing in the other bunk. After this afternoon, he couldn't think of a sound he'd rather hear more, or one that made him more miserable.
Nick softly thumped his head against the mattress in frustration. He sighed and took one last look at Cody resting peacefully, turned away from him. Figuring sleep was no longer in the cards for tonight, Nick quietly slid out of bed and changed out of his clothes from the afternoon, pulling on sweats and a t-shirt, staunchly refusing to look at his partner again at before he left the room.
Out on deck, the harbor was quiet with night sounds, waves gently lapping against hulls, the soft clink of an untethered line against a mast, the traffic noise ebbed down to a background hum, dwarfed by the silence of the water. Nick settled into a deck chair and looked up. The night sky called to him as it always had, even though this close to civilization the city lights burned it orange. Close enough, Nick thought, opening the beer he'd grabbed on his way through the kitchen. Close enough for government work.
Across the way, Nick could barely make out the forms of a couple of girls on the Contessa, sitting in the bow, staring up at the same night sky. He took a long pull off the beer. It was alright for them, he thought. A new guy every week, paying clients as far as the eye could see, Mama Jo to protect them. Nothing in the world to worry about.
Nick took another swallow and rested the cold wet bottle against his forehead. Maybe this was a bad idea, him and Cody working together again. Maybe it had been from the start.
He could find something to tell Cody----no, scratch that, he'd have to make something up for Cody, some reason he and the Mimi would need to leave King Harbor, leave Cody and Boz and the Riptide, go back to cargo work. Whatever else went wrong, he could still fly, wherever and whatever anyone told him to. If it came down to it, he'd rather get out of Cody's face than keep wondering if he was about to do something that would wreck their relationship. Plenty of places he could go, right? Plenty of ways to keep himself occupied.
Besides, he thought, without me mooning around the place, maybe Cody could--
Could what? Nick thought. Could find a girl and settle down? Find some nice girl to break his heart again? Find some nice girl who'd want Cody to live in a real house that didn't float and creak with the tide?
Besides, if he was honest with himself, there was no way he could ever leave Cody. Not again.
"What a goddamn mess," Nick whispered to the sky.
IT'S NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK.
The Roboz sat nearby, abandoned from earlier when they'd gotten the safe on-board. The red letters cast a glow on the white deck. Nick looked around uneasily. He took another sip of beer, then placed the bottle at his feet, reaching for the keyboard nearby. He typed slowly, frowning, then waited.
SKY'S ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE DAWN.
Nick smirked. That he already knew. He typed a few more words in, and the Roboz's display obligingly cleared, then refilled with six dashes, evenly spaced. He'd discovered Roboz's secret talent a couple of weeks ago, and the novelty hadn't remotely worn off.
Nick punched a key.
Two E's appeared atop two of the spaces.
Nick grinned and poked at another key.
This time a straight vertical line appeared above the array of dashes. He pulled a face.
Another key.
The letter D appeared over the first dash. Another key and an S appeared over the third dash.
Nick sighed and filled in the remaining spaces.
D E S I R E
There were definitely times Nick wished the Roboz could be a little less helpful. He scrubbed his hands over his face, feeling the fatigue of the long day crash over him anew. He hit another key.
The screen cleared, then eleven spaces appeared. Nick threw his hands in the air in mock exasperation.
A few minutes later he stared morosely at the Roboz. Below the drawing of a small stick figure was the word
R E C I P R O C A T E
Nick gave the Roboz a skeptical look, even though he knew the machine couldn't appreciate it. Then again, you never knew what improvements Murray had made from day to day. He wouldn't be surprised to find Roboz flying the Mimi one day. That is, he wouldn't be pleased, in fact pissed as hell would be closer to the truth, but--
"You're playing hangman?!? With the Roboz?"
Nick looked up suddenly. He hadn't heard Murray come up the steps behind him. "What?" Nick said. "All I did was push some buttons. I thought it was something you'd programmed there." He tapped a few more keys and the screen cleared, then filled with more additional dashes.
