milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Nick comes down from his room. He's cleaned up since...the last few days. He looks a little lost, but his clothing and hair and appearance is otherwise impecable. He nearly stumbles on the way to the bar, eyes staring at anything but the actual environment around him. He sits. He stares.

He orders some food and begins to sip.

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He touches the bite on his throat again.

"Would you do it again, if it'd been a week?"

"If you wanted me to."

"Would you do it just because I wanted you to, or would you want it as well?"

Nick blinks.

"I want to right now. But I won't. Because I don't want to hurt you. And that's stronger than my...than...anything else I might be feeling. In a week, I...will still want to. And if you want me to..."

Alex doesn't know what he wants.

So he doesn't answer that. Just looks down at the Bar and traces the grain of the wood.

Nick doesn't like the staring at the bar. But he lets him have his moment.

He presses a kiss to the side of Alex's head.

The moment stretches into several.

Nick doesn't move.

~~Please remember this is the guy who was kneeling on the ground crying for three days straight.~~

Quietly, "what if I asked you to hurt me?"

~~The mun knows, Alex does not.~~

"To what end?"

because I deserve it

"Penance."

"A penance of pain is worth very little."

But he doesn't say no.

"Penance is penance, however you choose to make it."

Alex may not have been a cloister boy like Thom, but he's religious enough.

"You're right."

He is.

"I tried that way for three hundred years, you know."

"I've been doing it for six months. Still got a ways to go before I'm done."

He looks down at his tea again.

Nick presses a kiss to the side of his head with a pained expression he hopes Alex doesn't see.

"I know."

Idly, "you ever been to Hell, Nick?"

Nick shakes his head.

"No. I...know two people who have. I have...seen my soul though. Once."

He shudders...just a bit.

"I was in the Black God's realm for three months before I came here."

"Is that Hell?"

"My world's verson of Hell."

"You're here now."

Another laugh, this one quieter but still brittle, so brittle.

"Yeah. Guess so."

Nick kisses him softly.

"That means something."

His tea has gone cold.

For some reason that matters.

Alex is confused.