Murray rushed over and pulled open a flap in the front of the robot and looked inside. "Ha! That's great! I didn't think that module could really be activated?" Murray giggled excitedly and sat down on the storage bench next to Nick's chair. "Ooh! Try 'r'! Try 'r'! That's gotta be an 'r'!" He pointed.
Nick dutifully pushed 'r' on the keyboard and was rewarded with Roboz drawing a scaffold. He sighed and looked sideways at Murray.
"Oh, I could have sworn that was an 'r'. Oh! 'T'! Try 't'!"
Nick gingerly put the keyboard down next to Murray and sat back in his chair, hands on his knees. He looked at his friend.
"Oh. Sorry." Murray leaned back, folding his arms tight across his chest. He looked over at Nick. After a couple seconds, he said, "You know Nick, what you did out there today was really brave."
Nick took his time answering. "You know what it's like, Boz. You get in those situations and you don't have time to do anything but act."
"If you hadn't figured out what to do down there..." Murray paused and shrugged. "I don't know what would have happened."
Nick stared out at the waves, silent. Finally, he said, "I didn't do anything special. Cody would've done the same for me."
"Yeah, Nick, I know you'd do anything for Cody. And he'd do anything for you," Murray replied. "That's part of what makes you such a great team."
Nick looked up.
Murray pushed his glasses further back on his nose. "It's one of the reasons I'm so glad I'm your friend, Nick. Yours and Cody's."
Nick avoided Murray's eyes, grabbing the beer bottle, empty now, from the deck, playing with the label. "You guys are great," he said finally, his voice barely audible.
Murray looked over at him. "Nick, what's wrong?"
The only answer came from the waves and the wind, that same loose line clinking softly against its mast. Nick avoided Murray's eyes, looking out at the ocean with a scowl. Finally he sighed and looked back up at the wide, empty sky.
Murray picked up on Nick's unvoiced thoughts. "Nick! You're not thinking of leaving? You can't be serious?"
"Ssh! Murray!" Nick gestured for him to lower his voice.
"But Nick," Murray asked softly, "where would you go?"
Nick laughed mirthlessly and started peeling the label off the bottle in earnest. "Nowhere. Anywhere."
"I thought..." Murray stopped. He gulped and pushed his glasses back up his face with one finger. "Nick, I thought you liked being here, with Cody. With me."
Looking at Murray's face, Nick felt like a schmuck. Trust him to come up with a plan to make things worse. "I do Murray, I do like being here with you guys. You know that. I could never really leave. You guys are like--hell, you guys are my family, and maybe that's the problem." Nick sighed. "I think I like it....too much here." Nick looked up at Murray from under lowered brows, desperate that his message be received, and scared as hell it would be.
"Oh," Murray said after a second, then: Oh. So why not just tell him?"
"It's not that easy, Murray," Nick replied. "You can't just know a guy, know him better than you know yourself sometimes, go through hell on earth and walk out the other side with this guy, have the best damn time of your life with the guy, have him come rescue you from your old life of...." he waved a hand vaguely "...meaningless nights, the loneliest damn--the point is, Murray, you can't just turn to the most important person in your life one day and say, 'Oh hey, by the way, just wanted to let you know, something I've been kicking around for the past ten years, I think I'm in love with you.'"
After he realized he did in fact finish that sentence out loud he closed his eyes and sunk further into the deck chair, bottle dangling loosely from one hand. Great. Way to go, Ryder.
"Oh," Murray said again. He sat quietly and took his glasses off, polishing them with the tail of his shirt. "Why not?"
Neither of them said anything for awhile.
The night continued to support their silence with its own soft chorus: waves, birds, wind. A car drove slowly along the pier, windows down and radio up and the two of them automatically turned towards the noise.
Murray frowned and put his glasses back on. "You know, Nick, I had this friend in grad school--well, more like an acquaintance, really, just someone in my Statistical Learning Theory study group, and well, he really liked this other friend he had, a whole bunch. You know, they'd gone to Caltech together, written this killer AI app for DARPA that could pinpoint exactly--" Murray glanced over at Nick. "--Oh. But anyway, after awhile, my friend decided well, we were all finishing up, getting ready to graduate, so the last study group session we had, we, well we'd had a few beers, but we told him to just, just go for it!"
Murray illustrated with a wave of his fist. "And he did! And you know what? It turned out that she'd had the exact same feelings for him, all throughout undergrad. She even wrote a little text-editor and named it after him, and he never even noticed." Murray grinned and nodded.
Nick stared. "So what happened?"
Murray's face fell. "Well unfortunately she'd already accepted a position with the NSA, and her contract stipulated that she'd have to cut ties with everyone from her academic times, but--"
Nick rolled his eyes.
"--but that's not the point, Nick. The point is that if he'd have told her sooner, he'd have found out that while each of them thought the other...you know," Murray illustrated vaguely, "they would have been much happier. They could have been together the whole time, is what I'm trying to say." Murray's hands dropped to his sides. "Besides, aren't you making yourself more miserable not telling him?"
Nick didn't answer.
Murray tried again. "What are you afraid might happen if you said something?"
Nick and Murray look at each other for a second. "Right," Murray finally answered. "But what I meant to say is: what if he's wrestling with the same prob-"
"Sssh!" Nick held up a warning hand. "Boz, you hear that?"
Murray tilted his head to one side for a second. "Like whimpering and...thumping?"
Nick pushed himself out of the deck chair and stretched. He put a hand on Murray's shoulder and squeezed, then turned away and jogged down the stairs. He hated that sound, the one his brain picked up on while he slept, the one he'd give anything to never hear again, to just wipe off the face of the earth. Nick ran to the stateroom.
From the doorway, he could see Cody fast asleep, fighting his demons. Losing. Always, losing.
As Cody wrestled the blanket or whatever it had come to represent, his foot slammed into the wall with a solid thunk and he whimpered anew. Nick crossed to the bunk in two steps. "Cody!" He perched on the edge of the bunk, shaking his partner with as much force as he dared. "Come back, buddy. Come back," Nick pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper. "Come on, babe. Come back to me."
Nick grabbed Cody's arms, fingers wrapping around the biceps, shaking more than holding down. He'd learned that lesson right after they'd first gotten back. "Come on, Cody. Wake up, buddy."
After an agonizing couple of seconds Cody's eyes fluttered blearily open. "Nick?" he asked muzzily, then cried out, still half-asleep and fighting. "Nick, it's bad!"
Nick pulled Cody to his chest "I know babe, I know. But it's not real, okay? It's not real. You're safe, Cody. You're safe."
Cody reached for Nick in the autopilot world of nightmares. "I can't breathe! Nick!" His voice trailed off, near tears.
Nick tightened his hold. "It's okay, Cody. You're safe here. You're safe." He slid a hand through Cody's hair. "Buddy, you're safe." Nick drowned in the familiar feelings of helplessness: he feared he'd never be able to hold Cody tight enough to save him from the things that chased them through their dreams. Nick rested his chin on Cody's head.
"You're safe. Cody, it's okay, you're safe." Nick felt vaguely guilty for his earlier more carnal thoughts. As if to banish them, he loosened his grip, watching anxiously as his friend struggled to gain a foothold in the waking world.
Eventually, Cody's breathing became slow and even. Nick stared at the wood-paneled walls, this cocoon Cody'd tried to hide away in. The clock on the nightstand read 3:13 in sickly green letters. Between it and the light from the open doorway, he could barely make out the expression on his partner's face. A fact for which he was thankful.
Finally Cody pulled away. He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and rested his head in his hands. Nick dimly recognized he'd left his hand on Cody's back and wondered if he should still feel guilty.
Cody mumbled something, and though he leaned in close, Nick couldn't hear. "Cody?"
"It's never gonna end, Nick. Not now, not ever." Cody's elbows were on his knees, fingers laced behind his head, and Nick could see all the muscles in his shoulders tensed and drenched in sweat, his chest heaving with the effort of banishing his demons.
For once, Nick Ryder was at a loss as to what to do next. Come on, he told himself, you've run this drill a hundred times.
Nick moved his arm up to Cody's shoulders. "You okay, man? Come on back. You're safe here." Cody didn't answer, didn't move from his perch on the edge of his bunk, hands still clasped around the back of his head as if it would explode. Nick held on.
"You want some water? " he finally asked.
"Yeah," Cody said eventually. "That would be great."
Nick was already halfway to the bathroom. The answer never varied.
He returned with the water and shut the door behind him. Cody was still sitting up, but leaning back against the side wall, long legs stuck straight out over the edge of his bunk. Nick handed him the glass and watched as he took a few obligatory sips.
Nick took a seat on the bunk opposite, his knees only a few inches from the soles of Cody's feet. "Cody?" he whispered. "You okay, man?" Cody didn't answer, but Nick could make out the action of his long fingers, toying with the glass. "Cody?"
"When's it gonna stop, Nick?" Cody's voice was barely a whisper, so soft that Nick thought for a minute he'd imagined the noise, and then when the words made sense, he wished he had.
"I dunno, man" he whispered back. "We just gotta hang on."
The two of them sat there in the cramped closeness of the stateroom.
The night outside, so open and welcoming only a few minutes ago with Murray and the Roboz, seemed to creep in around them, filling all the available space in the tiny cabin, swirling through like ink in water, defiling and impenetrable. Nick felt utterly helpless. Only a few minutes ago, he'd been the one able to save Cody, to swoop in when no one else could find him, pull him out of the hellhole his memories coughed up at regular intervals. A few minutes ago, he'd been his best friend's lifeline; now he felt vaguely uncomfortable, seeing Cody so undone, at the mercy of a war they could never stop fighting.
"Just once," Cody said softly. "Just once I want to wake up and find that it's all a lie, you know?" He sighed. "Is it so wrong to want to wake up and find you're perfectly safe? Like that feeling you get when you're with someone you love?"
Nick sucked his breath in sharply. There's nothing wrong with that at all, Cody. I dream about it all the time. All the damn time.
"I mean, geez Nick," Cody continued whispering, "is it so wrong..." He leaned forward and set the glass of water, half-full, on the nightstand between their bunks. "Nick...this afternoon, when we were diving? I thought maybe that--"
"--Cody..."
"No, let me finish." Cody's voice was stronger now. "I thought maybe that was it for us, you know, that it was all just going to end down there. And I kept thinking, I just wanted one more day, you know? I just wanted one more day, here, on the Riptide, with you and Boz, just one more day...." Cody sighed and closed his eyes. "Just one more day so I could tell you: you're the best friend a guy ever had."
Relief and confusion washed over Nick in equal measures. Relief that on some level, Cody needed him as badly as he needed Cody, and that Murray was right (of course) and that they were in fact possibly the best team ever, the two of them.
And confusion as he realized he couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Cody was half-naked.
"What, Nick?" Cody asked softly. Nick could hear panic creeping around the edges of his voice. "Say something. Anything, man."
Nick stared, torn between wanting Cody, wanting to reassure him that he was loved and had been for years, more than anything or anyone, and yet being so desperately afraid to lose him. Nick moved his lips soundlessly, trying to find words to express what Cody meant to him without screwing everything up.
Cody leaned forward slowly and Nick reciprocated, until their foreheads nearly met. Nick closed his eyes as he felt Cody slip a hand round the back of his neck, holding them together. "Hey buddy?" Cody whispered. "You're scaring me. Just spit it out."
Nick couldn't move. He gripped the edge of the bunk with white knuckles. He tried desperately to make the words come. Any words.
I should just kiss him, Nick thought. I should just kiss him and get it over with and then finally we'd know, one way or the other.
There was a knock at the door and the two of them sprang apart. Nick looked at Cody then they both looked over at the door.
"I'm fine, Murray. Nothing to worry about," Cody called. Nick looked at him askance. Cody shrugged.
The knock was repeated with more urgency.
"Not now, Murray," Nick shouted.
"Uh, guys?" Murray called through the door. "This is kind of important."
"Not as important as this," Cody muttered, and Nick's heart leapt in his chest.
"Come on, Murray, give us a few minutes," Nick yelled back. "We'll be right out."
What gives? Nick thought. I just talked about this with him. Suddenly, all the hair on the back of Nick's neck stood on end. Something's not right, he thought. Murray's smarter than this.
The door to their stateroom opened and Murray unceremoniously marched into the room, hands clasped atop his head, followed by two very big men. With guns.
Cody reflexively reached to cover himself with the bedsheet, only to be stopped by a gesture from smaller of the two men, the one in the lead. Who was still, in Nick's practiced estimation of men with guns, way too big.
"Sorry guys," Murray looked at Cody and then Nick, his eyes staying with Nick in sympathy. "But this is kind of important, too. Nick, Cody, you know our client from this afternoon, Mr. Haskell."
"Don't sweat it, Murray," Nick told him. Addressing the gunmen, he said, "We may be a small operation, but we do keep normal business hours. These aren't them."
In response, Mr Haskell nodded at his friend with the gun. The second man struck Murray hard across the back of the head with his pistol. As Nick and Cody both reached for him, the two men waved them back. Murray grimaced and swayed on his feet, but stayed up.
"That's how I feel about smartmouths, got it? You lip off to me, the shrimp takes another one to the brainpan."
Nick just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He could see blood glimmering obscenely on the back of Murray's neck.
"That's what I thought," Haskell continued. He wore a natty gray suit, the jacket hanging open, and was shorter than Nick would have guessed, maybe five-five in dress shoes but thick as a barge, with a nose that looked to have bested both his and Cody's record for breakages several times over. Not good, Nick thought.
"Now, when I hired you clowns, my instructions were simple: recover my safe. Should've been simple enough, even for you three clowns. But I hedged my bets anyway. How the three of you failed to notice one small fishing boat, a quarter mile away, watching all your antics through high-powered binoculars does not reflect well on your organization."
Cody closed his eyes and cursed softly.
"But then again," Haskell continued, leering at Nick and Cody, "it looks like the two of you at least, had other things on your minds."
I'm going to kill him with my bare hands, Nick thought.
"And despite being given adequately simple instructions, you guys decided to not just get my safe, but go ahead and open it." Haskell leaned back on his heels and narrowed his eyes. "So now I have just one question: where the fuck is my coke?"
"Your what?" the three PI's asked in unison.
Haskell nodded again and before Nick had time to react, the other thug clobbered Murray again. The little guy sprawled on the floor at Nick's feet, clutching his head with a whimper. Cody reached a hand out to Murray and Haskell hit him himself. Cody sat back, stunned and rubbing his jaw.
I'm going to enjoy killing him with my bare hands, Nick thought.
Without taking his eyes off the two thugs, Nick slowly bent forward and laid a hand on Murray's shoulder. "You okay, Boz?"
Murray started to nod, then winced. Nick could feel blood where his fingers made contact with Murray's neck. "Yeah....I'm okay," Murray said slowly.
"Attaboy," Nick told him. He looked Haskell squarely in the eyes. "Now I'm going to say this only once, Mr Haskell. There was no coke in that safe. What was in there is still in there. We made a deal with you, and we kept our end of it. And no matter how much you hit us the contents of your safe won't change. So now, why don't we all go up top and talk about how we can help you find out what actually happened with your safe."
"Damn, I hate wiseguys," Haskell answered.
Nick barely had time to lower his head in frustration before Haskell's goon hit him with a fist like an anvil. Then everything went black.
Part Three
